Where's Waldo?

Mostly similar to the books, players must help Waldo get to the Moon by finding him in each of the eight levels in the game. The game was panned by critics, who criticized the game for its graphics, which made it more difficult to find Waldo in each of the levels.

• Title — Where's Waldo? • Developer — Bethesda Softworks • Publisher — THQ • Designer — Paul Coletta Randy Linden • Composer — Julian LeFay • Platforms — Nintendo Entertainment System • Released — July 1991 • Genre — Hidden object game • Modes — Single-player

• Illustration — The city level in Where's Waldo? The player's goal is to help Waldo get to the Moon, by finding Waldo in various pictures in order to progress through the game. There are eight levels in the game. In the picture levels, the directional buttons control a magnifying glass and that must be placed over Waldo in order to "find" him and move to the next level and a new picture. In the easy and practice mode, the pictures are still images the size of the screen in the levels. In the Medium and Hard modes, the player has to scroll to the side to see the rest of the area, and Waldo will change color to make it more challenging to find him in the picture levels. In the Practice mode, there is no time limit, but only a select number of levels are open (the Train Station, Forest and Caves). The time limit for the other levels varies based on difficulty setting; on easy, the time limit is 16 minutes, on medium, 11 minutes, and on hard, 7 minutes and 40 seconds. If the player selects an incorrect location for Waldo, ten seconds is deducted from their time. Not all levels in the game have the same format of finding Waldo as in the other levels; in the cave level, the player must find Waldo in the dark. To help, Waldo will pop up briefly to give a clue as to where he is. In the subway level, the player must go through a maze and collect Waldo and his dropped glasses in order to exit the stage. The player must also avoid the Wizard Whitebeard, who can quickly subtract time if the player lands on his spot. In the final level, the player must match three pictures of Waldo in order to get him to the Moon.

Where's Waldo was programmed and designed by two Bethesda Softworks staff, Paul Coletta and Randy Linden, with the visuals done by Nancy Freeman. In an attempt to ease-up programming graphics using only character sets, Linden programmed a tool to draw bitmap graphics that would be converted into character sets that would be randomized every time the game was loaded up.

One year later, a sequel, The Great Waldo Search, was released on the Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Sega Genesis. It was based on Where's Wally? The Fantastic Journey, the third book of the Where's Wally? series. In 2009, a more modern remake of that sequel was developed by Ludia and published by Ubisoft on iOS, Microsoft Windows, Wii and the Nintendo DS. The remake especially takes advantage of superior pointer-based motion controls to easily locate search targets and supports versus multiplayer.