Thank you Lightwood Games for sending us a review code

Agent Dan McFox needs your help weeding out the suspects in a crowd of people.  In each round you have to find a few people out of twenty meeting certain requirements and some of them are easier to spot than others.

In the mission mode there are sixty missions and depending on your score you’ll be given one to three stars.  In order to unlock the next mission, you have to earn at least one star.  To get one star you’ll need 5,000 points. For 6,500 points you’ll earn two stars and three can be yours with 8,000 points.

Points are earned by how fast you can find the culprits matching the required description.  Selecting the wrong suspect will lower your score.  In order to earn a high score, you have to be both fast and accurate.

Sometimes the clues are easy like finding people wearing wizard hats or having a certain hair color.  Other hints require much more scrutiny like locating suspects wearing a necklace or whistling.  Sadly, there are some inconsistencies which make this game a little confusing at times.   When the requirement is for blue shirts, suspects wearing light or dark blue qualify while the red shirt requirement does not allow for maroon colored shirts to be selected.  The smiles can be had to distinguish as well with the half smiles and other mouth expressions not qualifying. 

Other issues worth mentioning are game crashes and end of the game bugs.  I have the New 3DS XL and it hasn’t run into any problems playing other games, but this title has crashed at least three times on me.  Typically this occurs after completing a couple of missions and trying to start another.    Also, the level selection and text descriptions get wonky after completing all sixty missions.

Despite the glitches, kids will still enjoy this game.  It’s easy to pick up and play and the graphics, music, and limited voice acting are cute.  The street pass score sharing is a nice feature as well.  The scores are reset weekly so the top dog will have to work to stay number one.  

The Round Up mode has you finding as many suspects as you can in sixty seconds.  Once your time is up you have the option to upload your score and send a challenge via street pass.  When receiving a challenge, your friend will be sent the same game board and clues to solve.

In the end, Dan McFox: Head Hunter is a decent game that can be enjoyed in short spurts by people of all ages.  The gameplay does get a bit dry after a while and it took a few gaming sessions for my kids and I to complete all sixty missions.  The game freezing and other glitches are disappointing and will hopefully be fixed in later versions of the game.  Until then, the $2.99 price tag is reasonable for people who enjoy Where’s Waldo like challenges.