Last updated on November 30th, 2025 at 07:51 am
Surface: Lost Tales – A Hidden Object Adventure – Entertainment Game Review
Surface: Lost Tales – A Hidden Object Adventure is a Entertainment/Puzzle/Adventure game from Big Fish Games, Inc, first launched in 8th March 2017.
It’s rated 9+ and currently has 264+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Surface: Lost Tales – A Hidden Object Adventure Stand Out
Play the trial for FREE! Pay once & complete the adventure!
Are fairytales real or just stories from our collective imagination? What if both are true? When you start having strange hallucinations, you seek help from a therapist. But what should be a regular visit takes a sinister turn when your doctor turns into an axe wielding maniac! It turns out that you’re a real storybook princess, and you may be responsible for the fate of both our world and Fairyland!
• TRAVEL BACK AND FORTH BETWEEN TWO WORLDS!
Several other fabled characters are trapped in our world as well. To help them, you’ll have to reassemble the missing pages of the storybook that holds their reality together.
• CAN YOU ESCAPE THE WICKED HUNTSMAN?
Stay one step ahead of your pursuer through legendary hidden object scenes.
• GET SOME HELP FROM THE CHESHIRE CAT
This enigmatic furry feline will aid you in solving fantastic puzzles and magical mini-games.
• LEARN THE TRUTH ABOUT ANOTHER FAIRYTALE IN THE BONUS CHAPTER
Discover more bizarre secrets and enjoy additional Collector’s Edition exclusives including collectible Figurines, morphing objects, and more!
Discover more from Big Fish!
Check out our entire game library with our Big Fish Games app absolutely FREE here: http://bigfi.sh/BigFishGamesApp
Sign up for our newsletter and never miss a new release or promotion again: http://bigfi.sh/iSplashNewsletter
Big Fish is the leading global marketplace to discover and enjoy casual games. You can enjoy our virtually endless selection of games anytime, anywhere — on your PC, Mac, mobile phone, or tablet. Learn more at bigfishgames.com!
Become a fan on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/BigFishGames
Follow us on Twitter: http://bigfi.sh/BigFishTwitter
This Entertainment game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Surface: Lost Tales – A Hidden Object Adventure is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 8th March 2017
Recent improvements include:
This app has been updated by Apple to display the Apple Watch app icon.
Download & Availability
Surface: Lost Tales – A Hidden Object Adventure is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Get Surface: Lost Tales – A Hidden Object Adventure on App Store
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
* update 3/28/22: This game is still as playable as it was when it first came out. Still one of the best in storyline and real musical score. Update 1/21/20: we played this game again for the 6th time. It's still fabulously playable, beautiful artwork, fun mini games, the music still the best of any game we've seen in the past 10 years. Still worth 5 stars. Original comments: we cannot improve upon the thorough reviewers' positive comments, as they do such a good job. (Note to reviewers–we count on your opinions and find them valuable. Thanks for taking time to write.) our two cents: the mini games are extremely fun and creative; the map is adorably cool and efficient; the voice acting is great (finally!!). Last but not least, the music is delightful, suspenseful, and subtly thrilling in all the right places. We've not encountered such a musical style with hidden object games before. We always turn the music off because it's so "unmusical," loud, and distracting. This sound track, we couldn't get enough of. We keep returning to this game largely due to wanting to listen to the music again. The subtle melodies are perfect to listen to while gaming. Kudos to the composer! He's quite talented, and we hope to hear more from him, whatever his choice of venue. This developer put together a top rated team.
This game is currently on sale and Im REALLY interested in purchasing it, but the graphics are all messed up and everything is misplaced and in these odd squares. This happened to us before with Elephant games because it wasnt compatible with our iPad update, but was fixed soon after. Will this game be fixed in the near future? There are a handful of other games from big fish that have the same problem.
Graphics were great. Puzzles challenging and they mixed up the HO games. The story was so so, we would have liked it to go deeper into the characters. Overall Id recommend this game.
Game kept our interest, everything worked well. Our only complaint is the hidden object games were pretty weak.
Loved everything about this game. This is now one of most favorite game. Customized settings, varied and inventive HOPs and puzzles. Love the Cheshire Cat! Beautiful graphics. Engaging plot. Long-playing. No glitches. Fast loading between scenes. We didn't want the game to end.
Delightful, lovely graphics, creative HOGs. If you like an alternative to all the dark, scary stuff, you'll enjoy it.
love this one ,really enjoying it.but only issue is the prices,we see a lot of games we would like to play but too much $.
We've almost finished this game, and we love it. We're a 52-year-old female, and we have thoroughly enjoyed all aspects of it and will play it again and again. The puzzles weren't overly taxing, and we appreciate that. We loved having a map that shows the status of each area and whether the tasks there have been completed. We hope to find more games like this! We've played about 30 Big Fish HO games, but we believe this is the first time we've felt compelled to write a review. Thank you to the creators for this fun and enjoyable game.
This was a really good HO adventure. The HO parts had new elements that we have not seen in other games. Love the unique fairytale story plot. We highly recommend.
We have a lot of games of this type and even though it's not our favorite game so far, it is very different and we're really enjoying it.
For us, at least. It has everything-Transporting map even showing collectibles. Gorgeous graphics. Funny rhetoric. Cute characters. Good storyline. Custom difficulty level & Match 3 alternative for HOPS. HOPS are fun – diverse. We just can't say how much we love this game! Just wish we had a lot just like it. We're already dreading it being over, but it's so great & so addictive, we can't put it down! Get this one. It's a real keeper.
Really enjoyed this game but it lasted about 4 minutes! The great games fly by and the tedious games last forever with extra stuff at the end.
Has everything we wanted. Lots of fun.
This has been very refreshing game so far.
We really enjoyed this game. Not a lot of skulls and darkness. We liked solving the short stories or vignettes. 'Twas good.
Well thought out and put together. Fun.
Love this series & this game is no exception. Very different storyline – Enjoyed the character voice of the cat! Total entertainment. Hidden object scenes & puzzles fun with lots of variety and interaction. Teleporting map provided with morphing & collectibles to find. Very nice touch if one should be missed which is noted on the map. Lots of fun – only. Ran in to a few surprise bats in a dark cave. We think most if not all gamers will enjoy this game. Well worth buying and found no glitches. Thank you Big Fish & developer for this enjoyable game. Still in hopes of more than 2 new releases a week. This time got saved by Artifex Mundi's new release so we did not run out of game time. Really recommend picking theirs up as well! Another gem that doesn't disappoint. This is what gaming is all about – Have Fun!!!! KdBoots.
Beautiful graphics and a story that pulls you into itself right from the first minute. Some surface games had a completely different type of rendering style that drew objects small and hard to see what they were. This one has a completely different style of larger beautiful objects. We really enjoy all of the surface series. The games are very unique and enjoyable.
To put it simply, it's a great game. Great map that teleports and also indicates if you missed any hidden flowers or morphing collectibles. Interesting storyline, too! Customizable mode of play as well.
Elephant Games did this one and a great job so far too! Every Surface game is completely different- for this one take a handful of fairy tales, two worlds, a dash of amnesia and throw it in a blender! You start hallucinating so you go see a psychiatrist- only he says he's seeing things too and then tries to kill you! You fight him off, find the real doctor tied up in the closet only for him to turn into the white rabbit, tell you that you are Cinderella and your cat morphs into the Cheshire Cat! And that's just the first few minutes! Collect flowers (look on notes also as they hide there too) and collectable statues. Has indicated transporting map and custom difficulty. Verdict: BUY.
Our only complaint is that instructions on some of the mini games are obtuse and we had to skip some.
We absolutely loved this game! The graphics were fabulous, puzzles were fun. But it was way too short in our opinion. We expect more for $6.99.
We originally played Lost Tales several months ago and then just replayed it for our review (we do this to see how well a game holds up the second time). We enjoyed the main game very much. Good music, too. The bonus game started out good, too, but then was back and forth, back and forth, on and on. Good thing the map was great. We're not sure we would play this a third time. We still am giving it four stars because what was good was very good and what was bad wasn't terrible.
The fairy tail elements meshed in with the modern world – it's kind of the "Once Upon a Time" of hidden object games.
We did enjoy this game, the art style in the trial was amazing, who doesn't like Alice in Wonderland? We were hoping it would continue throughout the game, as the graphics were good but (imo) not as great as they could be if they continued with the art style from the trial. The game played perfectly fine until the bonus game, the screen turned to black and stayed that way every time we tried to play the bonus game, so we just didn't play it, but these games are expensive and it would've been nice to be able to play the whole thing. We've had a couple minor issues with BF before, and they're always very quick (and nice) to resolve the situation, so we are sure they will again.
Intriguing, interesting and fun to play. Hope to play more like this game.
We enjoyed so many things about this game and would have given it 5 stars except it was so short. We enjoyed the puzzles and appreciated that the creators tried out different ways to do hidden object puzzles. We do believe that it was well worth the cost.
Help! Can someone please tell us where to find the dowel in the bonus chapter! Thanks! We liked this one a lot, especially since it DOESN'T involve a lot of ghouls and demons. A refreshing change, we must say! Now about that dowel…. Found it! Any closer and it woulda bit us.
We loved this game. You could customize settings, the graphics were magnificent, and the storyline was interesting and different. Inventory was labeled and interactive and there were complex items to assemble. You collect flowers and statuettes. There was an excellent teleport map (which reminded us of a pop-up book) to transport you, and in the map tab there was an actual journal which recorded storyline progression. Tasks were regularly updated. Loading was instantaneous between locations. At each location there was plenty to accomplish. The HO scenes were varied and some were quite unusual; we won't go into detail because we don't want to ruin the experience for others. There were plenty of puzzles/games; some were rotational, others about dexterity, some requiring logic. In short, there was something for everybody. The game played very smoothly and we didn't run into any flaws or glitches. Our actual review is 4.5 stars. We only deducted a half star because we felt, as did others, that this was a very short game. Lynxie sends to the DTE! Thank you all for letting us know about the new game from Artifex Mundi. According to Catalina it's really terrific, so we are looking forward to playing it! At least this way we get 3 games this week instead of only two.
Really like the story, it is light and fun. The games are sometimes easy, but that's okay with us. Recommended for beginners and people who enjoy light, non-horror fun.
Game is exciting. Graphics could be a tad better but then again we are late to beginning this game. Love the fact that its similar to once upon a time. Game does lag a little bit and definitely kills our battery quickly.
Loved the concept, but too short so minus one star. They left off finding two of the princesses, which made the game kind of end abruptly. The mini games weren't bad, some way too easy but others you had to think about–thank you! Now the birds. We have noticed in the past few games we have been required to use a slingshot, rock, etc. To scare off a bird. We used to use a whistle or bell. In this particular game, in one instance you shoot the bird with a suction dart gun, and in the other you wave ammonia in its face (ok, not so bad) but then swipe its nest onto the ground! No need for that!! We're not the biggest bird lover, but we found it disturbing. Minus another star.
Enjoyed this one..it's a little different and lighter than all the paranormal junk we usually see. Shorter than most but played well, no glitches or crashes, and once again MINUS a star because BF is still begging for ratings with their pop-up several times DURING the game. Stop it! We won't rate until we finish the game! Tks.
We found this to be mediocre & fastidious. It seemed old-fangled, like a old game that someone tried to revamp and modernize, but fell short. It was repetitious, & boring. Way too much back and forth doing dumb tasks detracted from any possible enjoyment of the storyline. We could barely wait to finish the game.. Fortunately, it was a very short game, so at least we got a happy ending in that regard.
Everything is outlined in white and boxed out, its completely unplayable at this point. The game looks really fun and id like to able to play it.
This looks like a fun game, but we guess its just too old. Despite saying it works with iOS 8 and up, its completely unplayable on iOS 16 w/ an iPhone 12 Pro. It wont auto adjust to a larger screen size and all of the selectable areas are outlined in white boxes. It looks like a developers version of the game.
Rather than sparkles, you click on blurred boxes. Ive never seen this before and Ive played hundreds of HOP games. Maybe a bug. We bought because was on sale but too difficult to play. Game play is no harder than any other game. But you cannot tell where to play. We dont waste your money unless they update. 2 stars only because the graphics could be great – if you could see them.
Instead of transparent layers all the elements have opaque outlines as though they are not pngs or whatever. All the buttons and moving parts of characters are outlined. Its not playable. IPad Pro 12.9 running 14.4.
Why are there weird rectangles surrounding everything.
The game was fine until the new iPad update (14.2). Now it works horribly.
Been playing their demos a lot recently, everything is repetitive and nothing new or fresh.
Bought the full game for the sale price of $2.99. We got half way thru the game now they are trying to charge us another $2.99 to unlock the rest of the game. We use to play all the Big Fish games but stopped once their pricing system got out of control.
Not our favorite by a long shot. Wayyyy too short. But – it was nice to play a game not centered around the occult. Not buying those kind of games.
We really enjoy Hidden Object Adventure Games. Theyre relaxing. Many are well scripted. Some very much arent. The pay once , play for life! Option is no longer true. With each iOS update, Big Fish seems to have given up on updating their games to the new iOS standards. We have bought so many BF games, and have played them again and again. The usual $6.99 is not too bad a price. This series, Surface, is awesome. The game is fun. Graphics great. Still. Its now U N P L A Y A B L E!!!!! As many Big Fish HOAG are. The graphics are pixilated, large boxes of text, images, and code overlapping, glitching, freezing. Its no longer a game. Its coding and graphics that are a surreal mess. We 100% implore you NOT TO DOWNLOAD AND ESPECIALLY DO NOT PURCHASE A FULL GAME unless the description gives it has been updated within the last few years AND if you have kept up with iOS updates on your devices. Its really just a bummer that so many games and favourite series that we have played and loved for years and paid have just been abandoned by Big Fish with no interest or intent to bring up to par. Yes, some are near 10 years old. But we feel its just rude to continue to sell these games and even give the gimmick of New Release! When you literally cannot play the game. Head over to Elephant Games and Five Bn/Bn Five and the newer developers. They state explicitly that their games are compatible with the newest iOS and completely remove games from the App Store that arent. We know Big Fish is preoccupied with their lawsuits and payouts of $millions$ to consumers for false advertising and scam. Still , Surface is a great series. We would give it 5 stars if the year were 2018. Seriously. Dont Buy. We never write reviews. Hope that helps to know Im being genuine and am so disappointed, and really dont want anyone to be out $7 for a game theyll just delete right after its been installed. And Big Fish is notorious for not responding to emails or requests for refunds. So sad.
This game plays with fading in and out boxed areas. Wondering if its an iPhone game and not an iPad app.
So we purchased this app and it will not open. Just a quick picture then a blank black screen. Did the dishes came back 20 minutes later still black. We shutdown our iPad to reboot. Did some clean up. Tried to reload. Rebooted. Again and nothing. Need a little help.
Looked like a fun game, but we wasnt able to play it because there were pixel boxes everywhere and couldnt make out what was happening.
We have a record of all the games we play. This was a very good one with no glitches at all. Now it is pixelated and cant be played. We hope someone know how to fix this.
Just downloaded this game and it is pixelated so bad that you cant even play it! We love Big Fish games but this one is disappointing.
Does not work graphically on current IOS. 3-2-21. Downloaded and immediately deleted. Take out of store or fix please.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 1.0.0
- Size: 722.56 MB
- iOS: 8.0 or later
- Languages: EN, FR, DE, JA, RU
- Content Advisory: Infrequent/Mild Cartoon or Fantasy Violence, Infrequent/Mild Horror/Fear Themes
- Developer: Big Fish Games, Inc
Last updated: 8th March 2017 | Genre: Entertainment, Puzzle | Developer: Big Fish Games, Inc