Sniper Dan, the new indie title from former GTA veterans, is more hidden object game than sniper simulation, and it is not at all what it sounds like. Instead of lethal long-range marksmanship, your high-powered bolt action rifle is used exclusively to help people in a cheerful, primary coloured world. Drawing a bead on humans or animals only earns you a $10 fine; your real job is to render all manner of unlikely bullet-based assistance.
A rifle-based hidden object game
Each level begins by climbing a sniper tower and surveying the chaotic scene below. People go about their business while others are frozen mid-comedy accident. Some are set dressing, but plenty require your intervention, and you must deduce which is which from a list of objectives hidden among the brightly coloured bedlam. Scanning with your zoomable scope, you infer what assistance is needed from scant clues, then use your weapon to deliver it—whether blowing out candles on a birthday cake, milking a cow, freeing a boat lashed to a dock, or helping squeeze toothpaste onto a brush.
Completing all tasks within the suggested time limit earns a higher grade for the day's work. That gives you reputation points to spend on opening new levels, buying hints, and unlocking minigames. Cash earned from objectives can be spent on decorations for your sniper HQ, each conferring a bonus on future earnings, and on gun upgrades delivering faster reloads, more bullets in a clip, and an extra zoom level.
Silliness and Easter eggs
Aside from each level's objectives, there is plenty of silliness to be had shooting different things to see what happens, with countless Easter eggs to uncover. One is always a stripy vested, bobble hat wearing boy bearing a passing resemblance to the hero of the Where's Wally? books. The mix of object finding and humorous problem-solving works well through the crosshairs, your observations leading you towards the people you've been assigned to aid.
Given the brevity of the missions' instructions, it is not always obvious whether you have found the right object to shoot, though the game signals when you have by drawing a small circle around it. Then it is a matter of aiming, picking your moment so you don't accidentally kill a bystander, and taking your shot. There is not much more to it than that, although you will get phone calls flagging emergency situations to sort out with your trusty gun.
Weaknesses under pressure
Those moments, along with time-based minigames, effectively expose weaknesses in the game's gunplay, which is perfectly fine when you are taking your time but lacks the necessary feel and precision when you have to snipe against the clock. There is also the issue all hidden object games have: it is great fun hunting for things until the moment where you have one or two items left and cannot seem to find them anywhere. That protracted, increasingly frustrating time spent in each level tends to be the final few minutes of each day's sniping, and while hints can help, they cost scarce reputation points and are in consistently short supply.
Sniper Dan is a budget priced game, and expecting it to play like a AAA would be deeply unfair. You can still wish it lived up a little better to its wonderful premise, which sees every single interaction performed by putting a bullet into something, whether answering your office phone or choosing a level from the map. It is generally a fun few hours, and a rare sniper simulation entirely suitable for children, but no more than that.
Review summary
In Short: A colourful, pleasingly silly game of helpful sniping, where you deploy your high-powered rifle to find hidden objects and help townsfolk with comedy calamities.
Pros: Relentlessly cheerful and with a slapstick sense of humour. Dozens of Easter eggs to find and an amusingly non-lethal take on a genre usually associated with nothing but killing.
Cons: Early objectives are more entertaining than finding those final hard to spot goals in each day's sniping. Gunplay doesn't hold up in minigames where you're working against the clock.
Score: 6/10
Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed), Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC
Price: £9.99
Publisher: PQube
Developer: Denki
Release Date: 17th September 2026
Age Rating: 7
