HOG are based on previously existing books where there'd literally be pictures with things hidden in them. I remember Highlights magazine always had one where you had items hidden in the curves of the pictures, even and especially, where they didn't belong.

P&C is mostly just a mechanic. The main time I hear about those is P&C adventure games where you're interacting with the environment by way of a mouse. You may have to find things such as in Myst or Riven, but the objects you find typically have to be used as part of a puzzle rather than as a means of racking up points.

i had a subscription to that

If it demands reflexion (puzzle solving), it's an adventure game.

If it demands only observation (spot the thingy), then it's a hog.

One had a budget, the other did not? :P

This sounds more reasonable though:

I think they're really aimed at different markets. HOGs tend to be rather casual, or at least I've never heard of a HOG that targets hardcore gamers.

What mintee said. :) "Point & click" is a type of control interface, not a traditional genre. By dint of the kind of gameplay they feature, pretty much all hidden-object games are point-&-clicks, but not all P&Cs are HOGs (or even adventure games).

Hardly any HOG demands observation only though, most feature both of the above. And sadly, some classic adventure games rely too much on "spot the thingy", too. ;)

sometimes you can't even spot it. It involves running the cursor all over the screen until something lights up.

Of course, that's how we all found the infamous "loose brick" in Maniac Mansion.

This discussion says, if anything, the line is pretty darned blurry. Some things to think about.

It's true that HOG games have evolved to include (bad) "adventure game" elements. So, I guess it's a matter of proportion. Pure HOG, pure adventure game, mix of both... With a "one-drop-rule" tendency of considering a game a HOG if it features a HOG element (and indeed, games that feature HOG elements tend to have very samey stereotyped casual adventure parts that are pretty distinct in style from non-HOG adventures).

But "adventure games" don't demand to spot the thingy the same way as in HOG sections : you don't know what you're seeking, in adventure games (a key ? a crowbar ? a pin ?). Your puzzle-solving imagination plays a role as you scan the screen for.... something useful. HOG sections are exlpicit. They're like adventure games with walkthroughs ("go in that room, pick up the spade, the horseshoe and the mushroom that will be there"). At the very best there is an ambiguity on a word's meaning or silhouette, but no reflexion on the object's usage. Actually, the game demands that you pick up thousands of pointless items (the gathering is the goal in itself, the utility of one item from the lot is a pretext), while pointless items are red herrings, obfuscating obstacles, in adventure games.

So, really different thought process, I would say. Actually, thought process only in one case. A HOG section could be run by a visual recognition AI, that (chinese room-like) wouldn't need to comprehend the meaning of the sought items.

I feel like you're basically saying the same thing here that I wrote earlier - in short: what clearly distinguishes HOG from classic adventure games are the Hidden Object screens with item checklists (without these they could pass off as casual/easy/bad/tacky/puzzle-oriented adventure games). ;)

Yeah, but I was being more primitive than that : just super helpfully pointing out the differences between pure HOG gameplay and pure adventure gameplay.

(Which I expect to have been repeated and reworded 50 times in this thread's 26 posts already...)