My Experience with Find the Alien
I picked this up three days ago on a Tuesday night because my old “spot the difference” app started crashing every five minutes. I’m a student, so I need stuff that works without costing me money or making me want to throw my phone across the library. The idea is simple: you zoom into these busy, colorful cartoon scenes and tap the hidden aliens. The pictures are actually pretty cool, lots of little details like a cat wearing a hat or a robot selling ice cream. But honestly, after about an hour I felt like I’d seen enough. The aliens aren’t that hard to find at first, and the novelty wears off fast. I tried playing it while waiting for my bus outside the student union, and it killed maybe ten minutes before I got bored. It’s not bad for a free game, but it’s not the kind of thing I’d pull out during a study break or show my friends.
Features Worth Noting
The app uses your phone camera for some augmented reality thing where aliens are supposed to pop up in your actual room. That part is okay, I guess. On Wednesday I scanned my messy desk looking for a green alien hiding behind my coffee mug, and it was kind of neat for about two minutes. The graphics are bright and the controls are smooth on my Galaxy S23, nothing laggy. There’s also a multiplayer mode where you can race your friends to find aliens, but none of my friends wanted to download it when I mentioned it, so that feature is dead to me. The levels do get harder as you go, with more scenery clutter and smaller aliens. That’s the one thing that kept me playing a bit longer. Still, for a free app, the feature list is exactly what you’d expect, nothing groundbreaking.
What Needs Work
Here’s my biggest frustration. The game crashed twice on Thursday, and each time it sent me back to level one. I lost my progress. I tried contacting support through the app’s “help” menu, and I got a generic email back like 14 hours later saying “we are aware of some issues and working on it.” That’s not helpful when I just wasted twenty minutes on level six. Also, the battery drain is real. My S23 went from 80% to 40% after maybe 35 minutes of playing. That’s insane for a game that doesn’t look that demanding. The app also has a ton of pop-up ads. I get it, it’s free, but there’s an ad every two or three levels, and sometimes they trick you into tapping them because they look like part of the game. That’s just annoying when you’re trying to focus.
Pricing
It’s free to download, which is the only reason I tried it. There are in-app purchases for “hint packs” and “skip levels” and some cosmetic stuff like alien skins. I didn’t buy any of it. The hints are pretty useless anyway, they just highlight a random area, which you could already figure out by looking. If you’re a student on a budget like me, you can totally play without spending a cent, you’ll just have to sit through ads. I don’t see the value in paying money for a game this basic, especially when the core experience gets repetitive so quickly. There’s a “premium” option to remove ads for $4.99, but honestly, I wouldn’t pay that. Not when there are other free puzzle games that don’t have ads every ten seconds.
Developer Notes
MOONEE PUBLISHING LTD seems to put out a lot of these hidden-object style apps. I checked their other stuff after playing this one. They update fairly often, I guess? The app had a patch note from like two weeks ago that said “bug fixes,” but clearly the crashing issue isn’t fixed yet. The game itself feels like it was designed for a younger audience, like kids under twelve. The aliens are goofy-looking and the music is that upbeat stock track that gets old fast. I don’t get the sense that the developers are really listening to user feedback, given how slow they responded to me and how the crashes are still happening. They probably care more about getting ad revenue than making a solid experience for people like me who just want a quick game during downtime.
Security & Privacy
The app asks for camera access for the AR mode, which I gave it because I wanted to try that feature. But I’m a little paranoid about that. It also asked for location access, which I denied, and it still worked fine. I read through their privacy policy real quick, and it says they collect usage data and device info for “analytics.” That’s pretty standard for free apps, but I don’t love it. There’s no option to play offline, so they’re definitely tracking something in the background. If you’re the type of person who cares about data, maybe skip the AR part or use a dummy phone. For me, on my daily driver, I just denied the location and turned off camera access when I wasn’t playing. No issues so far, but I’d recommend being careful.
How does the augmented reality feature work in Find the Alien?
The app uses your phone camera to project aliens into your real environment, like hiding behind a coffee mug on your desk. It's a neat gimmick for a couple of minutes, but the novelty wears off quickly.
Is there a multiplayer mode in Find the Alien?
Yes, there's a multiplayer mode where you can race friends to find aliens, but it requires your friends to also download the app. If they aren't interested, the feature is essentially unusable.
Why does Find the Alien keep crashing and resetting my progress?
The game has known stability issues that can cause crashes, and when it crashes, it may reset you back to level one. The developer acknowledges the problem but hasn't provided a fix yet, so save your progress manually if possible.
How can I reduce the battery drain and annoying ads in Find the Alien?
Battery drain is heavy—dropping from 80% to 40% in about 35 minutes—so limit play sessions or lower screen brightness. To avoid ads, which appear every few levels and sometimes trick you into tapping them, you can play offline or consider in-app purchases to remove them.
How does Find the Alien compare to other hidden object or spot-the-difference apps?
Unlike traditional spot-the-difference apps, Find the Alien adds AR and multiplayer features, but the core gameplay gets repetitive quickly. It's free with ads, while many competitors offer more content or better stability, making it a weaker choice for long-term play.
