As a child, you may have sometimes lain in the tall, summer grass, your eyes on the same level as the usually invisible world of little insects. Watching them move around to nature's strange rhythm is a lot like playing Morphopolis, a singular and thoroughly enchanting hidden object experience by Micro Macro Games. This time, however, you'll be taken into the concealed realms of a forest, to explore the secrets of its everyday life and help one brave bug metamorphose into ever more complex forms.

Your journey spans five chapters, each longer and more complex than the last. Your first task in each chapter is to find the protagonist, and move it by dragging it around, which is how you switch from screen to screen. Even though the scenes may seem overwhelmingly detailed, the critter's movements are actually quite linear, so you can't really get lost. The next step is finding the bug or plant for whom you'll be finding the hidden objects. This requires some clicking around, but after a while, it gets easier to pick out the right creatures without a lot of searching. When you find one of these, their icon will appear on the left of the screen, along with the icon and number of items to find. The items are usually strewn across multiple scenes, and finding all the items for one creature could open up new scenes, supply you with further objects or ask you to solve a puzzle. To give the items to the right creature, click on their icon, then on the creature in the scene. You can also double-click on your bug at times, making it interact with items.

Analysis: Morphopolis is truly a one-of-a-kind experience and its aesthetic tends to speak for itself. For all its busy, intricate environments, it still presents an image of a serene, slowly moving world. The insects, scary and strange as they might seem to us, are depicted in all their frail beauty, and we are invited into their universe, full of colours, sounds and life. Gameplay takes a back seat to visuals, but it too blends perfectly with the overall idea: the player isn't there to alter the course of things, but mostly just to witness it and maybe help out a little. Looking for hidden objects in what feels like a living, breathing forest is a strangely relaxing endeavour, and the puzzles are pretty, fresh and appropriately casual.

The philosophy of design over mechanics does have its pitfalls, though. The menu is extremely minimalistic and doesn't offer the option to save during a chapter. Puzzles appear without instructions (but they are fairly easy to figure out) and, once started, there's no backing out of them. The insect protagonist moves very slowly, and could sometimes refuse to scuttle in the direction you're dragging it in, although this, strangely enough, feels sort of organic and natural. After all, bugs don't seem to make the best pets. But even with these imperfections, the overall impression is of a truly captivating insight into the minute workings of woodland life, reinforced with an unassuming, but lovely musical accompaniment.

Morphopolis is more than a game. It is a unique experience of delicate beauty, a feast for the eyes as well as for your puzzle-solving little grey cells. It is a rare and precious getaway into a mysterious, yet familiar universe, and, in its gentle way, it may well cure you of your fear of insects.

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