I Eat Paintings When Guards Aren't Looking Review

Game: I Eat Paintings When Guards Aren’t Looking
Genre: Hidden Objects
System: Steam (Windows and Linux)
Developer | Publisher: Frog & Dove Games
Controller Support: Full
Price: US $5.99 | UK £4.99 | EU € 5,88
Release Date: April 8, 2026

Review code provided, with many thanks to Frog & Dove Games.

I Eat Paintings When Guards Aren’t Looking is a quirky hidden object game that teaches you about famous paintings. Each painting has a little history and information on when it was painted and who painted it.

The Gameplay of I Eat Paintings When Guards Aren’t Looking

In I Eat Paintings When Guards Aren’t Looking, you play as a person who likes to eat old paintings in museums, but only certain parts of them. You are given clues, and with those, you need to figure out what kind of item in the painting our protagonist wants to eat.

One of the paintings with some of the items already eaten in I Eat Paintings When The Guards Aren't Looking — If you click around a few times, you can get a hint, or you can just have the item revealed to you with the reveal button.

There is a brief tutorial given on post-it notes in the first picture, then you are left to figure out the hidden items for yourself. I Eat Paintings When Guards Aren’t Looking also has an in-depth and helpful hint system, too.

The Tutorial for I Eat Paintings When The Guards Aren't Looking — Each Post-it note teaches you something about the controls.

This is probably the weirdest hidden object game I’ve ever played for Ladies Gamers (not the weirdest game overall; that honor still goes to Karambola). It has a lot of surreal imagery, strange, old-timey music, and one of the weirdest main characters ever.

The Pros of I Eat Paintings When Guards Aren’t Looking

I Eat Paintings When Guards Aren’t Looking has a lot of character, several historically impactful paintings, and even some value as a teacher of art history. There are 15 levels, and each one features information on the painting, the artist, the medium, and the year it was created. You also really have to study each of the paintings to find the objects, which also really helps viewers to get more from each of the artworks.

The level select screen in I Eat Paintings When The Guards Aren't Looking — Still lifes and landscapes and paintings of people, oh my!

The music and sound effects seem to fit well with the strange aesthetic, and the history of each painting appears to be accurate as far as I can tell. It certainly is a unique way of tricking yourself into learning something.

The Cons of I Eat Paintings When Guards Aren’t Looking

I think that some of the riddles you need to solve to find the hidden objects are not very well thought out. Some of them are easy, while others have uncommon words, weird puns, or just don’t make a lot of sense, even after you find the object.

A stomach filled with items from one of the paintings in I Eat Paintings When The Guards Aren't Looking — This is an unskippable cutscene you have to watch after each painting for whatever reason.

I Eat Paintings When Guards Aren’t Looking has a cutscene of the objects falling into the main character’s stomach that you can’t skip or speed up. You can’t interact with it either, and it is a pretty lacklustre cutscene. It doesn’t add anything to the game, nor is it particularly interesting to look at.

One of the paintings and its description in I Eat Paintings When The Guards Aren't Looking — Ahh, another delicious still life.

Conclusion

I Eat Paintings When Guards Aren’t Looking is not my favorite hidden object game. I think that it could have been well done and a lot of fun to play, but it just kind of fell flat. I like the educational aspect of the game, but I think the riddles are not well done.

However, it was silly, fun, and had a lot of cool information and neat paintings in it. If you really like hidden object games, this is a cheap and unique one to choose. But it is also very short, so keep that in mind as well.

Final Verdict: I’m Not Sure.