Pickers is a hidden gem in the Hidden Object Game genre with its unique mechanics.

Unfortunately, those mechanics are mostly hidden away and the game itself provides only basic instructions.

This guide remedies the opacity by explaining the mechanics, as well as analyzing them to form optimal scoring strategies.

Even with a complete understanding of the game mechanics, there is still much nuance as well as randomness to the game, providing replay value and leaving plenty of room for your own strategic flair.

A note about achievements: while this guide doesn't specifically cover achievements, the information within and the item listing in the companion spreadsheet is enough information to unlock all of the achievements.

Along with the mechanics explanation and analysis, I have put together a spreadsheet that lists all items in the game, along with additional data most relevant to gameplay.

The sheet contains various highlighted cells and columns that you can update during the course of a game to help you track your progress and optimize your strategy. This guide will refer to the sheet at various points.

The sheet lists the item locations down to the scene, but you still have to actually locate the object in the scene yourself - it wouldn't be much of an HO game otherwise, would it? ;)

The latest version of the sheet (0.99h) is located here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_y2sTP5IADN_EO00tEnSXeLuSqjDBAcaqjhPyq7BnPE/edit?usp=sharing
NOTE: New versions will be posted via copy. Make sure to check here for the link to the latest version!

To use the sheet's tracking capabilities, make a copy of it (via the File menu).

The sheet has some scripting to:
* Automatically refresh certain filters when data changes
* Allow for resetting of user edited data via the Reset button

Google will ask for permission to run these scripts. You can refuse if you do not entirely trust them. You can view the scripts via Tools -> Script Editor. The scripts are copied along with the rest of the sheet when you make a copy, so the scripts you would be running are local to your copy and cannot be modified externally.

The game engine seems to have a bug that can cause the game to run very slowly. When the game is running as intended, all animations should be buttery smooth.

Luckily there is a workaround, but it does require an XInput controller (e.g. 360 or Xbox One). It seems that as long as an XInput controller is plugged in, the issue does not arise.

With the low FPS issue, the game is still playable, but the experience is quite subpar. I played it this way myself for quite a while before realizing that there was a fix.

I'm not sure if it's also possible to work around this issue by emulating a controller rather than having a physical one plugged in, or if there are other solutions. If you discover other solutions, please let me know and I'll add them here.

There are many considerations to maximizing scores. Getting a high score (and winning the game) is relatively simple, but there are also more involved ways to eke out some extra points. This guide covers them all. You can pick and choose what suits you!



If you follow this one rule consistently, it should be enough by itself to guarantee a win and attain a fairly high score:

-> Buy the most expensive items in the hottest category, appraise them, and auction them. <-

The companion spreadsheet will help you locate those items.



Although the details are complicated, basically, every item in the game has an assigned value category (a hidden number from 1 to 10, Sheet: value column on Items page).

For the most part, you want to limit your buying to items and sets in value categories 6-10.

To optimize scores, you should buy every item in value categories 6 or above. That translates to an asking price of roughly $1000 or above (you can use this or similar rule of thumb if you want to play without using the tracking sheet).
Finetuning tip: you can use the Buy Cost Ratio column on the Items page of the sheet to tie break ties.

Some categories have more valuable items than others, so when the hottest category is one that doesn't have many (or sometimes any) valuable items, buy valuable items in other categories instead.

There are various ways to decide exactly which items to buy when. This will be covered in detail later, but a simple rule you can follow is to buy the most valuable items first.

Be careful at the start of the game - if you buy only the most expensive non-HOT items, you will run out of money. Instead, buy value category 6 and 7 items until you start making significant profits, and use this opportunity to increase seller mood and your prestige level.

Use the sheet (Items page) to keep track of what you've already bought and then you can easily use the sheet filters for find the most valuable items left to pick.

Don't worry about store storage space - you can have multiple pages of storage slots you can buy. The prices increase with each page (25, 50, 100, 250) - rather low, and two pages should typically be enough.



This is a list of simple rules to follow (these don't require use of the data sheet):

• Always Restore items before selling.
  
• Never sell set parts individually - always buy both parts and combine before selling.
  
• Haggle (typically aim for about 80% of asking price - best strat depends on seller; see Haggling Strategy).
  
• Overpay for cheap set parts to raise seller mood quickly and cheaply.
  
• Keep seller mood above 50% if you plan to buy more from them later.
  
• For Esther, always appraise before buying.
  
• For Lizzie, Hambone, and Merman, always Appraise Unrestored items before buying.
  
• For Merman, appraise before buying if possible.
  
• Take advantage of bundle discounts (up to 15% for 7 items)
  
• Leave enough time to clear all HO scenes before the game ends (each scene takes at least 5 days to clear)

The following strategies take more time and effort to execute, but can boost your scores significantly:

• HO scenes have some very valuable items. To raise your chances of obtaining them, pre-clear items in HO scenes that are in the same categories as the most valuable items in that scene (use the sheet to identify them and keep track - see HO ..Clear columns on right side of Items page). Do this every day. If none of the items to clear appear on a given day, clear out any other non-valuable item to force a refresh the next day.
  
• Try selling in the store items that are NOT in the hottest category (see Optimizing Store Sales).
  
• When haggling, consider seller's haggling behavior (see Haggling Strategy - The Details)
  
• Make full use of your Appraisals. Many items can be bought more cheaply if Appraised first (Sheet: see Appraise column). Auction returns are higher for appraised items. Appraise the most expensive items you plan on auctioning. Try to not waste any Appraisals!
  
• You can appraise highball offers from Akins, Lizzie, Broderick, McGuire, and Sharp (Sheet: specify Initial Offer price and see if Appraise column indicates "Y")
  
• Take HOT category selection rules into account when deciding when to sell to a store shopper and which non-HOT items to pick.
  
• Consider prestige, hot category bonuses and bundle discounts together when deciding what to buy when from who and how aggressively to haggle. The optimal strategy here is not clear, and the impacts of varying approaches here are somewhat subtle, but could be significant. Invest in prestige earlier in the game, but don't worry about maxing it. Basically, higher prestige weighs random number rolls that determine auction and store sale prices in your favor... but only slightly.
  
• Try to sell more valuable combined items in the store instead of auction. If you anticipate the item's category to become HOT soon after creating the combined item, wait (unless it's Very Rare) to list until the item's category is on the bottom of the HOT list (but don't wait as long near the end of the game). HOT category listed items decrease in value 3% per day, so waiting to list will maximize the profit. For less valuable items, do not wait as long as the appreciation will not be as pronounced. (Make sure to indicate on the sheet on which day you list an item, whether it was hot, and the degree of hotness - this will be used to accurately calculate the list price and offer acceptance threshold.)
  
• Prioritize more valuable Very Rare items in the first 20 or so days, list them for sale immediately and do not sell them until the last few days of the game. The store sale price of Very Rare items increases by 3% per day, so after being listed for 5 days it will have the potential to outperform hot category auction returns.
  
• Near the end of the game, when buying up items that are unlikely to be in a HOT category, prioritize sets (combined items). The non-HOT profit margins for combined items are much higher.
  
• Avoid running out of funds. Ignore the strategies above if you are running low on funds. Prefer to sell less rare, cheaper items sooner. the daily appreciation of Very Rare items in the most valuable categories is worth more in the long run than cheaper items.

There are other increasingly complicated ways possible to further optimize. These will be noted in case others would like to pursue them. Let me know if you manage to build upon my work!



By playing the game optimally, employing all of the strategies, scores close to a million are possible, although I'm not sure that 1 million is practically attainable, which means that any score on the leaderboards above that is likely to not be legit (unless I'm missing something).

Either way, I'm interested to know what scores you manage to attain using these strats, or if you figure out any additional strategies to push scores higher!

These sections lay out, step by step, how to proceed through each game day when aiming for the highest score possible.

This first section deals with how to "pick" items. The second section covers what to do when you're back at the store.

• Sheet: mark the new HOT category(s) on the Categories page with the current day. If this is a repeat at least 5 days apart from the last repeat, then also update the Last Repeat Day
  
• Pre-clear HO items (if a location still has some but none appear, clear one non-valuable item)
  + Sheet: filter the (HO)..Clear column for non-blanks, then filter one location at a time. Mark cleared items as bought and sold. Later in the game you can consult the Pre-Clear column on the HO page to see which locations still have something left to clear. Update the # Collected column of the HO page.
  
• Try to obtain valuable HO items in current HOT category
  + Sheet: filter on the item category. Mark obtained items as bought. Mark any cleared items in (HO)..Clear as bought and sold. Update the # Collected column on the HO page.
  
• Day 26 or later: clear out all HO scenes that no longer have any valuable HO items left (but don't pick up the last item)
  + Sheet: consult the Days to Clear column of the HO page. Update the item count after clearing.
  + If you are done pre-farming for the rest of the game, considering picking up the last item if it's in a HOT category (check its value category and pick it up if is value category it's no more than 1 lower than the lowest value category of HOT items you would buy if you were to fill your space with only HOT items)
  + Sheet: you can mark as bought and sold items marked X or Y in the ..Clear column that are in categories that have a 0% chance of becoming HOT for the rest of the game (consult Categories sheet)
  + Since there is no misclick penalty, if there are no valuable items in the scene, you can speed up the process by rapidly clicking on everything
  
• Determine which items to buy (figure out the bundles):
  + Buy the most valuable items in the current HOT category, for everything else consider the following in (very) roughly this order:
  + Buy items in the previous two HOT categories (in case they were previously unavailable)
  + Don't run out of money! If you are low on funds, prefer less expensive (value 6+ items)
  + Near the end of the game, if there are no items left to buy that are likely to be in a HOT category, instead buy the most valuable items (even if under value cat 6) in the current HOT category to get the HOT bonuses (50*7 + 1000 = 1350), especially if you can get them all from the same seller for a bundle discount. Prioritize high rarities for non-HOT items (even at lower value categories).
  + Prioritize items that should be appraised before buying (there may not be enough appraisals in the last 12 days of the game for this, so prioritize the higher value items). Prioritize items in categories that may be HOT soon and have more than 3 items that need to be appraised. (Sheet: use the Categories page to assist with this. Sort by 6+ Appraise)
  + Sheet: If you have spare Appraises, consider also the most valuable items that have Appraise = ?. Enter the Initial Seller Offer to see if you should Appraise
  + Prioritize items in categories that are likely to be HOT soon and have more than 7 valuable items that would be available on the next day (Sheet: use the Categories page to assist with this. Sort by Total(Av). Collect all Military items before Day 22 (Sharp becomes available), especially if Day 22 could be a HOT category repeat day (50% repeat chance after 5 days since last repeat).)
  + If you need to first raise a seller's mood, try to find a cheap but still useful item (less valuable parts of valuable sets are best), and buy this item first, separately, for more than the initial asking price
  + Prioritize rarity 5 (Very Rare) items in the first half of the game, funds permitting, especially sets due to the higher ROI
  + Prefer bigger bundles
  + Earlier in the game and to break ties among same value items, prefer high ROI items (Sheet: low % in Buy Cost Ratio column)
  + Sheet: filter Available: not blank, HO:N, Bought:FALSE, Sold:FALSE. Filter by location, category, rarity etc as needed.
  
• Buy items
  + Later in the game when you are holding onto many items for future auction, it's a good idea to note down now which items you intend to list in the store today (see below for how to decide this) Sheet: consider doing this by entering the store listing day number followed by an exclamation mark
  + Sheet: consult the Haggle column when haggling. Consider current mood, temper, future business with this seller, your ability to raise seller's mood next time, etc. Be more aggressive for bigger purchases.
  + Sheet: mark items as bought

After you buy the 7th item, you will automatically be returned to the store (part 2).

Back at your store, it's time to sell and auction.

• Adjust store prices of previously listed items
  + Sheet: for items you are not waiting until the last days of the game to sell, update price (make sure to click Set Price!) to just below the current Store.H value.
  + Sheet: Day 30: For items of rarity 2-4, refer to the list you made during the selling step of Day 29; for items on that list, decrease the Up Days count by 1, and for items NOT on that list, decrease the Up Days count by 3. This ensures you get a store customer for these items on the last day.
  
• Combine any items ready to be combined
  + Sheet: mark combined parts as sold. Mark combined set as bought.
  
• Restore items before auctioning or listing anything
  + Sheet: enter the restore fee to compute the item's cost/value.
  
• Auction the most valuable items in the current HOT category that you can appraise except:
  + Very Rare items obtained in roughly the first 15 days of the game
  + Set/Combined items (obtained in the first roughly 3/4ths of the game). Lower value/rarities could just be auctioned when hot. Higher value sets in current HOT category in the last quarter of the game or so should be listed, but then auctioned if not sold for a higher than average HOT auction price that day.
  + Sheet: mark auctioned items as sold.
  
• Sheet: this is a good time to check that the Prestige Level is up to date.
  
• List items in the store that are ready to be listed. For HOT items you just obtained, wait (except near the end of the game) until their category is at the bottom of the HOT list - make a note for yourself (tip: enter the day the item _should_ be listed followed by an exclamation mark and check the HOT checkbox in the Items sheet)
  + List any HOT category items you didn't auction above and any item that have a good chance of not being in a HOT category for the rest of the game (should only be applicable in the last ~10 days). Remember that it is not guaranteed for each category to be HOT at least once. In the final few days, there is actually a higher chance of a repeat than a first time HOT!
  + Sheet: for items of unknown value, click Auction, enter the Starting Bid into Cost Info and set Info Source to Auction Starting Bid. Cancel the Auction.
  + For Very Rare and Set/Combined items that you don't plan to sell for a while, set a very high price
  + Sheet: Set price to just below the Store.H column, but don't go lower than (H)Auc if you expect the item's category to be HOT later
  + Sheet: Set the Day Listed column for the item with the current day, set the #Hot column to the appropriate value (see column note). Set the HOT checkbox if the item is in a HOT category.
  
• Open the store. For items triggering a customer:
  + Sheet: Near the end of the game, update Min Appraised Value Cat appropriately - this helps tune Store.Acc
  + Always decline the first offer - there will be 1-3 additional offers.
  + Accept "good" offers Sheet: check Sto.Acc column, but also check the Auc columns. Value category 5 items should not be sold until the last 10 days or so as they will steadily grow in value. If something in a higher value category is unappraised, consider accepting a slightly lower than Store.Acc offer as you could then use the Appraisal for something else instead.
  + Sheet: If not sold, add 1 to the Up column if it's highlighted yellow (for items of rarity 2-4 and that were not in any HOT category yesterday). Do this even for items you list on the same day - which should always trigger a customer assuming you set a price just below Store.H. On Day 29, make a note of these items except ones first listed on Day 29). You will need to refer to it in the next step.
  + Sheet: mark sold items as sold.
  
• Auction certain items:
  + Auction everything on Day 30
  + In the last days of the game, auction any HOT category set items that didn't sell for a higher than avg HOT auction price.
  + Appraise before auctioning if possible
  
• Appraise (if you have any left) the most valuable items that are more likely to need to be auctioned (i.e. not Combined items, prefer lower rarities at same value category for Appraisal)
  
• If low on funds, auction less rare items (if all items very rare, auction the cheapest ones first). Auction everything on Day 30.
  
• Sheet: Increment the Day number

When buying items, the seller will make an offer. You can either accept that offer or make a counter offer (haggle).

The precise mechanics of this are quite complex and will be discussed in detail in another section. Here we will summarize the basics and explain the typical haggling strategies.

It's always possible (though not always best strategically) to get a better offer. Sometimes you can get a much lower offer - this depends on a combination of the seller's behavior properties, their mood, and luck (RNG).



Haggling attempts always lower the seller's mood. You can raise a seller's mood by accepting their offers or even placing a counter offer that is higher than their original offer.

When you need to buy a low priced item (i.e. a part of a set), you should consider overpaying to raise the seller's mood. If you intend to buy more items from the seller later, especially more valuable items, this investment will easily pay for itself! This also helps raise your prestige level.

To make the most from haggling, make sure a seller's mood is high (in the green) and buy a big, expensive bundle. The bigger the purchase, the more aggressively you should haggle - trading seller mood for significantly bigger profit margins.



* Counter at about 65% to 90% of the initial offer - depending on the seller and whether the item is appraised or not
* Keep the seller's mood above 50%
* Be more aggressive (expend more mood) for bigger transactions



Each seller has a different haggling threshold - i.e. how low of an offer they're willing to entertain.
Sheet: refer to the Haggle column on the Items page for this threshold. This number is expressed as a percentage of the seller's initial offer. There are two numbers - the first is if the item is not appraised, the second is if the item is appraised.

The general idea is to try to "approach" the seller's haggle threshold. To do this effectively, you should counter with an offer that is somewhere between the initial offer and this threshold.

How low you go should depend on how big the transaction is and the seller's other haggling stats (temper and increment). Be more aggressive for bigger transactions, but not too aggressive. Be more careful against higher tempers and low increments. High temper means mood will decrease faster. Low increments means that the seller will reduce his offer more slowly (costing more mood per reduction amount).

The simple rule I use for this is to counter down to around 2/3s of the way from the last offer to the seller's haggling threshold. So if the initial offer is 10000 and the threshold is 70, I counter with 8000. For low tempers, I counter right at the seller's haggling threshold (7000 in this example).

There is no limit to how many times you can counter, but if the seller's mood drops too far (you should keep it above 50%), the seller will refuse to haggle any further and the process will reset (but not the mood!). If the seller's mood is in negative, the seller will counter with a higher offer rather than a lower offer. Avoid these situations!

Every time you counter, the game will make a random number roll that depends on the seller's mood, the haggling threshold, your offer, and the previous offer. There is a chance that the seller will agree to your counter offer outright, or, if not, make another, lower offer.

Mood: the more aggressive your offer, the more the seller's mood will shift downward. So don't be too aggressive when the mood is already low, and be less aggressive if the transaction isn't very big. For small transactions, consider simply accepting the initial offer, which will raise the seller's mood.

While you can win the game and get high scores without ever selling anything in your store you can push your score even higher by trying to get the best store prices possible.

Given the complexities involved, use of the data and formulas in the tracking sheet is highly encouraged if you are serious about maximizing your score. Outperforming the auction for more valuable items is unlikely without crunching the math.



In many cases you can make more money from a store sale than from auction.

Items in the current hottest category should usually be auctioned, as the average auction return is higher than the highest possible return from a store sale. There are a few important exceptions:

1. Combined items - these always have higher sales potential in the store
2. Very Rare items - the sale price range for these items increases by 3% of the item's base value per day after first listed for sale. Acquire these early and list them for sale right away, but wait until the last 5-10 days of the game to accept store sale offers for them. You'll need to adjust the asking price accordingly to account for the daily appreciation.
3. Most unappraised items - if your item is not appraised, it won't bring in as much in an auction sale.

Items of lower rarities can go up or down in price. Every item has the potential to outperform HOT category auction returns, but non-set items of lower rarities are unlikely to do so.

NOTE: sometimes it's a good idea to go ahead and auction something that could be sold for more later, or to accept a lower than optimal store offer. You need funds to acquire items, so make sure you have enough to buy the HOT items on the next day. Consider parting with all HOT category items early in the game so you can invest in Very Rare items.



The store price you set ideally should be the highest possible price that will attract a customer. Once a customer is interested, you can haggle with them - once per day per item.

Internally the game uses a calculated threshold for the store price that will attract a customer.

If you know the value (aka "cost") of an item (or can deduce it directly), you can precisely calculate this threshold price. Luckily, the game has easy to exploit mechanics that allow you to rather accurately calculate the underlying value of an appraised item (more on that later).

At the end of every day, the threshold prices will shift up or down, so you may need to adjust your asking price accordingly. Prices can shift anywhere from -5% to +7% depending on item rarity, hotness, and random chance. Very rare items always increase by 3% per day. Hot category items always decrease by 3% per day. Other rarities can go both up or down. Sheet: you can see the details for each rarity in the Store tab.

Sheet: as long as you are diligent in updating the sheet every day, you can track somewhat precisely the current threshold range for items of rarities that can go up and down. When a rarity 2-4 item consistently listed at just below the calculated threshold price triggers a customer, add 1 to the Up Days cell. The sheet assumes that the price has gone up, so there is always a 50% chance that the calculated threshold price will actually trigger a customer. If you notice that an item has dropped below its average HOT auction value, consider auctioning it when it's HOT.



The value of an unappraised item can be determined to within a few dollars by reversing the formula the game uses to calculate the auction starting bid! Here are the steps:

1. Click Auction
   
2. Sheet: Enter the starting bid into the Cost Info cell of the item's row.
   
3. Set the Info Source cell to Auction Starting Bid.
   
4. The calculated value will appear in the Cost cell (used by other sheet formulas, including Store.H)
   
5. Cancel Auction

There are also other ways to infer or narrow down an item's cost without appraising that can be used prior to purchasing the item. This can help you decide between similar items to buy.

• Infer from Restore Fee (Enter the fee into Cost Info and set Info Source to Restore Fee)
  
• Narrow down using seller's initial offer (Enter the initial offer into cost Info and set Info Source to Initial Seller Offer)

The sheet also contains a mechanism for inferring the value from a store listing price that triggers a customer. I used this before realizing that Auctions can be canceled (oops!), but now this method is obsolete.



If the store price you set is not too high, your item will either be bought outright, or a customer will try to haggle with you.

This haggling process is very simple: the customer suggests a price, and you can either accept or reject it. If you reject the price, the customer might make another offer. This can repeat once or many times. You should always reject the first offer - the customer always makes at least one additional offer!

Generally you want to accept a price that significantly exceeds the return you would get on average for auctioning the item (after the auction fee).

Sheet: the Sto.Acc is the lowest price you typically should accept. This value takes into account how much you are likely to get from auctioning the item (and whether you are likely to appraise it), the likelihood of the item being in a HOT category for auction, and the number of days left in the game to get a better deal.

The math behind the Sto.Acc calculation is rather complex, involving probabilities pre-calculated via Monte Carlo simulations. It's a pretty good estimate, but it is still only an estimate. There are factors that are difficult to fully account for. For example, if you are low on funds, consider taking a lower offer.

For items you haven't yet appriased, the Sto.Acc calculation will make an assumption about whether you will have appraised the item prior to auction based on the Min Appraised Value Cat setting in the top right of the Items sheet. Make sure this is set correctly! If you are low on appraisals, you may need to increase this number.

Note that one way to tune Sto.Acc is by tuning the Store Confidence setting in the top right of Items sheet. I picked a default that I think is somewhat on the conservative/safer side. Consider increasing it for subsequent playthroughs to see if a higher value yields more profit for you.

TODO: This section will be filled out in the near future

The game's (Lua) logic and data is readily viewable with any text viewer capable of loading large files (e.g. glogg), so you can also see it for yourself. Look for Contents.dat in the game's install directory.

Significant changes made to this guide since initial publication (California dates):

(FUTURE VERSION)
* Added Detailed Mechanics sections

February 23, 2021
* Item value inference from auction starting bid (obsoletes store inference process!)
* Updated strategies to account for lower auction returns for unappraised items
* Added Daily step by step optimal routine section
* New sheet functionality - store sale target price optimization, new cost inference formulas, and more!

January 18, 2021
* Various updates to strategies and mechanics related to store sales
* Added note about clearing out arbitrary items to refresh HO pages

January 3, 2021
* Added some info regarding store listing appreciation/depreciation

January 1, 2021
* Updated sheet (same link): corrected combined item store and auction bonus
* Added advanced strategy: always sell combined items in store

December 24, 2020
* Initial draft