The time limit is cleverly marked in the lower right with a count-down clock super-imposed over a diving mask that shows how much air is remaining. Three minutes does not seem like a lot of time and in some cases its not. If you don’t find all of the items you still complete the level but your payout is not as much.
I played this game with my 9 year-old friend Aiden and he learned the game fast. The tutorials had both audio and text which were simple and concise in their directions. Aiden is an experienced gamer and he discovered a few things I had missed when I first tried the game.
When confronted with his first location, Aiden looked at the list of items and then just began clicking on everything in hopes of stumbling on one of the requested objects. While this is a clever strategy, the designers seemed to anticipate this and programmed the game to reward accuracy. Click too many times in rapid succession and bubbles fill the screen thus delaying your hunt. You win more dollars for speed as well. More speed, less clicks, and less hints equals maximum dollars
Aside from the 10-item game there is a quick-eye challenge where the player has 15 seconds to find one of three items. The dollar value is not based on time, however the items start to sparkle if time runs short and you have not found them yet. Take advantage of a hint and your hint bonus decreases.