Lost in Play | PC Review
Lost in Play, developed by Happy Juice Games and published by Joystick Ventures is a hand drawn, point-and-click puzzle game. It is currently available on Windows PC and Nintendo Switch, and for the purpose of my review I was playing the Windows PC version.
Lost in Play is a journey that takes you through the crazy, wacky depths of a child's imagination and as such, the game will take you through some truly remarkable places. This bizarre fairy-tale land is incredibly unique and filled with mystery, mind-boggling puzzles and fun mini games as you progress.
You’ll take on the role of a brother and sister duo, Toto and Gal, who are on an adventure to scramble their way back home after getting lost inside a fantasy world of their imaginations of their own making. However if they don’t make it home before nightfall they will end up stuck in this strange land. Their day starts off normal, just like any other. You’ll begin very much in reality and very quickly find yourself floating off into a fantasy land. Lost in Play is a wonderful adventure that revels in the fact it's a cute, adorable, and a classic children's fairy-tale so it created a beautiful environment for me to just unwind and relax.
Graphically I found the game really charming from the offset. The entire game is hand drawn and it felt reminiscent of the sorts of cartoons I’d watch as a kid so I instantly felt immersed in the game just from the visuals alone. The soundscape is also excellent and suits the whimsical, fairy-tale style perfectly. There's no dialogue, instead any dialogue is replaced by cute noises from the characters and just fits all in all. Every area I was taken to felt unique and new for me and despite everywhere feeling unique and fresh, it all flowed together perfectly. Lost in Play also progresses in an episodic form so it's easy to complete an episode and jump back in again without struggling to remember what you were doing before you finished the last time.
Throughout the game there are some excellent puzzles that at some points stumped me. Lost in Play is incredibly accessible and has clearly been made with all ages in mind because there are helpful hints that you can access throughout each area and they’ll direct you to solve the puzzle so you can opt to use this as little or as much as you like. Similarly to the puzzles, there are also the occasional mini game that will see you playing draughts with a frog which actually was the most frustrating mini game for me and it seemed to take me an unnecessary amount of time for such a simple mini game, but the sense of achievement when I eventually beat the little frog was wonderful. The puzzles throughout were all fairly unique and none of them felt like they were simply rehashes of prior puzzles which was lovely and refreshing for me.
Lost in Play was such a wholesome experience in every way, shape and form. From the visuals, to the sound effects, all the way to the whimsical fairy-tale adventure, it was just a breath of fresh air. It would be suitable for any age group and is a very accessible adventure so parents could easily play through the game with their kids on a weekend and both parties would have a wonderful time.
Lj’s Rating 4.5 out of 5.
For more information on Lost in Play please use the following links...
Happy Juice Games - Developer | Facebook | Twitter | Website
Joystick Ventures - Publisher | Twitter | Website
Many thanks to Renaissance PR and PressEngine for the Review Key.
Lost in Play | Windows PC | Nintendo
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