{"id":127625,"date":"2022-08-28T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-28T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/#article-135936"},"modified":"2022-08-28T17:00:00","modified_gmt":"2022-08-28T17:00:00","slug":"mini-review-lost-in-play-a-fantastic-adventure-game-that-cleverly-sidesteps-genre-pitfalls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2022\/08\/28\/mini-review-lost-in-play-a-fantastic-adventure-game-that-cleverly-sidesteps-genre-pitfalls\/","title":{"rendered":"Mini Review: Lost In Play &#8211; A Fantastic Adventure Game That Cleverly Sidesteps Genre Pitfalls"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/fdfb1a6ada2d6\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/fdfb1a6ada2d6\/small.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n<aside class=\"picture embed pictures\" id=\"screenshots\"><a href=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/127008\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/127008\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Lost in Play Review - Screenshot 1 of 7\"><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>Graphic adventures can\u2019t seem to settle themselves. Most new games seem to have to start at first principles and decide on their own verbs, loops, control scheme, puzzle types, difficulty, hint system\u2026 and it feels like there are more misses than hits. Which makes it all the more impressive that developer Happy Juice Games has come up with something that\u2019s coherent, original, and a delight from start to finish.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/switch-eshop\/lost_in_play\">Lost in Play<\/a>, the first solo game from the Tel Aviv-based studio, has many of the hallmarks of golden-age <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/guides\/best-point-and-click-adventure-games-for-nintendo-switch\">point-and-click adventures<\/a>: a cartoon style, humorously animated protagonists, item-based puzzles, and curiosity-piquing 2D scenes serving as both play space and reward for clearing the previous area. However, it also shakes off many of the classic bugbears: pixel hunting is impossible because you\u2019re moving a character, not a cursor; using no words in the game leaves the hint system to be helpful but not too transparent; there\u2019s very little backtracking because environments are kept small and the time in them is brief; and wacky dream logic is completely excused because you\u2019re playing in children\u2019s imaginations.<\/p>\n<p>These are not necessarily new inventions, but they\u2019re brought together very skilfully, making for a great player experience that avoids common minor irritations. If you\u2019ve ever played a game where a character can\u2019t reach something and you just think, \u201c<em>Well just stretch!<\/em>\u201d, Lost in Play hears you: the improvised ladder is only ever just <em>barely<\/em> high enough, and the kids get on their tip-toes to reach what you want. When you traverse four screens of a wide-open expanse, there are only two screens on the way back \u2013 Lost in Play simply won\u2019t let you get bored.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s constant novelty in every aspect of the game. Puzzles aren\u2019t just the same idea arriving over and over in new clothes; the item- and environment\u2013based puzzles increase in complexity, at one point arriving at a hilarious mash-up of adventure game dependency chart and heist movie planning montage. On top of those core overworld puzzles, there are regular break-outs into separate little games: a board game against a seagull; a monster-escaping logic test; a physics-based skill challenge. Since you\u2019re using a controller, there are brief button-based activities like piloting a vehicle or pumping a power gauge. The difficulty curve is impressively smooth \u2013 and although the word-free gameplay and funny animations are very kid-friendly, the trickier minigames will have grown-ups scratching their heads.<\/p>\n<p>Sound design is excellent from the second the game loads into an irresistibly playful finger-clicking <em>a capella<\/em> and throughout the endearing gibberish spoken by everyone in the game \u2013 which is well acted despite being nonsense. The variety of art and animation seems endless, with almost every action having a detailed and playful special sequence in a way golden-age adventure games could never have done.<\/p>\n<p>Over its five-or-so hours, Lost in Play barely puts a foot wrong, delivering cerebral gaming and effervescent entertainment. In doing so, it makes many of the genre\u2019s design challenges look easy. Here\u2019s hoping it inspires and influences future graphic adventures \u2013 or at least gets a sequel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Graphic adventures can\u2019t seem to settle themselves. Most new games seem to have to start at first principles and decide on their own verbs, loops, control scheme, puzzle types, difficulty, hint system\u2026 and it feels like there are more misses than hits. Which makes it all the more impressive that developer Happy Juice Games has [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-127625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127625\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}