Lost in plaaaaaaaay.
Graphic adventures can’t 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… 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’s coherent, original, and a delight from start to finish.
Lost in Play, the first solo game from the Tel Aviv-based studio, has many of the hallmarks of golden-age point-and-click adventures: 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’re moving a character, not a cursor; using no words in the game leaves the hint system to be helpful but not too transparent; there’s very little backtracking because environments are kept small and the time in them is brief; and wacky dream logic is completely excused because you’re playing in children’s imaginations.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
