You know when a game instantly charms the socks off you the moment you first clap eyes on it? Point and click puzzler Lost In Play is one of those games for me. Its vibrant cartoon visuals immediately caught my attention when I first sampled its Steam Next Fest demo earlier in the year, and I'm happy to report that the full game, out today, is just as captivating as it was back then.
It tells the tale of Toto and Gal, a pair of rambunctious siblings who end up far from home after getting lost inside a fantasy world of their own imagining. If they don't find a way back before nightfall, though, they'll be stuck there forever. A classic kids adventure story, in other words, but one that really relishes in its own sense of playfulness. Over the course of their four-odd hour adventure, they'll meet monster fighting frogs in a dark forest, board game-playing seagulls on the high seas, orc mechanics in a vast desert and even a heavy-metal loving sheep on a floating island in the sky as they make their way home to their messy childhood bedroom. It all makes for some memorable puzzling backdrops, but be warned: if you're planning to play this with little ones, then you'll definitely need a puzzle savvy adult in the mix, as some of its brainteasers aren't quite as child-friendly as you might expect.