Adventure Corner ~ Lost and Found Co.

Welcome to Adventure Corner, a column where members of the RPGamer staff can give their thoughts, impressions, and pseudo-reviews for various adventure titles that don’t come under our usual coverage. Adventure Corner is aimed at delivering opinions on a wide range of titles, including visual novels, point-and-click adventures, investigative mysteries, and so forth.

In this edition of the column, we take a look at Bit Egg Inc.’s story-driven hidden object game, Lost and Found Co.

Lost and Found Co.

Losing things is something that happens to all of us. Whether it’s a favourite toy, a missing sock, or even our house keys, it’s an inconvenience that we could all live without. In Bit Egg Inc.’s story-driven hidden-object game Lost & Found Co., the premise centers on finding lost items, returning them to their owners, and making a difference in the Plumville community.

In the town of Plumville lies a shrine to the Goddess, Mei, a beautiful dragon with a love for social media. Unfortunately, where Mei’s shrine sits is prime real estate for the nefarious corporation OKCO. Run by the masked CEO, Zorro, the plans are to destroy the shrine to build luxury properties, as OKCO has its hands in everything from beverages to real estate. Given all of the challenges, Mei and her duck-turned-human companion, Ducky, decide that the only way to save the shrine and avoid it being demolished is to start a business and show the community their value. They decide on calling themselves “Lost and Found Co.” a business that focuses on helping individuals find valuable items that they may have potentially lost or *gasp!* stolen.

So many tanuki…

There is a lot of story in Lost and Found Co., which is honestly unheard of for a hidden object game. With eleven story chapters, each level focuses on Mei’s desire to save the shrine and earn some coin on the side… with Ducky doing all the work. Each chapter builds upon the narrative, wherein Ducky and Mei will meet someone in need of their services, leading to players finding random objects scattered throughout the level for that individual. As objects are found, kernels of story unfold, and by the end, the player learns about the importance of the work they have done and why it’s so meaningful to that individual.

Visually, Lost and Found Co. feels like a Where’s Waldo? book come to life. Every location is full of people, animals, and it’s all constantly changing as players click on different objects, giving it such a cozy and wholesome vibe. As players click around the maps, they can open boxes, lids, even doors, and sometimes find objects inside, complete with cheeky sound effects. Every area has a unique aesthetic, such as the Cat Cafe level, wherein there are cats everywhere, but players are tasked with finding specific ones. Some levels are broken into larger acts so that a bigger narrative can be followed, such as meeting a little boy named Kenta, then meeting his family, helping him find his favourite toy, and the final storyline being that Ducky helps Kenta with his chores. Unlike most hidden object games, Ducky interacts with so many different and well-fleshed out characters, with each one he meets playing a role later on in the story, which is so cleverly done.

So many caaaaaats!

The game does have a few drawbacks, particularly in its hint system. Players can find grey objects on each map, affectionately known as Jujus, which, when found, trigger something chaotic, such as water being spilled on the floor or something changing in the environment. It’s a fun way to do hints, but the issue is in the hints themselves, which are often not very clear or could have used some extra proofreading. The text has several typos, and it can make the hint more convoluted than necessary. The hint system also doesn’t apply to the secondary objectives, which are also far more difficult than the main objectives. While the secondary objectives are challenging, some of the ways in which they are worded make it very difficult to decipher what the player should be looking for.

Lost and Found Co. offers over fifteen levels, each with its own unique challenges. Completing all the game’s challenges can easily take the player well over twenty hours to complete, though secondary objectives are not required to complete the game. Players can also revisit levels and continue their progress or completely start them over if they desire. It’s a wonderful take on the hidden object genre, and while it has some missteps, the amount of time I sunk into completing all of the challenges and finding the hidden surprises was a lot of fun. Lost and Found Co. is for anyone who is bored with conventional hidden object games, offering a decent challenge and a charming story to boot.