Lost in Play review

Rating: 5/5 ⭐️

Somewhere in my phone's backlog, between games I downloaded with full intention and games I downloaded because a screenshot looked cool, Lost in Play had been sitting quietly since June 2025. I'd picked it up the day it landed on Apple Arcade. I even remembered why: it had won Best iPad Game at Apple's 2023 App Store Awards and then took the Innovation category at the 2024 Apple Design Awards. Two separate Apple awards. I figured that had to mean something.

And then I just... never played it.

I finally started it this March, mostly by accident. I was scrolling through the backlog, the way you do when you're bored enough to look but not motivated enough to start anything new, and the thumbnail caught my eye. Within five minutes of actually playing it, I felt a little silly for waiting nine months.

The first thing that gets you is the visuals. Lost in Play is hand-drawn in a style that looks like someone animated a Saturday morning cartoon from memory: bright, loose, and bursting with personality. Every scene has so much going on. Characters blink, fidget, shrug. The world feels alive even when nothing important is happening.

The game follows two siblings, Gal and Toto. They're bored at home, their imagination kicks in, and suddenly they're wandering through a world they've conjured up together: forests with horned beasts, an underwater stretch, a goblin village, a park with a giant bird. The premise is that they've wandered too far and need to find their way back before dark.

What makes it work is that there's no dialogue. Not a word. The whole story is told through animation and expression and the logic of the world itself. And somehow it never feels like anything is missing. You always know exactly what's happening and why it matters to these two kids.

It's a point-and-click adventure at its core, but the puzzle design keeps reinventing itself. Each of the 15 scenes introduces something new. You'll play a card game against goblins in one stretch, then solve a checkers match against imps, then herd sheep through a maze, then piece together an airship, then route light beams to open a door. They don't overstay any single idea. By the time you've figured out how one thing works, the game has already moved on to something else.

The goblin village section is a highlight. You're not just passing through, you end up helping stage a full-on rebellion, which plays out across a chain of small puzzles that each feel satisfying on their own but connect into something bigger. It's the kind of sequence that reminds you what good adventure game design actually looks like.

There's also a generous hint system and the option to skip mini-games if you're stuck. I didn't use either, but I appreciated that they were there. The game is clearly happy to be played however you want to play it.

The whole thing took me about four hours. I've seen some reviews flag that as too short. I'd push back on that. Four hours with no filler, no padding, no moment where the game loses the thread: that's a better experience than eight hours with two hours of dead time in the middle. Lost in Play earns every one of those four hours.

There's a reason this game picked up two Apple awards. It's not flashy in the way that usually wins awards. It's just very, very good at what it's trying to do: make you feel like a kid with too much imagination and a whole afternoon ahead of you.

I don't have many games I'd call delightful without feeling like I'm overselling them. This one earns it.

5/5. A hand-drawn point-and-click adventure that's confident, creative, and completely without filler. Play it in one sitting if you can.

Lost in Play+ | Happy Juice Games | Available on Apple Arcade (and most other platforms) | ~4 hours