Lost in Play

Lost in Play is a 2022 point-and-click adventure game developed by Israeli studio Happy Juice Games and published by Joystick Ventures. The game, which conveys its story through cartoon -style visuals and gameplay rather than comprehensible dialogue or narration, follows two children, Gal and Toto, as they engage in a session of imaginative make-believe around their house and a fantastical representation of their neighborhood. The player moves the siblings through a series of loosely connected scenes, solving puzzles and minigames using clues and collected items. The game was developed by Happy Juice Games as its first game over the course of three and a half years, primarily by its co-founders Yuval Markovich, Oren Rubin, and Alon Simon. The trio wanted to showcase children's imagination, with a focus on art and animation, and to make the game accessible to children and players unfamiliar with adventure games. They purposely avoided having a standard narrative structure to make it feel like a game being invented by children. Happy Juice Games connected with newly formed publisher Joystick Ventures after a few years of development, which funded the expansion of the studio to finish the game. Lost in Play was released for Microsoft Windows , macOS , and Nintendo Switch in August 2022, for iOS and Android in July 2023, and for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 in August 2024. Critics gave the game positive reviews, especially for its aesthetics and creativity, but had mixed opinions on the length and difficulty of gameplay. It was nominated in categories at the 38th Golden Joystick Awards and the 26th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards , and won the Developer Choice Award at the 2022 IndieCade Awards . Apple named it the Best iPad Game of 2023 and gave it an Apple Design Award for Innovation in 2024.