Enjoy organised chaos in the hidden-object job simulator Lost But Found

Megan Bidmead, 7 January 2025

In Lost But Found, your job is to work the lost property desk in a busy airport. It seems simple enough: items arrive on a conveyor belt, you need to find a space for them on your table then wait patiently as passengers begin to arrive. Drag the correct items and drop them on the passenger before the timers above their heads run out, and they'll go away happily, leaving you with a nice tip to collect. It's essentially a hidden-object job simulator but as the difficulty ramps up, you'll be presented with decisions that have a surprisingly thinky twist.

Other elements are thrown into the mix too. Some passengers want items that haven't arrived yet, and they'll leave you their phone number; when the items arrive, you can call them and get them to come back. Some items will arrive so filthy that you'll need to complete a simple minigame to clean them before you can hand them back. You can peel off and collect stickers from some items to add to your scrapbook (which seems morally dubious to me, but who am I to judge a sticker addict?). On top of that, you'll occasionally need to ward off thieves by pepper spraying them, lest they run away with all your hard-earned cash (just don't accidentally spray the passengers, they don't like it).

Time does not stop for any of the above activities. This means the entire time you're sponging off a jacket, frantically typing in a phone number, or moving items from the conveyor belt onto the table, more passengers are arriving, and their timers are quickly ticking away. Items start to pile up pretty fast, sending your table into disarray, with the occasional enormous curveball arriving in the form of big items: how do you fit a whole tank on your table among the lost headphones, passports, and boarding passes? How do you stop a basketball from rolling off the table while you're trying to return everybody's stuff? This is the kind of thing you have to deal with, and the items keep on coming.

When the day comes to an end, there's a calming moment in which you can take stock of the items you have left. It turns out that rearranging your table at the end of the day is an extremely important task, and you'll need to take a few minutes to think and strategize. I found that putting lost items next to their phone numbers helped because I could prioritize calling them the next day (among the million other tasks I would have to deal with). Ordering items by group becomes really important, so you can quickly find them: stacks of boarding passes, which all have specific destinations you need to give to the right passenger, are easier to find if you keep them together.

Lost But Found has a little bit of a Papers Please influence in the choices you make when you head to town after work. While it's a lot more lighthearted, you'll still be able to make some interesting choices: Will you steal and sell your higher-value items on the black market for a cash injection, or will you be honest with your passengers and return them?

The former is tempting because you have a lot to pay for. Like Papers Please, you have a family to support; you'll need to give them money every day. You'll also have the opportunity to spend money on useful upgrades, like a bigger table for more space, a wall clock for extra time, or a fan, which cools down the passengers and makes them more patient. So stashing away a bit of extra cash is a tempting proposition.

There are actually four game modes in Lost But Found: Chill (no timer, so you can relax and enjoy arranging your table), Relax (a timer, but with a slower pace, more generous timers, and fewer passengers to deal with), Normal (an average level of challenge) and Mayhem (imagine the busiest, most hectic day you've ever had at an airport). This means if you don't fancy the pressure and stress but you do enjoy the challenge of returning items to desperate passengers, you can.

I found Lost But Found to be one of those 'just one more day' games; the kind of game that you have the intention of stopping, and then an hour later, somehow you're still going. The difficulty level is just about right. I like the switch in pacing between the manic daytimes and the slower, more thoughtful evenings to tidy up. I like the random chaotic elements that throw everything off. And I like having to think about many (many) things at once.

According to the roadmap, future updates include new minigames, more items, and new buildings in town to visit. Even without those updates, there's a lot here to get stuck into, and the satisfying gameplay loops will keep you coming back for more.