Lost and Hound
Review

Lost and Hound (2022) is an adventure puzzle game where you play as a scent-tracking rescue dogs, Corgi and Biscuit. You use your sense of smell to find things and solve mysteries. Your heightened hearing and senses enable you to find your goals, eventually becoming a professional tracker.

In the game your attuned hearing allows you to access information that’s inaccessible to humans. This means you can solve puzzles and find items. But it extends to detecting if someone is lying by being able to hear their heart rate increase. You can even hear through walls to track people and match up items such as those left at a crime scene with their owners.

The game depicts these senses in different ways. At any time you can call up your sense of smell to find the direction to go. In this way, you travel the world taking on the role of real-world working dogs. From working in a hospital to assist with seizure detection and detecting cancer to being emotional support for zoo animals and more. Your work as a K9 tracker will take you to the Australian outback, the Swiss Alps, the American wilderness, and many other locales. In between each mission, you’ll have the option to complete mini-levels to earn extra money and travel to more exotic locations.

The game is designed to be fully playable to players without sight or without hearing. Beyond the novel play style, it's also a unique and light-touch way to engage with themes of criminal activity and the importance of other people to make us feel safe. Your owner is present throughout the game and strongly depicts the power of being cared for and offered protection and reassurance.

Our examiner, Andy Robertson, first checked Lost and Hound 3 years ago. It was re-examined by Ben Kendall and updated 4 months ago.