At the end of December, I had the chance to enjoy Lost But Found from Rogue Duck. If you missed the review, take a peak here. I did wonder though, how does a game like this get made? In a time where there are so many work sims, this one felt different to me in a good way. It was cozy, only as stressful as you wanted it to be, and had a clear ending I could appreciate. When an opportunity was there to dive deeper to learn more about the game and it’s development, I had to take it.

Thankfully, Rogue Duck co-founder Dora was open to talking more about the game. Read below for some insight into the future of the game and a peak of upcoming Rogue Duck games!

Before we dig deep into game play or design, what inspired the first steps of Lost But Found?
It was actually born in a company game jam. To take a break from our current projects, teams were mixed and matched to create any small-game they wanted to make. Lost But Found was one of the games that was made in the jam. Months later, we've decided to fund the project for a complete game.

How did you decide the items that would end up in the lost and found pile?
For the prototype, the developer just passed random items through a pixel filter and went with it. These were the very first items of the game. Rest was just via thinking "this could be lost at an airport" or "this could be funny" and such.

While playing, I loved asking why they didn't just print out new boarding passes? It made for some entertaining content while streaming. What are some aspects you hope people enjoy with the game?
[Laughter] I'm sorry we left you with the airline desk's work. I guess the airport is just trying to save some money on employees! We've observed that a lot of people enjoy organizing items either by color or by type. I guess that feeling of "fighting the chaos with your own system of order" is satisfying for a lot of people! And to think they probably wouldn't listen when their mom told them to tidy their rooms... Shame.

I know the game lists there are still updates to come. Namely the casino and the bar, can you share any insight into some of these future updates?
We have a strong loop for the core game but its surroundings are relatively empty. So what we want to do is, give the player a chance to explore some new stuff and play some other mini games while outside of the airport to make the whole experience a little bit more exciting and less repetitive.

While we are currently trying a few different ideas, we actually haven't locked in the game design aspects of these places and are still working on them. And after the heat Balatro got from rating agencies, we are kinda scared about the casino part and moving carefully.

We still have room for development, so if any of your readers have an idea that they want to see in these buildings, please let us know and we might put it in the game! 🙂

What inspired some of the mini games such as cleaning up the dirty clothes?
The title of these mini games are "is this really MY job?" for me, but i think they are really fun! Just dragging and dropping items is a cool loop, sure. But adding those little, hectic moments increases the stakes and adds a bit of excitement. So we've decided to think about "how we can play with these items". And came up with: cleaning, signing signatures and stealing stickers.

We actually had more complex mini game ideas but didn't have the time to implement them, such as "matching the boarding pass with the correct gate", a more-real job, and I hope we can get a chance to implement them in the future!

The art in Lost But Found is very cute and cozy even despite the potential to be hectic in mayhem mode. Why did you choose to go in this direction with the art?
We knew it was going to be a small game. It felt like a flash-game, so that basic, clean style was what we had in mind, especially considering there will be A LOT of items in the game, so the art style had to be easily readable.

We had a bunch of artists that were interested in the job, so we just sent them a screenshot of the game and asked them to make some items in their style. We fell in love with the drawings of Ecem (game's solo artist) and went straight with it.

What is something you want people to know about Lost But Found that they may not notice right away?
I don't have something at the top of my mind about the game, but maybe about the brand. This was our first "very simple" game. Rogue Duck was always about "crystal clear strategy games" but this game, in terms of game-design was very basic and more action based compared to our main titles.

It was also kind of a fun project as it was born in a game jam. Well, jokes on us as it's moving towards becoming our best selling game. Turns out people like cute and small experiences. So we'll make even more games like Lost But Found!

What can everyone look forward to next from Rogue Duck?
Ooops. I guess I answered this question preemptively, haha. We have a lot of strategy and turn based games coming up on the first quarter.

And this is kinda early to talk about it, but I was working on a project for over a year and was feeling really stuck. After the success of Lost But Found I just pulled the plug and started thinking about "what type of a game I would design that is similar to this?" And found something that really inspired me: a Witch shop! So if you like Lost But Found, check us out through the end of the year (hopefully). Maybe you'll get to run your very own little witch hut, casting spells and brewing potions for the impatient customers! 

Our teams are hard at work and we'll be releasing a lot of games this year. You can follow our Steam page at rogueduck.net if you want to get notified about them.

Any last thoughts you'd like to share with our readers?
While I'm the one doing the interview as the co-founder of studio, I'm probably the person who worked the least on the project. As this was a very low-priority and more of a "fun project", it was mostly our fresh team members, interns and young folks on the project. Some of them having their first ever professional jobs.

And they made something awesome! I think it's inspiring that when you give young and passionate people a chance to make something and room to explore, they can make something great! Thanks and congratulations, team!

And thank you Stephanie for reaching out and giving us a chance to meet with your readers! Quack!

A huge thank you to Dora for taking the time to answer our questions. With Global Game Jam just around the corner, this shows that you never know when a small project can become so much more! Lost But Found is available now on Steam!