Lost & Found

Lost & Found is a free online hidden object game where the whole world hunts the same picture at the same time. Every day a new giant illustrated map unfolds, a busy town square, a beach, a market or a snowy park, packed with hundreds of little people, dogs, stalls, trees and cars. Hidden among them are 100 odd things: a horse in a business suit, a fish riding a bike, a snowman on the beach, a cow on roller skates, a pigeon wearing a crown. Tap one and it is circled in red felt-tip. It plays in your browser with no download and no sign-up.

The map is shared. Every find counts toward the legend in the corner ("61 / 100 found by everyone today"), and you watch it climb as people find things around the world. When 25 people have found an oddity, its fold of the map flares like a highlighter, a hint for everyone still looking. The ticker under the map names the oddities nobody has found yet, and the best moment of the day is finding one of them: your claim ticket then says you have one nobody else has. It works like a giant seek and find picture book, or a game of where's Waldo with the whole internet looking over your shoulder.

A visit lasts just under two minutes. Start on the whole map, tap a spot to dive in, then drag to look around and tap anything that looks wrong. The − and + stamps zoom out and in: the big oddities show from far away, the small ones only up close. When the time is up (or you press Done) the map folds into a claim ticket with how many odd things you found today, the rarest of them, and how rare your finds were compared with everyone else's. Come back for another visit: the things you already found stay circled until midnight UTC, when a new map arrives.

There is no score to beat and no leaderboard: Lost & Found is a toy for everyone at once, one of our most relaxing games and a quiet daily habit. Your finds are counted anonymously, with no account and nothing about you, and there is no chat or free text anywhere. The puzzle is in the looking, which also makes it a gentle brain game for spotting details.

Lost & Found plays the same on every screen. On a phone, drag with one finger to move the map and tap to dive in and to circle what you find. On a computer, use the mouse the same way, or play with the keyboard: arrows move the map, + and − zoom, and Space looks under the red crosshair in the middle. You will find it among our quick games, our casual games, and our mobile games and PC games.