Lost Home is a 2D Platform Game developed by Lunar Collapse.
The game stars an armadillo and a snake as its main characters. After the forest where they live is destroyed by a fire, the two animals embark on a journey across four differently-themed worlds in their search for a new home.
Similarly to other platformers like Banjo-Kazooie, each one of the two main characters has their own abilities that have to be used in conjunction to overcome various enemies and obstacles.
The game was released in December 2017 and is available on Steam here
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Lost Home contains examples of:
- Advancing Wall of Doom: In the fifth level of the jungle world, the player must outrun a slowly approaching wall of fire, forcing them to complete the stage quickly.
- Bears Are Bad News: The boss of the mountain world is a large black bear.
- Blackout Basement: The third level of the volcano is very dark, with the only source of light being fireflies that the player can collect.
- Character in the Logo: The two main characters are present in the game's logo, but depicted in a more realistic style compared to how they appear in the game.
- Face–Heel Turn: In the second-to-last level of the desert, the snake becomes delirious from the heat and tries to attack the armadillo, leading to a solo armadillo level where the player must evade the snake, who appears enormous. The snake comes to its senses at the end and the pair reunites just in time for the boss fight.
- Fire-Forged Friends: Literally—in the opening scene, the snake is shown initially intending to eat the armadillo, but the two are caught in a forest fire that forces them to flee and work together to search for a new home.
- Follow the Money: Dragonflies are scattered throughout the game's levels, and the player gains an extra life for every six collected.
- Gruesome Goat: In the snow levels, there are hostile goats that will try to ram into the player to push them into the Bottomless Pits.
- Gusty Glade: In the mountain world, some levels have air currents that can carry the player and must be ridden correctly in order to progress.
- Invincible Minor Minion: Most enemies in the game cannot be defeated and must simply be avoided.
- Jungle Japes: The first world is a jungle full of many different kinds of plants—some of which are harmful to the player characters while others can be used to progress—while the enemies encountered include snakes and giant bugs.
- Lethal Lava Land: Since the fourth world takes place inside a volcano, its levels begin to feature lava more and more prominently as the player nears the end.
- Let's Split Up, Gang!: Once per world, the armadillo and the snake will split up at the end of a certain level, leading to a pair of different levels in which the player controls each one alone. Only one of these solo levels needs to be cleared per world, but the game does award the player achievements for clearing all of them.
- Odd Friendship: The main characters are an armadillo and a snake. Initially, the snake sees the armadillo as prey, but circumstances force the two to work together.
- One Hitpoint Wonder: There is no health meter, and taking any damage will cause the player to die and be sent back to the last checkpoint (or the start of the level if they've run out of lives).
- Predator-Prey Friendship: Between the two heroes, who are an armadillo and a snake.
- Replay Mode: The player can rewatch any of the game's slideshow cutscenes from the menu after they've seen them once.
- Rise to the Challenge: The sixth level of the volcano has lava slowly rising while the duo must quickly make their way upwards to reach the exit.
- Rolling Attack: The armadillo can do this while in solo mode, allowing it to defeat some enemies and smash boulders while rolled up.
- Shifting Sand Land: The second world is a desert where the player encounters buzzards and meerkats.
- Slippy-Slidey Ice World: The third world is a mountain covered in snow, with dangers such as giant snowballs and enemies like owls and goats that try to push the player off the stage.
- Snakes Are Sinister:
- Averted with the snake who is playable and one of the heroes.
- Played straight with the hostile snakes who appear in trees in some of the jungle levels.
- Springy Spores: Some levels have giant mushrooms that function as trampolines.
- Thirsty Desert: In the fifth level of the desert, it's so hot that there is a limit to how much time the player can spend in the sunlight, shown by a bar at the bottom of the screen. The player thus needs to find occasional shade from a tree or cave to cool down. Additionally, some spots have very strong sunlight that causes the bar to fill extremely quickly while in them.
- Underground Level: The fourth world is a series of caves inside a volcano, with enemies such as bats, spiders, and monstrous-looking giant moles.
- Under the Sea: The snake's solo levels take place underwater.
- Vine Swing: The snake can grab onto vines and some other objects with its mouth, allowing the duo to swing over gaps and obstacles and climb onto higher areas. Since they cannot jump like most platform game protagonists (except the armadillo while rolled into a ball in solo mode), this is an integral part of the game's platforming mechanics.
