Beloved: A Lost and Found Game - Starter guide

Beloved is a solo journaling game by Urania Games in which you play as a childhood toy - not the child who owns you, but the toy itself. You are a guardian, a comfort object, a quiet presence through the milestones and messiness of childhood. Across three acts, your toy will come to know six different children, guiding each of them through life before passing on to the next.

The game draws inspiration from Toy Story, The Velveteen Rabbit, Small Soldiers and the video game Among the Sleep. That mix tells you a lot: this is a game with warmth and melancholy woven together. It is not a game about adventure or conflict in the traditional sense. It is a game about connection, time, and what it means to be loved.

Beloved was created for the Lost & Found Jam and is built on the Lost & Found SRD, a system designed by Mousehole Press specifically for solo games told from the perspective of an object over a long stretch of time.

How does the system work?

There are no dice in Beloved. The system is built around prompts, questions, and selections - you read, you reflect, and you write. The Lost & Found framework structures the experience through a clear arc: a beginning, a recurring loop that drives each child's story forward, and an ending. Within that arc, Beloved uses Acts to mark the passage of time across your toy's long life.

At the start, you choose one of six Beloved - different archetypes of childhood toy, each with its own qualities and starting position in the world. You then move through three Acts, with two children per act. Each child brings new prompts and new questions that shape how you tell their story from your toy's point of view. The characters - the children - are always temporary. The toy endures.

The game asks you to write, but how much and in what form is largely up to you. Some players keep a journal, others write in fragments, some draw or sketch. The system provides structure; you provide the voice.

What do you need to start?

Just the Beloved booklet, which runs to 34 pages. That is everything. No additional rulebooks, no supplements, no special materials beyond pen and paper (or a digital document if you prefer).

You will also want something to write in - a notebook, a journal, a blank document. The game does not require a specific format, so use whatever feels right.

There is no free quickstart, but at its price point Beloved is a low-risk entry. A physical edition is also available for those who prefer a tangible object on the table.

Who is this game for?

Beloved is a game for people who enjoy introspective, emotionally-driven storytelling. If you are drawn to quiet narratives about childhood, memory, and the objects that carry meaning - this will resonate. If you have ever felt something when a toy is lost, donated, or found in a box years later, Beloved understands that feeling and builds a game around it.

It works particularly well for players who are new to solo roleplaying, because the prompt structure keeps the game moving without requiring you to generate everything from scratch. It is short enough to finish in a single sitting of a few hours, which makes it easy to recommend as a first experience.

It is not a game for people who want tactical depth, narrative agency in a broad sense, or the kind of collaborative energy that comes from playing with others. The experience is intentionally intimate and constrained. Some players will find that limiting; others will find it exactly right.

How does it differ from other systems?

Compared to a game like Thousand Year Old Vampire - another solo journaling game about a long life seen through the lens of memory and loss - Beloved is considerably shorter and more contained. It has a fixed structure rather than the open, unpredictable sprawl that Vampire can produce. Beloved knows where it is going; it just lets you choose how to get there.

Compared to something like Wanderhome or other cozy narrative games designed for groups, Beloved is purely solo and demands a different kind of investment: not shared play, but private reflection.

Within the Lost & Found family of games, Beloved stands out for its emotional focus. The system was designed to tell the story of objects, but Urania Games leaned fully into the emotional relationship between toy and child - making it feel less like an archaeology of an object and more like an intimate portrait.

Where do you start?

Open the booklet and read it through before you start playing. At 34 pages it goes quickly, and understanding the full structure before you begin will help you make meaningful choices at the start. The game begins with choosing your Beloved - take that choice seriously. It sets the tone for everything that follows.

Before your first Act, establish some basic details about your toy: where it was made, what it looks like, what it feels like to hold. The game prompts you through this, but the more care you put in here, the more the later moments will land.

There is no large online community around Beloved specifically, but the wider solo TTRPG community is active and welcoming. The itch.io page for the game has thoughtful comments from players who describe their experiences in detail - worth reading before or after you play. The Lost & Found Jam page on itch.io is also a good place to discover related games if Beloved leaves you wanting more.

Recommended products at Netherbook

Beloved itself is the obvious starting point. If you find yourself wanting to explore the solo journaling space further after playing it, Thousand Year Old Vampire is a natural companion - longer, more unpredictable, and built around a similarly long view of a single life through the eyes of something that endures. For something lighter and warmer, Wanderhome offers a different kind of quiet storytelling, though it is built for small groups rather than solo play.