Find Joe: Lumen

Somewhere between a sci-fi thriller and a lazy Sunday detective novel, this hidden object story quietly explores what happens when human emotion meets artificial intelligence, and things start to glitch. You play as both Mike, a weary genius scientist who may or may not be to blame, and Lumen, a robot with the unnerving ability to feel things and say polite things while possibly hiding secrets. The story unfolds across soft, hand-painted environments, forest paths, research labs, trailer parks, with piano music gently plinking away in the background while you poke around for clues, combine odd tools, and unravel a slow-burning mystery. Gameplay is mostly point-and-click exploration: each area has two or three linked rooms, with item icons at the bottom to guide your scavenger hunt. Some objects are obvious, others need MacGyvering, like using found parts to build tools or triggering a mechanism to uncover a hidden compartment. Mini-games like golf or retro arcade diversions pop up to break up the mystery and add whimsy without stress. It's got the warm, slightly eccentric tone of Professor Layton with hints of Black Mirror Lite and those choose-your-path detective books you read under the covers. Fun fact: the name Lumen comes from Latin, meaning 'light', but in photometry, a lumen measures visible brightness as perceived by the human eye, which feels oddly poetic for a robot built to understand humans.