Review: If Found… - A Powerful Irish Story About Identity, Acceptance and Belonging
A deeply moving interactive story about identity, family, finding acceptance and the people who allow you to be completely yourself
Available on: PC, Mac, Nintendo Switch
Developer: DREAMFEEL
Publisher: Annapurna Interactive
How Cozy? ⭐⭐⭐
Game Verdict: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5
If Found… is a short interactive visual novel following Kasio, a young trans woman who returns home to Achill Island in the west of Ireland in December 1993. Through the pages of her diary, we experience her relationships with her family and friends, the people who accept her and the pain caused by those who don't.
I found this game incredibly powerful. It is a relatively short experience that you can sit down and play from beginning to end in an evening, but there is an enormous amount packed into those few hours.
At its core, If Found is a story about wanting to be accepted for exactly who you are. There is real warmth and friendship here, but also rejection, loneliness and some genuinely painful moments. It never felt like the game was trying too hard to make me emotional, though. The characters, writing, artwork and incredible soundtrack simply work together so well that I became completely immersed in Kasio's story.
I have lived in Ireland for eight years now, and I was also particularly impressed by just how Irish the game feels.
Not an exaggerated version of Ireland designed for an international audience, but something that felt recognisable from the people, expressions and stories I have encountered while living here.
That specificity makes If Found feel even more personal.
Story
Kasio returns to her family home on Achill Island after studying in Dublin, and it quickly becomes clear that home is not necessarily somewhere she feels understood or accepted.
The story unfolds through her diary, following her relationships with family and friends and the people who give her space to be completely herself.
Despite the relatively short runtime, the character development is excellent. I very quickly felt as though I understood these people: who would offer kindness, who would make a situation uncomfortable and how different characters were likely to react before they had even said anything.
The relationships feel messy and believable too. There are people who love Kasio but struggle to understand her, people who accept her without hesitation and moments of rejection that are genuinely painful to watch.
But If Found… never reduces Kasio's story purely to that pain. There is warmth here too. Friendship, music, ridiculous conversations and those moments where you can almost feel her relax because she is finally surrounded by people who allow her to simply exist as herself.
I was also really impressed by how authentically Irish the writing felt.
Having lived in Ireland for eight years, there were so many expressions, conversations and little cultural details that felt immediately familiar from people I know and stories friends have told me.
Irish slang and Gaeilge are used naturally throughout rather than being replaced with more universally understood language, with small glossary style notes explaining words, pronunciations and references when needed.
I loved that approach. It makes the game accessible without removing the language and personality that make its setting feel so specific.
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Gameplay
If Found… is much closer to an interactive visual novel than a traditional game, so there are no complicated puzzles or large areas to explore. Instead, most of your interaction comes through Kasio's diary.
You physically erase words, drawings and entire pages to uncover the next part of the story, slowly rubbing away one memory as another begins to appear underneath. It is an incredibly simple mechanic, but I found it surprisingly satisfying and immersive.
Rather than simply clicking through pages of dialogue, you are constantly doing something to move the story forward. Sometimes colour begins to appear beneath what you are erasing, images shift around you or the music builds alongside your movements.
More importantly, erasing feels connected to what the story is actually about. It never feels like a random mechanic added because the game needed something for you to do. It fits naturally with its ideas around memory, identity, loss and moving forward.
There is not a huge amount of conventional gameplay here, but I never felt disengaged because of it.
Graphics and Visuals
If Found uses a beautiful hand drawn sketchbook style that feels perfectly suited to a story told through someone's diary. The illustrations can be deliberately rough and simple, but the characters are incredibly expressive and the game manages to communicate a surprising amount through relatively small details.
Its use of colour is particularly impressive. Scenes can move from sparse pencil drawings into sudden bursts of vivid colour, often changing alongside Kasio's emotions. When that is combined with the erasing mechanic and soundtrack, some sequences become genuinely striking.
The Irish setting also comes through strongly in the artwork. Achill Island does not simply feel like an attractive coastal backdrop. The homes, landscape, weather and small details give the story a very particular sense of place that works beautifully alongside the dialogue.
And then there is the music. The soundtrack is one of my favourite parts of the game and kept me completely immersed throughout. It moves effortlessly between quieter moments and much more emotionally intense sequences, often working alongside the changing colours and illustrations to completely alter the feeling of a scene. It never feels like background music.
Longevity
If Found is a short game that you can comfortably experience in a single evening. There is not a huge amount of traditional replay value once you have reached the end, but I do not think it needs it. The length suits the story.
It gives the characters enough time to feel fully realised and allows the emotional moments to land without stretching them across a much longer game.
I increasingly love having experiences like this between bigger games. Sometimes I want to sit down for an evening, give one story my complete attention and actually reach the end before going to bed. If Found is exactly that kind of game.
Conclusion
If Found… is an incredibly powerful short narrative game about identity, family, acceptance and the importance of finding people who allow you to be yourself.
There is real pain in Kasio's story, particularly when that acceptance does not come from the people she most wants it from, but there is also friendship, warmth and genuine hope.
What impressed me most is how well every part of the game works together.
The hand drawn artwork changes alongside Kasio's emotions. Colour suddenly floods into scenes. The soundtrack completely transforms the atmosphere, and even the simple act of erasing a diary page becomes part of the story rather than just something to keep your hands busy.
I also loved how confidently Irish it feels. After living here for eight years, the characters, language and little cultural details felt remarkably authentic to me, and allowing the dialogue to retain Irish expressions while providing explanations when needed gives the game so much personality.
If Found will not be for everyone looking for a cozy game. There is very little conventional gameplay and some of its themes are genuinely painful. But if you enjoy short narrative games that you can experience completely in an evening, this is a beautiful, heartfelt and exceptionally well made one.
Find Your Next Cozy Game
Whether you want a relaxing farming sim, a gentle puzzle game, a cozy adventure, an emotional story or something easy to play on the sofa, my Cozy Games Directory is full of ideas to help you choose what to play next.
And for the days when you’re choosing a game based less on genre and more on how you feel, my Cozy Games for Mental Health collection brings together comfort games for anxiety, burnout, loneliness, sleep, stress and low days.
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