Lost & Fought

At a glance

Lost & Fought is a free real-time strategy game in the browser, modelled on mid-90s titles like Command & Conquer and Dune II. You train units from one headquarters, capture goo wells for income, and win by razing every enemy HQ or holding the most wells when a seven-minute clock runs out. Play solo against the computer or online with up to nine players.

Good fit

Players who miss sidebar-and-hotkey RTS games and want a full match in about seven minutes with nothing to install. The site says it runs on modest hardware and that a link is enough to pull a friend into a private room, which suits short sessions on a work or school computer. The absurd lost-property theme sits on top of straight-played combat.

Consider something else when

Skip it if you want a deep campaign, long matches or a finished game: the site lists version 0.8 and says art is still being replaced and new maps and balance changes arrive as ready. The rules lean on keyboard hotkeys and mouse right-click, and the developer names desktop browsers as the target, so it is a poor pick for playing on a phone.

Start here

Open lostandfought.com, press SKIP INTRO, then choose a claimant (Knights of the Extended Warranty, The Gloop or Bureau Facilities), a Lot such as Lot 1 Umbrella Flats, and an AI difficulty, and press FILE THE CLAIM. Send fast cappers to the nearest wells first, and press F1 or ? in a match for the controls sheet. For friends, click MULTIPLAYER and share the five-character room code.

Cost and requirements

Free, with no ads, purchases, unlockables or account; all factions and maps are open from the start. Online play asks only for a typed name. The developer describes it as a non-commercial hobby project by one person in Linz, Austria, says it sets no cookies, and says visitor statistics run on its own server without cookies or IP addresses. It needs a recent desktop browser.

Limits to know

Online matches cannot be paused, and after 60 seconds away the computer takes over your army until you reload and reclaim your seat. Pause works only in single player. The game has three factions with nine units each and six maps, so variety is bounded. Multiplayer depends on the developer's game server, which runs the simulation and enforces fog of war, so online play needs that server to be up.

Still unclear

• Whether the game is playable with touch controls on a tablet or phone; the published controls describe mouse and keyboard only.
• How often public rooms under Open claims have other players in them, which decides whether online play works without bringing your own friends.