The hidden mandrake
In Runaway Foxes the mandrake is in the planting plots at the top right of the map, to the left of the house. It looks like an ordinary plant and jumps out of the soil when clicked.
A mandrake in Lost and Found Co. is a plant that is not a plant. It sits in a garden bed looking exactly like the foliage around it until you click it, at which point it jumps out of the soil and registers as the object you were looking for. That behaviour is why the hidden mandrake has its own search traffic: players walk past it twice, decide it is scenery, and then spend an evening on the Steam forum.
There are two mandrakes players ask about: one in Runaway Foxes, and one in My Summer Memories 2.
The Runaway Foxes mandrake
The location players converged on in March 2026, and the one that has held through every patch since:
- Top right of the map, in the planting plots.
- To the left of the house, if you are facing it.
- Looks like an ordinary plant until clicked.
- Jumps off when clicked, which is the confirmation that you found it.
The detail that makes this one annoying is the orientation. "Top right of the map" and "left of the house" sound contradictory until you are standing in the garden and realise the house sits at the upper edge, so the plots to its left are also the upper-right corner of the scene.
The My Summer Memories 2 mandrake
The countryside stage has its own mandrake, and the forum thread that asks about it pairs it with a bottle of wine — two objectives players lose in the same sweep. The stage is built around Grandma's chores, so much of the scene is garden and kitchen.
The same rule applies: click the plants. If a plant looks slightly different in silhouette — a leaf out of place, a stem that reads as a body — click it before you click anything else in the bed.
Why mandrakes are hard to see
Three reasons, all of them art-direction choices rather than difficulty settings:
- They are drawn in the same palette as the plants. No highlight, no outline, no colour break.
- They are placed in beds with similar plants. A lone mandrake would be easy; one among a row of vegetables is not.
- Their idle animation is subtle. The plant sways like the rest of the foliage. The jump only happens after the click.
That is also the tell: a mandrake is the one plant that reacts. If you are sweeping a garden, click the plants in a grid and watch for the one that moves differently.
Other objects that pretend to be scenery
The mandrake is the best-known example of a wider trick. The same design appears in the duck plush in The Morning Madness, the chest in Love After Life and the sword in The Cursed Memento. In each case the object is drawn as part of the room rather than as a target, and the click is what turns it into an objective.
The practical rule: if a prop looks like it belongs exactly where it is, click it once. Scenery that has no reason to be there is usually scenery the designers wanted you to notice.
Mandrake locations at a glance
| Stage | Where | Confirmation |
|---|---|---|
| Runaway Foxes | Top right of the map, planting plots left of the house | Jumps out of the soil when clicked |
| My Summer Memories 2 | Garden beds around Grandma's house | Registers as an objective when clicked |
Both are optional objectives inside their requests rather than separate collectibles. There is no mandrake log, no mandrake achievement and no counter — the only place a mandrake appears is in a stage's To-do list.
How to search a garden bed
- Work left to right, top to bottom. Gardens are drawn as rows; following the rows stops you from double-clicking the same plant.
- Click the plant, not the soil. The hitbox is on the foliage.
- Watch for a silhouette break. A mandrake's leaves are shaped slightly differently — a little too round, a little too regular.
- Click the odd one twice if nothing happens. The animation can hide whether the click registered.
- Check behind the bed. Objects in this game sometimes sit behind the planter rather than in it.
What a mandrake is worth
Nothing extra. The mandrake is one objective inside a request, and finding it contributes to that request's 100% completion — the same as any other object. There is no separate reward, no furniture set and no achievement named after it.
That matters for how much time to spend. If you are chasing the stage achievement, the mandrake is required. If you are only playing the story, it is not. The Runaway Foxes walkthrough covers the full request including the mandrake's role in the side quest.
The wider pattern
Mandrakes are one example of a design trick the game uses repeatedly: an object disguised as scenery. The same trick appears with the duck plush in The Morning Madness, the chest in Love After Life, and the sword in The Cursed Memento — which the studio's own player data named one of the three hardest items in the game.
Once you notice the pattern, the stages get easier. Anything that looks like furniture, foliage or a soft toy is a candidate; anything that looks like a target usually is not.
For the request that contains the best-known mandrake, read Runaway Foxes. For the collectible system that does have a counter, see Juju and hints.
