Gave this one a couple hours and I don't think it's going to be for me. The art direction, presentation, world-building, and production values are all pretty great, and the combat is fun with an interesting injection of dice and card mechanics into real-time battles, but there simply isn't enough to do aside from combat and fetch quests, and consequently the world isn't much fun to actually explore; this is a game badly in need of platforming or additional puzzle elements in between battles. It also doesn't help that the map isn't very useful, showing which zone of the level you're currently in but not where you are within it. Thunderful should have made this into an animated series or a proper action-adventure game instead, sorry.

I bought this game on a whim. It was on sale for $3, might as well, right? It looked kinda neat, and that’s a pretty good price.

So a few weeks later, I decided to finally jump into it. I had no idea I’d be playing one of my new favorite games ever made.

Lost in Random is a game about a pair of sisters in the charming, super creative world of Random. Even is trying to save her sister, who’s been kidnapped by the Queen of Random.

I’ll get the nitpicks out of the way first. It’s not a PERFECT game, there’s some small issues.

1. Missable achievements. As much as I adore this game, it’s pretty long and I didn’t necessarily want to go through it all AGAIN. So I was walking on eggshells for some parts of it.

2. LOTS of asset reuse. This is incredibly minor, but when you see the exact same character models pop up for multiple characters, you really start to notice.

3. This is more of what I wanted than what it is, but I REALLY wish there was a jump button. It feels like this world is just BEGGING to be platformed around, but it just ain’t that kind of game.

But that’s about it. For me, anyway. I think the combat system is a love it or hate it situation, it’s not for everybody. By the end of it, I ended up really enjoying it. It felt satisfying planning and putting together a card deck for specific situations, knowing where to use what.

But man, other than that? I just simply adore everything else. Just absolutely head over heels in love with this game, with this world and these characters. Even, Odd, Dicey, Mannie Dex, just everyone, I can’t sing its praises enough. I can’t think of many game worlds as fleshed out as this. I really want to sing this game’s praises, but don’t want to spoil any of it. I’d love more people to play this on their own, I’d feel awful about spoiling something for someone. I’ll just say my favorite town was Fourburg. Just the most fun to explore, liked it’s vibe.

I feel like saying anything else about it would be doing it a disservice. This game is incredibly special to me. I can’t speak for everyone else out there, but I know I’ll be getting myself Lost in Random again and again and again.

Random Rules!

tatlı bir oyun.
oynanışı keyifli fakat oyunun %40ından sonra neredeyse hiçbir şey değişmiyor oynanışta. savaşta kullanabileceğimiz kartlar sınırlı kesinlikle daha çeşitli şeyler eklenebilirdi tek düze kalmış. savaş mekanikleri keyifli ama oyunun son 1 saatinde artık gına gelmişti.
hikayesi sıradan olmasına rağmen çok güzel süslemişler bu yüzden kendi içinde özel hissettiriyo. fakat bütçenin azlığı hikaye kısmında da hissediliyo çünkü 6 diyarda ilerledikçe her bir sonraki diyar öncekinden daha az ilginç ve daha sıradan oluyor. ellerinde sonsuz ihtimal varken özellikle 4, 5 ve 6. diyarlar çok sıradan kalmış.
sanat tasarımı çok güzel. aşırı tim burton işi duruyo. kraliçe'nin tasarımı, dark lord'ların tasarımı, etrafta gördüğümüz karakterler, seemore, nanny, shadowman hepsinin tasarımı çok tatlı ve aynı havayı korumayı başarıyo.
müzikleri çok tatlı atmosferi çok güzel destekliyor.
yan görevlerin çoğu bomboş sadece oraya git bunla konuş şuraya git şunla konuş şeklinde. ilginç olan sadece birkaç tane var.
hikayenin finali çok aceleye gelmiş hissettirdi. önceki diyarlarda rastgele yan karakterlere harcanan vakit kraliçeye ve onun hikayesine harcanmamış. çok oldu bittiye geliyo. kraliçenin de bi backgroundu var fakat son 20dkda he öyle işte falan deyip geçiyo. ve her şey bittikten sonra karakterlerimizin ne durumda olduğunu görmek isterdim onu da göstermemişler. yani genel olarak oyun bitince bir şeyler eksik hissettiriyor.
yine de EA'in bu tarz indie oyunları desteklemesi göz yaşartıyo.
79/100

This has to be a somewhat hidden gem from recent year. If you love Tim Burton's stop motion movies you're going to love this game's artstyle because they wear their influence out in the open. And there's so much to look and marvel at that sometimes it feels like the gameplay gets in the way.

The world building and character gallery is absolutely amazing and the amount of creativity poured into this game is wild. The only negative thing regarding this, is that the game is VERY monologue heavy, as in at lot of the side characters are fleshed out with a lot of back story and boy to they want you to hear ALL of it. Sadly sometimes less is more, because after the first few worlds it starts to get a bit exposition-y.

The balance between exploring and figthing is okay, but towards the end the battles tends to be a bit on the repetitive side, and even though the mix between action and deck builder is fun to begin with it lacks the necessary depth or "fun" factor to last through the whole game.

O porte desse jogo no switch é terrível, gráfico parecendo vídeo de 360p, tentei até no switch do meu namorado que é OLED e mesmo assim gráfico péssimo, tentei ao máximo ignorar essa questão mas foi bem difícil. Sobre a história achei tão mais ou menos e não consegui me conectar aos personagens/objetivo principal do jogo, sobre jogabilidade achei tão chatinho e sem graça principalmente nas batalhas. Nem terminei, porque prefiro gastar meu tempo com jogo que vou gostar, só fico puto por ter gasto 30 reais nessa bomba, ainda mais no switch que os gráficos são terríveis e isso influenciou bastante na minha experiência, se tivesse jogado sei lá no Xbox talvez teria uma opinião menos negativa

Unfortunately I don't think I'll be finishing this one. It features unique artistic visuals, that's what prompted me to look at the game in the first place. It feels like you're in a Tim Burton stop-motion movie, specifically it feels inspired by Nightmare Before Christmas. But that's really the only good thing I can say about it.

The gameplay was close to being good; the deck and card system is unique and reminds me of Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. However, it was not nearly as satisfying, quick, polished, or, quite frankly, fun. The boss fights were systematically uninspired and the regular fights felt repetitive. The idea in concept could be cool. I like the idea of using a deck of cards in 3rd person real-time combat, and even the rolling of the dice could've been neat. It just wasn't seen to its full potential.

There was also something weird with the camera. It's hard to explain but it felt janky. I would develop a headache after playing this game for a bit and I think it was in large part due to awkward camera movements.

The story was a bit simple and generic; your sister is mysteriously in danger far away and needs help. Good enough. But Even, the main protagonist, was a bit odd. She was supposed to be around 10 years old but I had a hard time believing that, mainly because she talked and sounded like an adult.

I wish I could've liked this game, but a generic story and unrealized combat was not quite enough to make up for the excellent visuals.

Random Rules

While not without its problems, Lost in Random is very underrated. Every part of the world of Random has a unique, self-contained story while still existing as part of a single kingdom corrupted by a ruthless queen. The protagonist Even’s journey to rescue her sister from the despot’s clutches is full of emotional ups and downs, like any good adventure.

The dialogue and voice acting constantly made me smile and for the first time in years, I actually wanted to engage with the side quests. There are two reasons for that. One is restraint. There’s only 4-6 quests in each town, so I was never overwhelmed with tasks. Two is town size. With only one exception, I had no issues getting from one part of a town to the other. This is great since most of the quests are of the fetch type. How are they fun then? Quirky characters.

The combat is unlike anything I’ve played, combining real-time attacks with deck-building. As fun as a round of Solitaire is, I’ve always balked at console games where playing cards is the main draw. I don’t get the appeal of playing a game that would work just fine in real life or on an everyday computer. Thankfully, Lost in Random’s gameplay has more to offer. When a battle begins, you have to shoot crystals on enemies to “charge” a random card in your deck. Upon reaching full charge, that card will be added to your hand. Although your deck can feature up to fifteen cards, you can only draw up to five at a time. To activate cards, you must roll Even’s companion Dicey, an anthropomorphic die. The number you roll is how many action points you have for utilizing your hand. Every card has a number assigned to it, which is how many points you need to activate said card. Time is frozen while you’re deciding what cards to use and time resumes as soon as you attack an enemy or press X. The resulting flow is an undulation of strategic card choices and reactive maneuvers.

Because of how much I enjoyed the world, combat design, and overall adventure, it breaks my heart to mention Lost in Random’s sore spots. The first one I have concerns the story, which I don’t want to spoil. In short, the ending seemed rushed, and was a slight letdown on an otherwise solid premise.

The currency system could have used some more work. Coins are only used to buy cards for your deck. However, if you diligently look around the environments for breakable pots, marked doors, and complete side quests with even slight regularity, you will be able to unlock every card by the game’s halfway point, if not sooner. The only reason you would spend money afterwards is if you wanted multiple copies of specific cards. But you’ll be forced to do that anyway because of how unlocking cards works. You don’t have access to most cards at the beginning, but after you spend a specific amount of coins, you must choose a random collection of cards to add to the shop. The spending requirement is high enough that you need to buy a lot of duplicate cards before all of them are permanently available.

I praised the combat for its uniqueness eleven sentences ago. What’s not unique about it is the enemies you fight. There’s roughly six enemy types total and you will encounter all of them in the first two towns. This leaves the bosses to shake things up, but with only a handful of them, it only helps so much. There are tweaked versions of most enemies that are a bit tougher, but this wasn’t enough incentive for me to change my strategy. I don’t need to explain why having a variety of enemies with their own attack patterns would make battles more interesting, especially for a game that is open to experimentation. This is probably going to be a dealbreaker for some players and I’d be a hypocrite for saying, “It’s no big deal. Please stick with it!” I’ve abandoned games I didn’t enjoy playing. So to those who bought the game and didn’t love the combat, thank you for supporting the passionate developers behind it.

Lost in Random also unfortunately feels low-budget in places. On top of the low enemy variety, NPC models are frequently recycled between towns, looping character animations are used in place of lip-syncing, and I had to do a couple game resets when a battle or side quest wasn’t registered as completed. These issues didn’t damper my enjoyment too much, but they were still sad to see.

In conclusion, Lost in Random is a good 3D action-adventure game that probably would have been great if EA gave Zoink Games a bigger budget and more time for polish. Despite that, I encourage anyone reading this to check it out because of how unique the end product is. Before I played it, I was unaware EA has a program to support indie developers without creative interference. I hope they continue to do that and give future titles the attention they deserve.

Clunky as hell, but kind of endearing, the story of a small girl searching for her sister in a world government by randomness and a cruel Queen, you'll mainly be spending your time talking to weird-looking people or fighting angry automaton-looking creatures. Oh, and you also have a dice with feet and hands that you throw to do battle with and who's your best friend ever.

There's quite a bit to complain about in this game, thanks to the clunkiness alone, but I don't really want to. There were times where I even considered quitting it - because it's long and clunky - and perhaps I would have if playing it on a handheld hadn't made it so easy to keep picking it up again.

But I kept wanting to return just to see what's going to happen to Even and Dicey next, and what intriguing world will wait for me in the next district.

Because the game is basically divided into 6 phases, each corresponding to one district, which in turn corresponds to a number on a six-sided die. You start in one-town and work your way up, and the way the number is expressed in some towns is pretty cool, e.g. everybody having two conflicting sides in two-town, including the mayor who has literally split in two, with the bad version of him building a whole other town in the sky (on the flip side).

You need to keep upgrading your die to be able to roll higher numbers in order to enter higher towns, which in turn allows you to also roll higher numbers in combat encounters, and the sense of progress and joy you can get from going from rolling only ones and twos to being able to roll a five or, god forbid, a six(!) is something remarkable. It's one of the most satisfying growths I've ever seen in a video game.

And the combat is pretty fun, gathering energy to play the cards you've put in your deck beforehand, that can give you weapons, placeable cannons, heals and whatnot, even if it's still pretty clunky and somewhat repetitive and you'll be done with upgrades and deck-building long before the game is done with you. It's also not too easy and there were many a times I was kept on my toes by it.

But it's the quietly endearing writing and worldbuilding that really kept me in it for the long run (even if I did play most of it on silent, seeing no need to hook up the headphones for its subpar soundscape). I don't know what I would have done without Dicey, but I probably would not have seen the end credits.

You ever come across something that not only has its own unique touch to something but which feels tailormade just for you, like this quirky idea came directly from your own brainstorming/daydreaming session - and then you realise it doesn't actually translate as well into reality as it did in your imagination?

Before we get to that, I do have to highlight that Lost in Random is a good game, and perhaps above all an immacutely presented one. Everything from the art style to how it's realised through the graphics and from the environmental design to the supremely well done voice acting (with its cavalcade of regional British accents to boot!) is genuinely incredible. Zoink Games' release history prior to Lost in Random mainly involves a lot of mobile games and random minor releases, but this game - their big break of sorts - came to fruition through EA's "EA Originals" scheme and the studio have put their big budget backing into good use by making sure they present their vision as superbly as they can. The style is obviously indebted to Tim Burton's fever dreams (though in strictly video game terms I'd say Psychonauts x American McGee's Alice, though of course both owe magnitudes to Burton themselves), but Zoink have created a world that feels their own. The world of Random is split into six realms under the six sides of a die and they all bring something unique to the world and the story that makes you want to explore each of them: some are seemingly inconspicuous, some inherently surreal, others quietly sad. The atmosphere, too, is very well crafted and all in all, it's an enchanting world to traverse.

The basic gameplay of Lost in Random is simple: a young girl called Even haphazardly wanders through the world of Random in search of her sister Odd, captured by the evil Queen who conquered Random years ago and twisted it into a pained shade of its former self. Even explores the various hub areas and "dungeon" sequences in third person, doing simple side quests, picking up limited amounts of collectibles and smashing countless posts for errant cash - all very familiar from many 3rd person action platformers, though this time with less platforming given Even can't jump on command. Instead, the big focus in-between all the story parts and ad hoc character conversations is the combat. And that's when you get to those bits I referred to in the first paragraph.

The combat of Lost in Random is built around a deck of cards that Even accrues throughout her journey, forming them into a 15-strong hand that she takes to combat: these cards provide her with all the weapons, traps, buffs, debuffs and crowd control that she needs to defeat the Queen's robot army, and for the player to come up with their strategies based on personal preference. Even can use her perfunctory sling shot to break crystals that appear on enemy bodies, the energy from which she can use to draw 1-5 cards from her hand when she rolls her anthropomorphic die pal Dicey. Depending on the side Dicey lands, she gets 1-6 points to use on the random cards her hand has assigned to her this throw (each with their own value) and the world around her freezes when you devise a strategy and position Even where you best want her to be. And... well, I not only love deck builders, but one of my favourite game mechanics is having to devise strategies out of semi-random variables and with the time freeze you ever get a vague sense of turn-based combat. You couldn't come up with a recipe that I'd gobble up more heartily and I couldn't believe my luck when I first learned about this mechanic after going into the game blind.

The problem is, the more you play the more the combat becomes something you actively want to avoid. It's novel and fun for the first few chapters as you're learning your tricks, acquiring your cards and playing around with them and slowly getting more adept at forging combos. It's also really slow (both because of how it operates but also because each combat sequence features multiple waves) and you start to feel that more strongly the further you get in the game. The pool of cards you can find/unlock is shockingly small and you can easily run out of new tricks to discover by the halfway point, and though the game tries to hide this by giving you multiples of the same card to bulk up the roster, with a 15-card hand limit the idea of adding duplicates into your hand (beyond the "+1/2 free points" cards) doesn't seem worth it. This also means you stop experimenting and it's dreadfully easy to fall into the most utilitarianly effective hand well before you reach the end. The combat also always starts like a chore and boring with Even having to chip away the crystals to scrounge card energy without doing any damage to the enemies, and you're stuck doing this until your hand finally graces you with the tools you need to actually kill (which in return gives you more crystal energy so you can keep the flow going). A few times during the game they'll try and spice up the combat by adding light puzzle mechanics, but this always boils to down having to face limitless enemies with arbitrary stops in-between. The boss battles are particularly sluggish in this regard as you find yourself repeating the same actions over and over again for 10-15 minutes (pro-tip, use the poison DOT card because the poison continues to run even during mid-fight cutscenes). It's a whole monkey's paw situation of genuinely excellent ingredients turning into a middle-of-the-road recipe, and you can't really avoid it because besides some side quests which are largely just "talk to x character and report back to y", the combat is the primary gameplay element of the whole experience (though you can tone the difficulty down to make it breezier if you want to speed things up).

It leaves me with slightly conflicting feelings about the game as a whole. It's a good game and I genuinely loved exploring the new realms and finding more whimsical characters to speak to, but after a point every time I encountered an obvious battle arena I audibly sighed in pre-emptive boredom. There's a wonderful idea there but it just needs more balancing or simply just more of everything - different cards, hand limit upgrades, enemy variety. Still, the overall feeling I left the game with was more positive than negative, and given this drops in discounts to around a fiver regularly, the barrier to entry is minimal. If you love whimsical worlds crafted with love and full of character, Random is a great place to get lost in - just be mindful of the occasional traffic jams of robots wanting to murder you.

Few random FYIs. One, the game doesn't allow control customisation so if you don't do WASD, you need to get your gamepad out. Two, even if you get this on Steam the game will still launch through EA Origin (Steam will simply give the command to launch the game through Origin), so just be mindful of that.

What I love about my adventures in virtual space is the variety. Thousands of game worlds still remain unconquered and attract me with their landscapes, forcing me to constantly move forward. Lost in Random was supposed to be an ordinary transitional world for me between two complex segments of the event, but instead I plunged headlong into a tragic and dark story about human feelings. What I saw shocked me, because I did not expect to see such a deep and elaborate story, wrapped in a bright wrapper. But first things first.

Well, my dear listener, here we are approaching the gates of the magical world called Uncertainty. These lush lands are inhabited by a wide variety of creatures, whose lives are inextricably linked with dice. At first, it seems as if these neon signs, loud voices of barkers and the roar of crowded cities create a feeling of an eternal holiday where everyone is having fun and having a good time, but in fact, amid the roar of firecrackers and the shine of sparklers, terrible tragedies unfold. This world is ruled by a cold and gloomy Queen, who determines the fate of people with a throw of the dice. Once upon a time, the gates of the united kingdoms were open to everyone, but now they are tightly locked. The worst thing the Queen did was with the Lords of the Dice, whom she mercilessly destroyed, because no one dares to control reality except her. In addition to wars, atrocities and horrific cynicism, the kingdoms were forced to pay the Queen a terrible tribute - to hand over children who turned 12. Upon reaching this age, they were obliged to roll the Queen's personal dice, which would determine their future fate. The lucky ones who got sixes went with the Queen to a magical city where all dreams come true, and the losers who got twos and ones were forced to eke out a miserable existence in poverty.

The heroine of this story is young Ewen, who goes on a great journey following her sister Odd, who was “lucky” to get a six, while celebrating her twelfth birthday. Ewen loved her quiet life with her parents and was not embarrassed by the fact that she was born into a family of scavengers. But the brave girl could not stand the fact that someone else dared to decide the fate of her family, even if it was the Queen herself. Enlisting the help of a magical dice, Ewen organizes his own crusade to the castle of the Tyrant Queen, confidently making his way through crowds of evil robots.

Lost in Random will invite the player to be transported to the magical world of Uncertainty to help the heroine named Even achieve her goals. The gameplay is divided into two parts - exploration and battles. In the first case, we will interact with characters, solve puzzles and complete side quests, and the second part will become our integral companion throughout the game. The battles in Lost in Random are a card roguelike with a deckbuilder in special arenas, where we will clear waves of opponents, create our own decks and collect new cards around the world. During the battle, Ewen must shoot blue crystals with a slingshot, which will charge our deck, giving us random cards. During the roll of the dice, time will stop, and we will be able to think about which combination of the cards presented we will be able to implement. Each card costs a certain number of action points and it is the roll of the dice that will determine our further capabilities. There is quite an impressive number of cards for creating a deck in the game, and here everyone can find their favorite combination. Some will play through poison and statuses, some will use numerous bombs and minions to help, and some will focus on magical weapons and power-ups. Despite the fact that the combat in Lost in Random is monotonous and devoid of action, the battle process itself looks spectacular and interesting.

The visuals and musical accompaniment in Lost in Random are pleasing to the eye and refer back to the times where Tim Burton created and created worlds. I don't think he had a hand in creating the world of Uncertainty, but what I am sure of is that the developers were inspired by his work. Many people mistake Lost in Random for just another children's game with naive characters and a friendly environment, and I sincerely regret that they did not allow the game to show itself from all sides.

Lost in Random is a difficult and serious story about growing up, losses and overcoming one's own capabilities. The game is replete with psychologisms, which are reflected in the characters and the heroine of the story. The developers were able to perfectly convey the serious message of the story through the eyes of a child who does not understand why the world is so cruel and adults turn out to be selfish. Helping various creatures, Even learns to survive in the complex world of Uncertainty, without losing the firmness of his convictions and life principles. I was surprised that the authors were able to build a coherent and interesting story in the toy world and, at the same time, not lose the degree of intensity of what was happening to the fullest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IthmlLBYyuk

Surprisingly great! The writing from the Dinosaur Comics guy is consistently funny and thoughtful, the music is catchy and often reminded me of Grant Kirkhope’s soundtracks from golden age Rare, and the visuals are interestingly conceived in a Henry Sellick style with technically impressive material effects. Map and combat design are both trying something a little new and mostly succeed; neither are as deep or complex as they initially appear and there are rough points, but they also avoid the copy-paste mechanics that a lot of similar games default to and are more fun than not.

The charming aesthetics and writing combined with novel but sometimes rough mechanics remind me a lot of if Psychonauts 1 was made now. This isn’t quite to that level of instant classic for me, but I’ll definitely keep an eye on what Zoink releases in the future.

El juego no se pierde en la aleatoriedad, sino en la repetitividad.

Pros:
- El combate no para de ofrecer variantes en forma de nuevas cartas durante la primera mitad del título.
- La narrativa es su punto más fuerte, con multitud de personajes carismáticos.
- Las misiones secundarias están al mismo nivel de guion que las principales, aunque su peso se diluye con el avanzar de la trama.

Contras:
- El combate se estanca por completo a partir de la mitad del título. No aparecen nuevas cartas, ni nuevos enemigos ni nuevas mecánicas.
- El último tercio del juego hace demasiado énfasis en el combate, acentuando aun más el problema anterior.
- El acabado general es algo tosco, con animaciones que se limitan a cumplir y con escenarios poco inspirados.