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.

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.

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

Comecei a jogar pois me interessei pela estética (que é linda) e pela principal mecânica de roll do game.

Porém algumas horas foram o suficiente pra ver o quão mal polido e desperdiçado é o potencial deste jogo. Controle de camera travada, movimentação travada, sem opção de pulo (???), cortes para entrar e sair em DIÁLOGO, combate extremamente mal executado.

A Mecanica de rolls que era pra ser a mais divertida é rasa e pouco polida, os inimigos não são realmente uma ameaça, além de não terem uma variedade de ataques, geralmente de 1 a 3, fora que também não existem muitos inimigos

A arte não tenho muito que reclamar, é bonita, bem "Tim Burton", os cenários são bem bonitos e únicos, os personagens que tem mais destaque também, já os NPCs que você acha por ai meio que vão repetindo o design e utilizando conversas genéricas e não da nenhuma vontade de falar com eles.

Enfim, uma proposta unica que é executada de forma porca, bem triste.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Poquito se habla de este juego... 🤔
Tiene una estética, historia y personajes con saborcillo a las pelis Tim Burton.
Las batallas me parecen interesantes, aunque a veces se alargan demasiado.
En Nintendo Switch mejor en modo TV.
Muy recomendable 😎❤

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!