Lost in Random has a striking look to it. There seems to be a clear influence from the likes of Tim Burton, Coraline and other wonderful pieces of dark animation and illustration. It feels somehow familiar yet unique at the same time. Its concept is very interesting too.
What is Lost in Random?
Imagine a world where entire lives could be changed by the roll of a dice. An evil Queen rules over the Kingdom of Random with this very threat. Families are torn apart with the dice deciding where children live once they hit a certain age.
You play as Even. A child looking to save her sister, Odd, from the evil Queen. You journey across the entirety of the Kingdom of Random, exploring all of its different realms. There’s six of them… like you get on a standard dice… are you sensing a theme here?
On your journey as Even you’ll encounter various residents as you look to save your sister. Some of these residents will be good, some will be bad but one will be more important than all of them. A dice called Dicey.
Dicey is basically a dice that is somehow alive. In the context of the rest of the Kingdom of Random that isn’t actually that weird a thing. How Dicey helps you most is when it comes to combat.
You see, Even has a slingshot and that can be useful to knock bits off of enemies that Dicey just loves to consume. Once they have consumed enough you can yeet them to roll them and unleash all kinds of attacks. How are these attacks unleashed? By using cards. This adds another level to the randomness of the game and makes the combat feel unique.
There is a problem though in that uniqueness can only carry you so far.
Not a Nat 20
I want to love Lost in Random. It’s an interesting premise and parts of it live up to that. The team at Zoink have made some truly delightful games over the years too.
However, after my time with it on PC recently, I’m not fully convinced. The combat I experienced felt fun enough but wasn’t satisfying enough for me to want to play through a whole game of it.
I’m sure the combat evolves with the game as you play it. What I’ve seen of later fights looks like they could be a lot more intense. Early on in the game though, which is what I had the chance to play, it just felt a little underwhelming.
The story and world are interesting for sure but the people that inhabit this world just felt a bit flat. They have interesting designs but seemed to lack emotion. It’s a preview build so there’s a chance facial animations and lip sync wasn’t final but it was a shame to see such little emotion in the scene direction and faces of the characters around the town.
In cutscenes, it seemed fine but it was all the parts in-between, where you have a chance to explore an area, that it failed to have that spark.
Having that Burtonesque charm is all well and good, but if you fail to capture the same kind of emotion, you’re missing something.
Lost in Random is out on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC on September 10th.
I’m rooting for Lost in Random. I hope it lives up to its potential and is an example of a game that just didn’t preview overly well. It won’t be a game for everyone but those with a bit of patience that can enjoy games even if they’re a little rough in areas may find that it’s worth a roll of the dice.
Featured image credit: EA