Lost in Random Review

In the land of Random lies 6 distinct towns, each corresponding to the sides of a 6 sided die. Once upon a time there were those called die-holders. They were individuals who had living dice companions that could be rolled and when certain numbers were obtained they could do certain actions. One of those many actions was the ability to move between towns. Each town has a gate that requires a dice roll of a certain number to unlock. Things changed, however, when an evil queen rose to power. She outlawed the use and the mere mention of dice. She became the sole owner of a powerful die. It is with this die that should control aspects of every single city, as well as the fate of all the children, after their 12th birthday. It is on their 12th birthday that children from each town will have to roll her die. Whatever the roll was, that was the life the children would then lead. If you were a oner (someone from the city corresponding to the number 1 on a die) and you rolled a 6 you would then become a sixer and would be moved from your town to the newly rolled equivalent’s town. This is the world of Lost in Random.

The true game starts when your character’s, Even, sister, Odd, turns 12 and she rolls the die and scores a 6. Many people are happy, others are jealous, but you, you are heartbroken that your sister is being taken away, and you also think something fishy is going on. That is when you devise a plan to break out of the place you’ve called home since you were born and embark on an adventure that will take you through every single town until you can rescue your sister from the queen’s grasp. I know it's a bit of a spoiler, but I think it is clear that upon the start of your adventure you’re going to come across something that was thought to be extinct, a living die, which you’ll call Dicey.

You and Dicey will take on each town one at a time, in these towns you’ll have the chance to take on quests from different residents as well as complete certain tasks that will allow you to advance to the next city. I will warn you that this game is linear in the fact that once you’ve left a town you will never be able to return to that town, so you’re going to want to find out all of its secrets before you move on. You will meet a very unique set of characters that somehow move between the towns, even though they shouldn’t be able to, but perhaps they have abilities that Even lacks. One of these characters is the key to being able to open additional doors, the other is a collector who will be the key to your success in battles.

The battles in the game progressively get more difficult, and in order to deal with that difficulty you’re going to need to have a good strategy to survive. A huge part of that strategy revolves around a deck of 15 cards that you can bring into combat. I will warn you that you’re going to need to set up that deck before you enter combat, you’re not allowed to switch it up in the middle of battle. Some of the cards will protect you or heal you, some will set traps for your enemies, and some will equip you, for a short time, with the ability to attack your enemies. In order to gain the ability to draw from the deck you’re going to have to collect these energy crystals that you will be knocking off your enemies, mostly with the help of a slingshot. Once you’ve collected enough you will then need to roll Dicey. Whatever number is that is rolled is the number of points you can use during that portion of the battle. Each card has a value so you’ll have to take that into consideration. As you progress through the game you’ll be able to obtain card pins, these are items that allow you to mark cards that you want to save for later use, later in the game you’ll have the ability to save up to 3 cards at a time. If you survive through a battle your health is returned fully to you, so there’s no need for outside combat healing.

This game was challenging and had a story that captured my attention and didn’t let go until I completed the game. I did appreciate that all the characters you can interact with were voiced, however some of those voices were not in a language I knew, thankfully subtitles helped get their point across. I also enjoyed the fact that each town had a slightly different vibe and feel to them, my favorite town had to be the second one where everyone had a split personality which usually ended up being two individuals who supported but hated the other. There were definitely parts of the game that I wish I was able to have more than 15 cards in my deck at a time, I believe because of that fact that there were some cards that I obtained later in the game that I never tried. The reason was so successful with the current structure of the deck that I didn’t really want to mess with it, or I just couldn’t decide what card I could sacrifice to add a new/different one. This is definitely a game that I think many gamers will enjoy. There is definitely a dark element to the game but it isn’t a blood hack and slash type of dark, it's more of a strictly controlled world full of fear and mental anguish all caused by a power hungry queen and her cronies.