Lost in Random is a fun game. I'm about to criticize it quite heavily, but no matter what you read here, do not forget that I DO recommend it.
With several significant caveats.
Let's start with the gameplay, it being the main point of... not quite "contention," but it's what I most want to discuss. LiR's gameplay is largely bisected into two segments, which I'll term Exploration and Combat.
Exploration is probably the weaker of these two aspects, as it consists largely of walking around twisty, windy, confusingly laid-out corridors with an absolutely abyssmal draw distance that makes the whole game feel as though it takes place in Silent Hill. Good atmosphere for a horror game, but LiR is generally going for a more Tim Burton-y esque whimsy that I don't feel jives with the oppressive fog. If one were of a cynical bent, one might suspect this fog was used so liberally so that the art team wouldn't have to make any skyboxes.
Exploration is also used for finding collectibles, such as pages, currency, and cards. I find the collectible-hunting somewhat frustrating; LiR has no built-in method for indicating where these collectibles may be located, meaning it's VERY easy to miss them completely, especially with the aforementioned confusing layouts. The provided "maps" offer little assistance in this matter, as they take a largely interpretive approach to the areas they ostensibly represent, and are occasionally not provided at all. I just gave up at finding all the pages when I got to Sixtopolis; the lack of a map, heavy fog, and windy passageways made navigation difficult enough without trying to also parse what was meant to be the main progression path versus an optional side path.
Combat in LiR follows a certain rhythm; you use Even's slingshot to shoot these little blue crystals that form on an enemy's surface and occasionally throughout the environment. These dispense blue cubes that fuel her Die, Dicey; the more you gain, the more cards you draw from your battle deck. Once you have a full hand, throw Dicey, and he'll give you a number of points to spend on those cards equal to the amount rolled.
The cards on offer speak, I feel, to a lack of creativity on the developers' behalf, with several cards in my inventory so esoteric as to be effectively useless. Attempting to draw an enemy towards a beam of light in between yourself and your Die is a tricky situation, as is ensuring that Dicey is within combustible distance of an enemy when he's set to explode. I wound up finding like 7 cards I liked and just using those the whole game, and I frequently found myself wishing for certain capabilities that the game never offered. Why not include a card that increases your base move speed, or that allows you to snap to an enemy, or that increases your maximum hand size? Maybe a "keep-away" card that forcefully repels anyone who gets too close to you? Or how about this: there's a card in the game that makes a tile where, if you stand on it, Dicey automatically rolls a six! What if there was a cheaper card that you could unlock earlier, that makes a tile that guarantees you DON'T roll a one?
The most frustrating thing about the combat system, however, is how little I'm able to get into it. Lost in Random has no special modes of any sort that allow one to experiment; I'd have gladly paid an extra fifteen dollars or so for an optional mode where I could play more of that chess piece minigame, where you have to face enemies while moving a piece across a board game. Perhaps an "endless mode," where you have to hold out for as long as you can, while the enemies get stronger and more numerous, and the piece just moves in a circle over and over? The only thing I can't think of is how one would be rewarded for participation in such a mode; perhaps with alternate cosmetics for Even or Dicey?
The point is, if you enjoy the combat, you better hope you extract all the enjoyment you can from the game itself. And frankly, I was left wanting. You can't even unlock all the cards in the game until the penultimate boss fight! Well, okay, technically there's TWO boss fights after your final unlock, but that's still most certainly not enough!
This combat system also grinds against the story in several strange ways. Every time Manny Decks showed up in some place where he wasn't supposed to be, it took me right out of the fiction. "Ah, the developers wanted me to have one last chance to buy some cards, which is why he has shown up in this esoteric realm that the plot says is LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE to get to normally." Then there's Chapter 5, which revolves around getting Even's "Dream Card," a card which is supposed to offer a significant edge in her quest... only it does absolutely nothing in gameplay whatsoever! Literally, I'd have forgiven it if there'd been even one instance where Even had to use it to break some shield the Queen had put up or something. There's only like a dozen fights between when you get it and the end of the game anyhow; it can't have been THAT game-breaking to implement properly.
I mean, the story has a lot of issues, too. The themes occasionally seem forced without proper set-up, and the characters, while endearing for the most part, tend to switch personalities on a dime. This is most egregiously felt with Even's sister, Odd, and [spoiler] the Queen [/spoiler], both of whom, without wishing to spoil, undergo a change so fast and dramatic it almost gave me whiplash. The whole thing puts me in mind of a painter trying to paint too broad a canvas with too little paint, forced to put in a bunch of unfinished details and large swaths of white that he decided to call "fog" after the fact.
Again, Lost in Random is a good game. But it was clearly striving for greatness, and I just don't think it was able to get there. Play it if you want a good time, but never forget, as I probably won't, what might have been.
