Lost in Random

Lost in Random is an action-adventure game played from a third-person perspective. Combat happens in arenas that look like a game board. Players must roll Dicey in order to progress and Even will only be safe when she reaches the final piece on the board. In combat, the player can use Even's slingshot.

While it does not damage enemies, opponents hit by her slingshot drop energy cubes which fuel Dicey. Once Dicey is fully fueled, players can roll it and time will be temporarily stopped. During this period, players can select the card they want to use, which is the only way to deal damage to enemies. There are five different types of cards (Weapon, Damage, Defense, Hazard, and Cheat), offering different gameplay advantages and combat abilities.

In the Kingdom of Random, the fate of all individuals is decided by a cursed black die when they reach the age of 12, with any who roll a six becoming a ward of the Queen as a "Royal Sixer" including Even's twin sister, Odd. A year later, Even secretly leaves home and journeys across the six realms of Random to rescue her sister, following a ghost. She meets Dicey, a sentient die who has lost nearly all of its pips and allows Even to use magical powers in the form of Cards.

Even slowly traverses Random, following the ghost. In Two-Town, everyone has split personalities based on the Queen's roll. Threeburg is ruled by triplets in constant war, each thinking the other was responsible for their father's murder. Even finds Fourberg completely destroyed by the Queen.

Lost in Random was developed by Swedish developer Zoink. According to Olov Redmalm, the game's creative director, Lost in Random was a homage to "dark fairy tales" and stop-motion animation. During the game's production, the team inspected the works of animation studio Laika, movies directed by Tim Burton, Grimms' Fairy Tales, and the Oddworld series for inspirations. Each realm features its own visual design, with art style inspired by The Nightmare Before Christmas, Over the Garden Wall, and the works of Australian artist Shaun Tan.

The game was penned by Ryan North, who had previously worked on The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl and the Adventure Time TV series. The game's soundtrack was composed by British composer Blake Robinson, who had previously worked on Portal Knights and The Stanley Parable.

Lost in Random received "generally favorable" reviews from critics for most platforms, except for the Xbox Series X/S version which received "mixed or average" reviews, according to review aggregator website Metacritic.

Destructoid praised each of the six realms, feeling that they were distinct from each other in non-visual ways, "Zoink does a good job of theming each world after its numerical, dice-based namesake. There's an amusing logic to how each realm operates. Seeing those quirks play out as Even, a total newcomer, is pretty entertaining". Rock Paper Shotgun liked the atmosphere of Random's world, noting its Burtonian influences, "Everyone teeters on long spindly limbs, and they're either gremlins with upside down faces, or withered trees wearing top hats.