Lost in Random: The Eternal Die

There have always been highs and lows to the roguelike genre, but since its inception and growth from the early 1980s right the way through to the popularisation of the ‘rogue-lite’ sub-genre in the late 2000s, one thing has remained clear: the cycle of dying and retrying is as satisfying as it is addictive – a fact Lost In Random: The Eternal Die relies on to hook you into this latest adventure.

Unlike its predecessor, The Eternal Die strips away the core RPG and deck-building elements of Lost In Random to instead create an action-orientated dungeon crawler, holding on strong to the themes of luck during combat, albeit in a different way.

Where the first game required you to build up energy and roll your die for a favourable outcome, thereby allowing you to play an ability from your hand, The Eternal Die instead puts your dice-rolling on the back seat, turning your six-sided companion into more of an accessory than a necessity; instead, you will slice and dice (pun intended) through waves of enemies as you explore deeper into The Black Die – the procedurally generated dungeons you will be spending most of your time in – to seek revenge.

Players will take on the role of Queen Aleksandra, a familiar name to fans of the original, who seeks to destroy the Black Die and its ruler, the appropriately named ‘Mare the Knight’. Outside of some initial exposition covering the basics of the original, much of the story is told through dialogue delivered by characters both within the hub area (known simply as ‘The Sanctuary’) and the bosses and NPCs you will encounter in the field of battle.

Combat centres around three key abilities, all of which can be upgraded and augmented to vary your experience in each run; the first and perhaps most important is your basic attack, allowing you to deal set damage to enemies or charge up to increase your power, range or area depending on how you build your character – even though weapon choice may appear limited at first, each weapon can be altered in surprising ways, such as changing the bow’s charge attack from a single, powerful bolt to a fan of three arrows.

Outside of swinging hammers and swords with abandon, players also have access to fifteen ability ‘cards’ – these are found throughout each run, providing a variety of effects when triggered. Much like the basic attack, this can be used on its own or charged to provide an expanded moveset, with the caveat that, unlike a standard attack, it needs to be released with precise timing to activate it. This can prove difficult when balancing multiple avenues of attack but is vital for success, allowing you to fire yourself at your enemies surrounded by a ring of electricity, launch a large debuff-inducing fist at your enemies or even spread hurricanes wildly about the stage.

The final ability in your arsenal comes in the form of Fortune, your six-sided companion dice, who can be thrown and collected to cause area damage, rolling a number between one and six in the process. When compared to the other abilities at your disposal, Fortune lacks the punch that cards can provide and tends to be easily forgotten in the early stages of the game, offering nothing more than a quick bit of crowd control in tough situations. This is where the augmentation system known as ‘relics’ comes into play, allowing you to increase or alter your damage output, abilities, cooldowns and any synergetic abilities you are utilising. This includes allowing certain numbered rolls to apply additional effects such as damage and debuffs.

Although one of the most useful parts of any single run, the relic system is poorly explained in the game itself and lacks sufficient tutorials for features such as colour matching, but once mastered, can prove invaluable for progress; thankfully, relics are not the only form of upgrade the game offers, with permanent increases to health, improved critical hit chances and even death revivals purchasable from the various Sanctuary vendors – much like Hades, Dead Cells and other genre staples, these upgrades are invaluable for progress.

It is easy to argue which upgrade vendor is the best, whether you would prefer to increase your weapon efficacy or your personal stats, but the most powerful vendor in the game comes in the form of the Rug Reader, who allows you to change your style with wardrobe expansions picked up on each run. I would love to tell you this is due to buffs provided by the garments, but I would be lying – it’s simply about playing the game as fashionably as possible; you owe it to yourself to slay while you slay.

Lost In Random: The Eternal Die is difficult by its very nature, as any roguelike tends to be – it utilises this difficulty to steer the player towards pattern recognition and slow, incremental progress; where this slow pace proves difficult or the game provides too gruelling a challenge, players can also opt to play in easy mode, which vastly improves your stats between runs and augments your health at the outset, meaning the game remains accessible for all skill levels. Arguments have always been had about the efficacy of an easy mode, but allowing more people to access a game is always a net positive as far as I am concerned.

Despite a strong foundation, the game tends to fall short in progress and replayability; the story remains consistently engaging and each new character is a delight to meet, which is no surprise given the absurd nature of the world, but the areas themselves don’t change drastically within each of the four biomes. That isn’t to say the biomes themselves aren’t unique or well presented in their design, but they simply lack variety in the long run – there are only so many variations on a castle interior you can walk through before it becomes tedious and trust me: you’ll be seeing the first biome a lot throughout the early game.

Part of the designed, purposeful charm of the original definitely gets lost in translation with the introduction of a roguelike formula – where games like Going Under keep things fresh by leaning heavily into a manufactured sense of familiarity and a strong visual style, The Eternal Die doesn’t command a strong enough presence to keep this pretence, with the sanctuary being the only place that feels fleshed out at times – procedurally generated dungeons often fall foul of this issue, but it becomes more obvious when exploring or backtracking through previously visited areas. 

Much like the core visuals, one factor of the original that has carried over well is the music and sound design – from the satisfying clash of steel with every attack to the haunting bells of the intro theme, one thing that players cannot fault is the incredible audio that prevails throughout the game; even when gameplay falls flat, the music always stays sharp.