PixlBit

Random is one of my favorite words thanks to DnD, and so I was immediately intreged by this addition to Game Pass a few months ago. At first, I was frustrated with it, thinking there would be more random elements, or dice throwing, or something like that instead of lots of dialog and story, like there is in the beginning of the game, so I stopped; but, I tried it again a few weeks ago and got way deep into it. It's a pretty fantastic game. 

This is a weird, weird world you're dropped into. The Queen of Random decides who lives at what socioeconomic level in her kingdom by a roll of the dice (d6). If you get a 1, you must live in the lowest, poorest town; a 6 and you get to live in the palace with the queen. Between the two are towns at intermediate levels. Your sister gets a 6 and is taken to the palace, and you get a 1. You want to be with your sister and so go on a quest to rescue her. The palace is a mysterious place, and it's suggested that it might not be so wonderful as its legend. 

Then you meet Dicey, a sentient die (d6) that joins you and makes combat possible. You journey up the levels of towns, fighting enemies and the boss of each town. The battle system is unique and reminds me of Lost Kingdom on GameCube. You fight in third-person, real-time. You have a slingshot which knocks loose crystals from enemies which powers up Dicey. When Dicey is powered up, you throw him and time stops. Then you can use your cards that give you various abilities to do real damage. So it's: collect crystals by knocking them off enemies, stop time, pick a card, and knock 'em dead. That's the cycle. It can make for some hectic battles as you dodge a lot during your crystal knocking phase, and then attack for the limited time the cards allow. 

The story is pretty neat, and the characters macabre and quirky. The art style is grotesque but very interesting. I recently watched the stop-motion film Box Trolls, and the gothic style is similar here (of note also is the similarity to Nightmare Before Christmas). What do you expect from a developer from Gothenberg, Sweden. They got "goth" right in their home town's name.

The developer is Zoink (now part of Thunderful) who did games like Zombie Vikings (which I played and liked) and Fe. Thunderful has released games like The Gunk (which I loved), and is soon to release Steamworld Build, which looks really interesting.