Lucidity (PC) (2009)

Overview: Place objects to help guide a little girl named Sofi safely through her dreams.

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20231219 Snapshot:
Achievement History:
20110103 First Steps, Firefly Collector
20110106 Wonder
20110123 Firefly Enthusiast

Steam Game Time: 5.1 hours (cumulative game time)
Last Played: 20140112

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20231219:
Today I loaded up this game. First I tried to load up an old save file using Game Save Manager. This seemed to freeze the game and so I deleted the old files and the menu was working again. I noticed in one of the files `usernames.txt` it referred to my Steam Name differently. So I loaded up the old save file again and replaced the entry of the older `usernames.txt` with how it would be on a fresh load. Luckily this did the trick and I was able ot use my old save file which had levels finished up to right before the end of Act II. I did play a couple of earlier levels to jog my memory of what the game was about.

Setup: Used the mouse.

I managed to complete the story and then I tried some of the achievements. I'm thinking the game is too random and hectic to collect more fireflies. It would honestly be more of a grind than skill.

Steam Game Time: 6.8 hours (cumulative game time) / 1.7 hours (session game time) / 103 minutes (last two weeks)

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Thoughts:
Pro:
+ Drawings and good art design

Neutral:
~ Overall story is mediocre, pieces of the story are okay

Cons:
- Power-ups come too randomly. While there's some strategy to piecing together different power-ups, the levels are not structured in a way that aligns itself with using multiple strategies. Often there is just one power-up needed for a particular section and it just feels bad/weird/frustrating to cycle through other power-ups. I think a hand of power-ups would be better - like a hand of five.
- Can't zoom out. At least if players had more time and space to plan where to put items. Some areas are off-screen and can't even be prepped for appropriately.
- No good checkpoint system with penalty of losing fireflies; there should be clear checkpoints and all fireflies saved up to the checkpoint should be secured

Remark: I was playing a little more to take some screenshots. Some of my complaints about and/or difficulties with the game do diminish with practice. However, it is unfortunate that the main game didn't take note of some of the bonus levels, which fed out power-ups in a less random fashion. Levels crafted around certain power-ups with those power-ups occurring in higher distribution would have made the game more skill-based and hence more enjoyable.

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Summary:
The game starts off alright, and with not so many power-ups the randomness is mildly annoying. However, as the game ramps up in difficulty, the randomness becomes frustrating and the game concept is ruined. I think playing through the main story is okay. Completing all the achievements would be manageable but collecting all the fireflies would be a grind.*

*There's no achievement for collecting all the fireflies (over 2000). There is an achievement for collecting 1500 fireflies.

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Lucidity (PC) (2009)

Relevant Links:
Lucidity (video game) (Wikipedia.org)
Lucidity (PC) (MetaCritic.com)
Lucidity (steamdb.info)
Lucidity (Steam Store Page)