It is hard to look at the gorgeous hand-painted look of Lucasarts' Lucidity and not expect something akin to the wonders of Braid, especially given the action puzzler gameplay of both titles. Sadly, not every pretty picture has depth behind it. Lucidity tells the tale of a young girl named Sofi staying the night at her grandmother's farm. With her grandma reading her a bedtime story, Sofi drifts off to a nightmarish fantasy version of the farm. Sofi begins sleepwalking, perpetually moving forward. Your job is to get her from one side of the level to the next, by placing various objects in her way to help her collect fireflies and avoid dangerous pits and enemies. If Sofi hits an enemy, she must collect a firefly before hitting the next, or you restart the level. Levels are not too long, but they do become much more dangerous, as you keep her in the air with minimal set ground pieces available.
The game is broken into three acts, with levels becoming increasingly complex and challenging. The further you get in the game, the tougher the obstacles and enemies get. Enemies begin zipping around in patterns directly in Sofi's way. You can occasionally get Sofi stuck on a wall to prevent her moving forward while you figure out your next move, but the game takes that option away in the second act, where the twilight begins slowly sweeping through the screen behind her. You have the choice of two objects to use most of the time, with a 'hold' area for an object you wish to wait to use. The lone exception is when you get unlucky and have identical objects behind one another in your queue. Your arsenal of objects increases through the game, from the early spring-shoes and wooden planks to destructive bombs and slingshots, but luck of the draw too often affects your success in a level.
The items are all in random order in each level. Thankfully, there is no penalty for misplaced objects. This leads to you rapidly dropping useless items on the screen on higher levels, as you attempt to get to something you can use. The game also shows you the next available item in your queue, but it is not exactly helpful; thanks to a camera that you cannot move. The camera is tied strictly to Sofi, leaving you no room to look around the level to plan future moves. You can see a decent amount of the level in front of her, but the game becomes increasingly vertical, forcing you to elevate and drop her almost blindly. It leads to some unnecessary deaths, as you cannot always know whether you are sending her into danger before it is too late. It will also drive completists insane, since there are plenty of hard to reach fireflies in the upper reaches of levels that you will not see unless you get lucky enough to land the right set of items, and will likely lead to many play-throughs with little to no reward.
Collecting fireflies eventually unlocks bonus rooms, with their own set of fireflies to capture, but by the time you are rewarded the levels you may be ready to give up on your firefly hunt. The game is easily one of the best-looking games on XBLA. It feels very much like a children's book, with a rich color palette and tranquil score nailing the fantasy atmosphere. Despite its flaws, Lucidity is a tough game to hate. There is far from enough depth here to keep veteran puzzle gamers entertained, and the lack of camera control will lead plenty to giving up before the second act, but the game's charms do work their magic on you the longer you play.
