- Estimated achievement difficulty: 3/10
- Offline: 12 (200)
- Online: 0 (0)
- Approximate amount of time to 200 : 30+ hours
- Minimum number of playthroughs needed: 1 for game, multiple for stages
- Number of missable achievements: 0
- Glitched achievements: None
- Cheats disable achievements: No cheats
- Does difficulty affect achievements: No
Introduction
If you're looking for a quick 200, don't look here. For those who are looking for a beautifully crafted and challenging puzzle game, look no further. What feels like Lemmings meets the film Coraline, Lucidity is a rail-platform puzzler where you have to choose how to use the item that is given to you to not only make it across the stage safely, but to also obtain fireflies. For every 100 you collect you gain a bonus stage, and no you cannot go back and collect the same fireflies you already obtained.
There are three acts to the game, 27 stages in the main story with 16 bonus stages to unlock (one unlocks every 100 fireflies collected), and five items to choose from. You have the ability to put 1 item in the store spot on the top left of the screen, which can be swapped out at any time, but you cannot skip a piece, and the piece you get to progress through the stage is random. And if you miss any fireflies, don't worry, you can always select that stage again from the stage select map, which will also tell you how many fireflies you have left to obtain in that stage.
And be warned, you're not alone! There are creatures that will get in your way, as well as bushes on the bottom of the stages that, if touched, will kill you automatically, as well as some small, circular pointy bushes that appear on platforms in later stages. Also, starting in Act 2, if you happen to get stuck at a wall, make sure you obtain a means to escape (often a pipe bomb) as quick as you can, since you will either be devoured by a wall of darkness, or, in Act 3, a wall of ghosts (white) and have to restart the stage. You get infinite lives, so if you mess up, don't worry, you can always go back and try again.
In some instances, after a certain amount of fireflies have been obtained, an arrow will show up above the girl's head, which will help you find where the remaining fireflies are. And for those who have no idea how to find them, they are represented by four yellow, slightly moving circles huddled together (which equals 1 firefly for some reason, not 4). If you collected them, then they will be white and won't count. You also need these if you're hit, as you can only take damage twice. The bottom left of the screen shows how many fireflies have been collected, and if it's flashing, you need one firefly to prevent being sent back to the beginning if you take damage.
Step One: Run through
You only need to do one run through of the entire game, though it'll take a good while, especially if you're not too familiar with the mechanics of this type of game. Just try to make it through the game, collect as many fireflies as you can or are comfortable with at that time, and you should net a total of 100, obtaining "First Steps", "Wonder", "Fear", "Courage", and Firefly Collector. If you're good enough you can obtain Ouch Free, and "Firefly Enthusiast" for 25. I suggest that you run the bonus stages as they unlock too in this run through to aid in the firefly achievements, and the "Mastering Of The Underground" achievement as well.
Step Two: Clean up
Once you finish the third act, you're done and can go back to the map and finish cleaning house. Head back and obtain the fireflies on every stage in order to unlock the according firefly achievements (you need 1,500 total, so get cracking!) and work on the "Shy of the Firefly" and "Cleaning Up" achievements. For "Cleaning Up", I have posted a rough map showing the locations of the fireflies to help you obtain this achievement quicker.
Conclusion
All in all the game is pretty simple and straight forward, but getting the proper pieces and acting quickly enough winds up being your worst enemy. The only advice I can leave you with is remain calm in the game and don't panic. Throw on your favorite relaxation CD if you like, make maps if need be, or record the stages and look them over, whatever you may want to do. In some cases you may need to practice the stages, as it's unavoidable. When you start going back, pick a stage (as you should be familiar with it) and don't let up until you get all 1,600 fireflies needed and complete every bonus stage! This one will take all your inner strength to complete...