Games like Dream are the bane of any reviewer’s writing existence. I first played Dream when it popped up on early access about a year before it’s full release, drawn in by the enticing premise of an exploration game based around the landscape of dreams. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t foresee my promising dream landscape to have an unfortunately shallow depth of field, triggering headaches that rattled my skull for the following few hours, and with very few options to adjust in the game, I abandoned it hopeful that some pre-release developments will fix a few issues so I could finally enjoy the game for what it is. And, fortunately for me, these fixes seem to have been issued since when revisiting Dream I didn’t feel like someone had just hit me round the head with a sledgehammer. But unfortunately now that I am able to see through what was an immensely thick fog of technical issues I now know that Dream is just… Bland. And thus, I am now forced to review a game I expected so much from, but received so little.
I’ve always had an interest in the cynically named “walking-simulators” to the point where I’ve found myself as one of the few defending the avidly criticised Dear Esther, however Dream doesn’t seem to push the envelope in the way I’d have expected. With such an interesting premise – one that seems to be developing as one of the more common in the genre – when first playing Dream I didn’t really see how it could go wrong primarily as a result of my enthusiastic and almost childlike excitement. As a beautiful, lovingly designed and aptly developed exploration game about dreams, I don’t think many players dominated by raw cynicism would be in their right mind to write it off as they, and I, have with many other steam titles. But enough about my own disappointment, on to talking about the game itself.
In Dream, you start out sitting on a comfortable couch in the all too familiar state of lethargy, greeted by an open pizza box and a TV of screeching static. The protagonist, called Howard, introduces himself by remarking that he has just had a crazy dream, and is ready to have another. I’m not usually one for nitpicking, but it should be noted that Howard spends the entire game sleeping, and whenever he’s not sleeping he’s usually preparing himself for another tiresome nap, ready to go on another dream-based adventure. And, as an ambivalent antagonist later explains, he’s not even any good at that, since (as he describes) his dreams are too “safe”, and never in any way psychologically ambitious. The villain of the game takes on Howard’s voice, occasionally spitefully spitting remarks about how pathetic or lazy he is, and, to be honest, I struggle to disagree with him. Howard is characterized as a boring and drippy incarnation of the typical dry-humoured witty British archetype; never before have I heard voice acting any more indicative of the CBBC (the UK’s own, and main, children’s broadcasting channel), where lines are delivered with so much forced and condescending enthusiasm that even a toddler would be seen rolling their eyes and muttering a “Yeah, yeah, we get it” to every single obvious line.
But maybe I’m being a little too harsh on Dream. I suppose on the brighter side, it is a beautiful game – there are very few indie games that look as though they have been aesthetically designed by a triple-A publisher, and Dream certainly wouldn’t seem too far amiss in a lineup of next-gen console exclusive releases showing off their graphic capability. But I feel as though the beauty of the game is a mask to hide the simplistic and often times boring level design. Strip away the landscapes and all you’re left with is a long and tedious journey to a basic puzzle, which offers a ticket to the next level. I feel as though the landscapes, although beautiful in still image, offer very little in terms of atmosphere and cohesiveness of design – I honestly would have rather the developer, Hypersloth, invested the time spent on the beauty of the game in making the game, well, good. I feel as though Hypersloth could have taken a few pointers from the developers of Rememoried, who seem to have realized that when confronting themes of surreality, less is usually more.
There was one sequence in Dream that I found promising. During the inevitable nightmare segment of the game, the player is placed in an enclosed prison resembling Howard’s home. Not only does this exploit the rarely used horror trope of the uncanny – but it also demands the player explore an environment that they are familiar with and identify all the differences that make it uncanny. Here, in the enclosed halls of Howard’s home, the tension rose to its thickest – the player left aware that, although nothing is going on, they are being watched by someone through an Orwellian CCTV system, with cameras monitoring their every move. Doors and windows were plastered shut – I felt as though the unintentional eeriness of Gone Home had finally been realized in an all-too intentional and terrifying form. Unfortunately when the tension of the sequence peaked, I was forced to sit through an extensive and offensively poor dialogue scene, after which I was offered no obvious method of progressing through the game. After spending up to half an hour clicking on every corner of the room I was confined in, I had to ultimately reboot the game, where I (assumedly) lost my progress in the level. To this very hour I am unsure if this was intentional or not, since upon rebooting the game I was able to move on to an unplayed level, but the game’s inability to communicate with the player and offer feedback to mark progression or regression has left me in the dark.
I finally gave up on Dream when confronted with a puzzle that, to me, made no sense. Unfortunately, throughout Dream there is very little direction as to where, and how, to complete each level. Although this can be acceptable in cases of immersion, I felt as though the abysmal voice acting and often immensely confusing puzzles warranted, at the very least, a tip as how to complete them. The developers seemed aware of this mistake, since I would occasionally notice an option to skip puzzles altogether – which comes across to me as an undignified and self-aware note of resignation, admitting that there are flaws in the game while not having the gall to confront and fix them. After getting stuck, I was tempted to drop the game and thus never review it, concluding that it simply wouldn’t give me enough to go on, but I now feel as though if a game will simply refuse legitimate progress, that should be used as a criticism in it’s own right.
So, there we go. It was a challenge, but I feel I have finally conquered my albatross of reviewingDream. It is, perhaps, worth a shot if you’re excited by what Hypersloth have made of the concept, but unfortunately all it did for me was aggravate my stress levels and give me countless headaches.
