DREAMO – Review (PC)
A coma is your prison. Your memories are locked within artifacts shackled by intricate puzzles. Your savior is an ominous voice guiding you through a labyrinth of symbolism and metaphors. This is the intriguing and mysterious set up for DREAMO, a new first person, narrative driven, puzzle game from developer Hypnotic Ants. By combining a novel setting with puzzle box inspired game play mechanics, DREAMO has the potential to be a memorable experience for mostly the right reasons.
The opening scene of DREAMO sees our protagonist Jack living out what could be his final moments as the plane he is on crashes to the earth. Shortly after, you awaken on a beach with no recollection of how you got there. While it seems as though you survived the crash and were lucky enough to wash ashore, a godly voice informs you that what you are seeing is not real. Jack is in a state of comatose in a hospital and is being subconsciously guided by someone called Dr. Tara Moreau. The game world and everything within is Jack’s conscience – populated with symbols of his experiences, memories, and loved ones.
Dr. Moreau is desperately aiding Jack to wake up from his coma. She does this by providing him direction through his maze-like mind and fully voiced conversations. These conversations are marked in the world by chat bubbles and serve to reveal vital details about Jack’s character as well as the doctor’s possible ulterior motives. For a puzzle game, the story is incredibly captivating. This persists throughout – from the opening moments to the culmination of Jack’s journey. The only issue with the narrative is that the “chats” between Dr. Moreau and Jack only trigger when you stand in a specific spot. If you move too far away from the icon where the conversation is meant to take place, the narration stops. It would have been nice to move freely while conversations were taking place rather than awkwardly remaining stationary.
The primary game play mechanic in DREAMO revolves around solving puzzle boxes known as artifacts. These cubes have pegs where gears can be placed. By chaining together a series of cogs in the correct order, the puzzle box is solved. Each one of these artifacts holds a key to Jack’s memories and the secrets those memories hold. As you progress through Jack’s conscience and solve puzzles, more is revealed about who exactly our protagonist is and his importance to Dr. Moreau.
The Escher-esque puzzles are certainly unique and pose a significant challenge especially as you move deeper into the game. Unfortunately, they weren’t all that enjoyable. Many times, solutions were found by simply slotting cogs in random places and hoping for the best. Early on in the game, complexities are added to puzzles in the form of pegs which can be manipulated. Some will retract when others are extended. Pegs will slide along rails with gravity as the cube is rotated. Individual faces of the cube can also be rotated to allow for different fittings of gears. It quickly becomes difficult to ascertain how one move will affect the rest of the cube – so much so that solving a puzzle was often achieved by just trying random combinations until something worked. This resulted in a much less satisfying sense of success.
Recommendation: Much of our playthrough in DREAMO was spent in frustration. Clearing the game’s numerous artifact themed puzzles felt complicated and quickly became monotonous. Luckily, DREAMO‘s lackluster puzzle design is accompanied by a unique setting and enthralling story. This redeeming quality makes it somewhat memorable. Nevertheless, avid fans of the puzzle genre will want to check this out, and the casual passerby will hopefully find the same intrigue in the story that we did.
DREAMO releases on Steam on February 20th, 2020.
DREAMO was given to the reviewer by the publishing company but this fact did not alter the reviewer’s opinion.
