Published
and developed by Cockroach Ink.
The
recent revival of point-and-click adventure games by indie developers has been
great for anybody interested in the genre.
If nothing else, there has been a great selection of them, and The Dream
Machine’s first three chapters are a promising start.
After
moving into his new apartment with his wife, Alicia, Victor Neff finds a
mysterious note that the previous tenant left.
From there, he realizes that there is something more going on in the
apartment building, eventually leading to the reveal of the dream machine
itself, which is mapping out the collective dreamscape.
It
should be noted that this game is a bit of a slow mover. It’s lucky that the first two chapters are
bundled together, as chapter 1 on its own does not stand at all. It’s basically just “There’s something odd
going on here” up until halfway through chapter 2. If this was a game as itself, this would have
been acceptable, but the fact that the game is being released episodically
makes this a bit of an odd choice. The
other big note I should make before I continue is that this game may look
family-friendly for a while, with only a sprinkling of harsh language, but the
end of chapter 3 goes to a very dark territory. Make no mistake, this is a game for adults.
What
sets this game apart most of all are the visuals. They are done with hand-made claymation,
giving the game a great style. It lets
it be very stylized while still being grounded.
Most importantly, it gives it that touch of love that shows that the
developers really dedicated themselves to this game. The other interesting thing Dream Machine does
is in its dialogue choices. During dialogue,
you’re constantly given the chance to be mean to other characters. It seems to have little effect on how the
game actually turns out, but it is nice to give the player a chance to put some
personality of their own into Victor.
And
of course, every adventure game stands or falls based on its puzzles. I’d say the puzzles here are fairly
simple. There was only one I really had
trouble with, while most of them tended to be “Pick up everything you can and
find a use for it”. Still, there were
never any great logical leaps that had to be made, no games of guessing what
the developer was thinking. Everything
made sense, and it may just be that things made too much sense at times. This does make the game a good place to start
for those new to the adventure genre.
While
its puzzles may not be the most difficult, Dream Machine’s interesting visuals
and atmosphere make it a fun adventure game.
Its first three chapters are out now, and hopefully, it won’t be too
long for the final two.
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