As gamers we tend to focus on high octane and fast paced experiences. Adding 10% more explosions in a title, is a sure fire way to garner some extra attention from the public. But, sometimes a more laid back experience can also bring a breath of fresh air and just what the doctor ordered to wind down a little, for example just before bed. This is where Sweet Dreams Alex, released on Steam, comes in.
German developer Clarity Games set out to create a charming and relaxing puzzle game with Sweet Dreams Alex. After having spent some time with the game I can confidently say that they succeeded quite well in delivering just that. Don’t however confuse relaxing with easy, as you have to really sink your teeth into the more difficult puzzles.
To slumber land where nightmares await
The setup of the game is simple and indeed rather charming. You take on the role of a dream architect and are tasked with helping the 5 year old Alex process her days during the night. You do this by making sure she only has pleasant dreams and keeping nightmares away from her.
Confuse nightmares
What this translates to, is something akin a game of tower defense, just without any offensive capabilities. Each level has Alex as a goal for nightmares, who will march towards her via the shortest route possible. It’s your task to make this route long enough to stall the night frights for at least 60 seconds, at which point the level is complete. If a nightmare reaches poor Alex, her night will be ruined along with your mood for failing the level of course. Occasionally there will be multiple nightmares to content with at once and even some pleasant dreams that you actually want to guide to Alex within that time limit as an optional challenge.
Each level starts with the construction phase, during which you build your dream labyrinth with the resources available. Once done, you start the level and the dreams will make their way to Alex. You have no more control at this point, your incredible dream machine either works, or it’s back to the drawing board for some adjustments before you start the march anew. Game speed can be increased, which is great though I wish it could go even faster for seeing results of smaller adjustments. You can manually abort a run at any time to return to the construction mode at least.
A variety of dreams!
Now you might be thinking that this all sounds really easy. And sure enough, the game starts out extremely simple. What is not as apparent from the get go however, is how complex some levels can get and how varied your tools become and how the dreams interact with them. Each new type of construction is introduced separately, but when the game starts to combine these tools, that’s when things can get very tough. It’s one of those games where it becomes really difficult to fully predict a chain of events and how parts might interact with each other.
There are various themes for the levels, based on events in Alex’s life. It starts with moving into a new home where moving boxes function as walls. But other nightly inspirations come from exploring the neighborhood, for which you’ll need to make use of road crossings and traffic lights, or the mall where all the stores have turned into giant tetromino blocks which you need to carefully piece together into a long corridor to keep the night horrors stuck in shopping limbo.
Controls
Placing pieces is much like painting. Just point and click with the mouse; left to place, right to remove. Rotating blocks is done through the A and S keys, which I find a rather odd choice and one of my few, admittedly minor, points of critique. The relaxing and casual nature would benefit from a 1 hand control scheme. I’ve also been pushing the D key more times that I’d like to admit wondering why it wasn’t working, A and S for left and right just did not work in my brain.
Now we’re on the subject of rotating pieces, another thing I wish was a bit more consistent, are the directional markers. For example, during the playground stages there are quite a few one way objects. Stairs and slides you place have handy arrows to show the direction, but for the climbing log the green flag indicates the end point and has no arrows.
Something that is very consistent though, is the general aesthetic of the game. It’s all presented in a cozy pixel art style with a color palette that conveys the dreamscapes quite nicely. It’s complimented by a soothing soundtrack that will help keep you calm as you stretch those brain muscles on the tougher puzzles.
The world of a 5 year old
Along the way you will only find the overly nice ‘Theo the Tutorial’ teddy talking to you, introducing each new mechanic as you encounter it throughout the game. You’ll also find pages of Alex’s diary, which is mostly written by her parents with some help and drawings from Alex. These are actually quite charming and draws you into the world of this 5 year old. See, not all explosions have to be made from balls of fire, sometimes a little dose of feelgood will also do!
To keep the charm up, there is also some light customization of Alex’s clothing and her bedroom decor. The gamer in me kind of wishes these options would unlock as you went along to get some kind of reward for finishing levels, but it seems it’s all fully unlocked from the get go. The game does expect you to solve those levels yourself though, there is no hints or skip system, but you don’t have to finish all the levels to progress.
There are certain levels that are completely optional, which contain harder versions of specific puzzles and I can tell you that these can get pretty tough! Finding a solution in those, is quite rewarding in and of itself. Most levels on the main ‘required’ portion for progression can be solved via multiple solutions however.
Level editor
Finally, there is a level editor to make your own devious levels. Here you can mix and match all the tilesets and no doubt create to ridiculously difficult brain teasers. Since it’s all tile based, it’s extremely easy to use and there are some selection and fill tools to make things go smoothly. I’m not very creative, so didn’t toy around with it too much. I usually enjoy the works of others more. In Sweet Dream Alex I found that the way to share levels is truly archaic. There is no database to upload to or browse for levels, you have to copy your level code and share that with your friends. A disappointing omission for a game like this, especially with such an easy to use level editor.
Still, the base game itself sports well over 200 levels, so it will keep any puzzle fan occupied for a good while. I’ve enjoyed it for offering a relaxing puzzle challenge, without getting to demanding on precision, timing or speed. Instead I was invited to plan out needlessly long routes towards goals, it is nice to be rewarded for that ‘skill’ for once! I shall be sleeping well tonight…
Check out more Steam reviews on Retrolike.net.
Pros:
-Relaxing, feelgood game
-Easy to get into
-Plenty of levels with some high challenge
Cons:
-Can't play with just the mouse
-Sharing levels via codes
