Dream Alone

Bad hitboxes, and really bad checkpoint design, like, REALLY bad. If you go down a really long empty corridor, or up 7 ladders, and then die at a hazard after that, you can be about 90% certain that the checkpoint will be at the start of the boring empty section, and you have to trundle through that before you can get to anything that matters. There are no graphic options, none at all. No resolution or anything, and you certainly can't turn off the incredibly heavy and distracting noise effect -- or the blinking effect, as if the noise effect wasn't distracting enough. It seems like the devs really don't want you to play this game, the way it is designed. It's annoying, especially because I think it would've been completely fine with a few tweaks. It's not super terrible, but it's frustrating in a way that doesn't feel very rewarding to play. Also, if you quit to menu mid-level, whoops! Back to the start of the level when you continue! At least it's not back to the very start, just the start of the sub-level of each main level (there are 3 or 4 sub-level sections to each level). And quitting isn't the only source of this, since I also got a softlock when I died at the same time I activated the world-switching ability; the world repeatedly did the switching effect in a loop, my character disappeared, and I had to quit the game, as it was completely frozen. I was not impressed.

I've only just started playing and I already can't stand the flickering grainy visuals that make it hard to see anything.

-annoying and badly placed checkpoints
-no option for choosing your own keys for movement/powers
-game expects you to time every single move you make (if you take a second longer to jump, you're automatically dead and you have restart from one of the horrible checkpoints)

I'm glad that I bought this game when it was on sale. So I didn't have to waste 9 euros :)

Dream Alone is a complete piece of trash and a horrible game, so what’s the story.

A young boy’s Village and his family contract a disease that puts them into a coma, he hears of someone called Lady Death who can save them. So he soon sets out to find her.

Now for the likes, the some of the music was okay and the background art was kind of nice looking. The enemy designs were cool looking like the faceless spiders monsters and I do like that at the start of a new chapter is told like a fairytale/story book opening.

Now for the dislikes and there is a lot to dislike about this game. To start the story is very confusing, as I said at the start of a new chapter its has a fairytale/storybook opening.

But the problem with it is its very inconsistent and barely has anything to do with the boy’s story except for Lady Death, but it’s just too confusing and has nothing to do with the boy and his problem.

The Ending is also really bad and confusing, basically when we get to lady death she says that we have to get a box for her but we're never supposed to open it. but the boy does open it and it turns out that his family is okay but then it turns out he's not part of the family and he turns into some kind of demon thing, I don't know the game doesn't even have narration to explain what the hell happened.

the game's graphics/picture is really bad, the game is black and white normally that's actually not a problem but in this game it has this very grainy look to it which can be hard to see sometimes and there's also this weird dark filter thing where this darkness closes in and out like your blinking and it got really, really annoying.

The gameplay can be very frustrating, it's a simple side-scroller but what made it bad and very annoying was all the damn traps in the game. There are tons of traps that kill you in one hit and when you’re trying to get past you have to be pinpoint accurate or you die. There were so many of them that it almost made me quit the game.

The game also has this power were you can switch between two different realities but you see in other games that have this kind of mechanic, it can help you solve puzzles or get past enemies. But in this game it's rarely used other than revealing some platforms or hidden doors or showing a hidden lever sometimes times, it doesn't make enemies disappear like in other reality altering games and it’s so rarely used you forget to use it until you’re stuck,
It also requires power to use and if your power for drained you have to die and collect the power ups to use it again. Sometimes the platforming can also be a pain we're even though your close to the next platform you still miss it and fall.

There's also bugs in the game now I don't know if this was my computer or the game, but when I was at one part of the cave level my computer kept going into power save mode and I had to unplug the cable to my computer screen and plug it back in, I even checked if everything was okay, it was. But it's still kept doing that, it did stop and I was able to beat level and it didn't show up again, so I don't know if it was my computer or the game itself. Just thought I'd mention it just in case it was the game.

The level designs in the game are really bad sometimes the worst being the cave level because of that bug I mentioned, the city level because there's a part in the game were you go into this house and you have to hit all the levers to unlock a door.
but it doesn't give an indication you have to hit four levers then the one you see and if you die you have to start all the way back to the beginning which can be a pain in the ass. And the Battlefield level with all the damned explosive traps.

And what really makes this game so bad is the fact that it did have potential I mean given to a proper game developer I'm sure it would have been a classic but as it is right now well it's just garbage pure simple garbage.

All right then with all that said Dream Alone is a complete piece of trash and a horrible game, its story is bad, its gameplay is bad, its level designs are bad and even those I got this when it was on sale I still feel ripped off. So never ever get this game not even if it's on sale, not even if it was a gift.

This game is melting my brains literally because it is annoyingly hard. But that's okay.
I will forgive that little thing.
I don't need brains anyway ^^ It's more fun to be brainless scumbag ~ Q w Q
... Yo need to be a masochist if you like this c; ~ Hurr durr

Sweet Jeebus... how do I even begin to express my disdain for this game? This is one of the most miserable gaming experiences I”ve had in quite some time.

The annoying graphical effect of a severely degraded 8mm film coupled with a blinking eye. This may have been cool if used sparingly, but it is there the entire game. I absolutely hated it. Sound design and music were very generic and just plain meh. Of course, if there’s elements of great gameplay, these shortcomings can be overlooked...

Sadly, the gameplay is complete rubbish. The controls are not nearly refined enough for a game of this type. Couple this with some moments of just awful level design and you have a recipe for anger and frustration. There’s no way to see below you and many instances where you need to drop down, only to have a set of spikes waiting for you. Checkpoint system is also severely lacking. And, worst of all, the pause menu has only one option. - return to title screen. So if you accidentally pause your game and push anything other than the start button... back to the main menu you go. This usually involves having to replay a long stretch of sections you previously cleared (and don’t want to have to play again).

Do not play this game. Even if you get it for free, do not waste your precious time on this steaming turd of a game. 💩😠👎

It's wannabe Limbo with repeated enemies and traps scattered about. It's like flash animation so everything seems like a paper cut out. Such as enemy spiders, they have that overlapping annoying structure with spriter-based bone structure and shitty blood effects. The camera has a constant blinking effect that quickly becomes annoying as hell while trying to progress. The character is a stupid doll-like looking little boy ripped off from Braid. The jumping mechanic has an automatic 'float' to it. It's really not worth playing. I've seen better android games although it has that generic control feel all around. 2.4/10. I say 2.4 because it seems as though there was a vision here and the animation shows the artist's work but fails miserably at providing an enjoyable experience whatsoever. And it seems to be one of those "game dumps" where the developer gave up and half assed it just to get it out there with no intentions on returning to make it a proper game that's even remotely worth playing. I was looking into a refund but it seems I got this game in a bundle which it was published and developed by separate entities than the other titles so I am still willing to give them a chance. So it looks like I'm stuck with it. Absolutely not worth $4 (Steam summer sale; 2019), I'm annoyed having paid a $2+ equivalent within a bundle.

Do I like that game ? Yes.
The dark aesthetic is really cool and the controls work fine, which is pretty crucial for a platformer.
But god damn it is soul crushing, I can totally understand the other criticisms I heard.
If you buy that game, prepare to die to a lot of bull***t.

Edit : Changed my evaluation to negative because some checkpoints are placed really terribly for a game where everything kill you in one hit and it make you redo really large portions of it.

Rating

2/10

Worth it?

NO!
Absolutely not!
Do not buy this game.

Playtime

It took me around 7 hours to complete the game, but you can probably do it in about 5.
I spent a lot of time alt-tabbing to take notes about how bad this game was.

Comparison

It tries to be like Limbo, Inside or Little Nightmares but it's not. Cause those games were good.

Story

At the beginning there's an intro, telling a story of a village where everyone got sick and went into a coma. Only one boy survived and went to look for Lady Death who could heal everyone. Not so bad, right? You get to the end of the first section (three levels), you don't get to meet Lady Death or any other characters. And before the second section starts, there's another video. This time it talks about a brother and a sister who went into the woods, met a Lady in Black and got sweet berries from her. See where this is going? Each section has a cutscene that tells a different fairy tale and it has absolutely no connection to the gameplay.
I played the English version with subtitles turned on and the subtitles were often different than what was being said in the videos.

Graphics

I was playing at 2560x1080 and in the main menu, the game logo was cut in half.
Also, when changing options in the menu, this horrible transition happens where two menus are visible at the same time, overlapping. You can see both issues here.
The graphics in the game are not so bad, the art-style is interesting, but the animations are far from perfect.
In one of the levels I was sliding down on one of the planes, but there was no sliding animation, just the character moving down while standing still. It was even funnier when I tried to move and the character turned around, so he was sliding down by standing still backwards. As stupid as it sounds.
When you jump and grab onto a ledge, you need to pull yourself up. There's a climbing animation that's way too long and there's a glitch towards the end of the animation that makes it jump between frames in an unnatural way.
And the rain, oh man, that's just plain ugly.

Audio

The music is actually the only part of this game that wasn't annoying. But I didn't hear enough of it because I was swearing out loud so much about how bad the rest of this game was.
What I hated most was the lack of consequence in playing some of the sounds. For example, in the first levels, you'll encounter enemies known as ticks. Some of the first ones you'll see are just walking on the ground, but not far after that, they will start falling from the sky. There's a sound of a tree branch breaking that accompanies their fall and it acts like a warning for you to not let them hit you. But a few minutes later you'll see more of them falling from the sky and there's no sound this time around.
You have to jump a lot in this game. And the "ugh" sound that plays on each jump starts playing a tiny bit too late, while you're already mid-air. It's incredibly irritating.

Mechanics

The nightmare starts early, right in the main menu. When you drill down to an option that you want to modify and you make a change, you'd expect to stay in the same sub-menu. Nope, not here. Here it will throw you back to the top level of the main menu. It may not sound like much, but if you want to update two or three settings and have to drill down the same path each time it gets frustrating.
If you press the pause button during the game it will show you a menu with just one option - Return to Main Menu. There is no Resume option or Restart From Last Checkpoint. You have to be really careful about which button you press next - you may accidentally go back to the main menu and lose your current level's progress. That's right, when you Continue from the main menu it will start the last level from the beginning, not from the last checkpoint.
When the game is paused you can't move, but some enemies do still walk around.
And the jumping itself feels so unnatural like your character is defying gravity and slowly floating upwards (feels a bit like it's in slow-motion).

Gameplay

It's a pretty basic platformer, you can go left/right and jump. You don't have any weapons, but over time you get three "abilities" - switching to an alternate reality where you can find some extra platforms to jump on, a flashlight (?!) to help in the darker levels and the option to create a stationary clone of yourself that can hold switches for you.
That alternative reality sounded interesting at first, but when I wanted to go there to avoid some enemies - surprise surprise - they also existed there. It's only useful in a few specific locations.
The ability to switch to an alternate reality has limited use time - there's a meter that goes down when it's in use. It is also mandatory to use in some of the locations. Meaning there's a chance you'll get stuck and be unable to proceed if you run out of juice. And like I already mentioned, there's no option in the menu to restart from the last checkpoint, so when that happens, you can either try to get killed and restart from a checkpoint or go back to the main menu and start the whole level from scratch.
The enemies walk on pre-programmed paths, which will make them change direction without any logical indication. And it's inconsistent too - sometimes they will just patrol the area from point A to B, other times they will just continue marching forward, falling into any holes that might be in front of them. And since you don't have any weapons, there are only two ways of moving past enemies - have them fall into a hole or jump over them.
I believe there was one area where I had to drop some sandbags on a three-headed skeleton (a boss?), but I'm not really sure, because the camera was zoomed-in too closely and I only saw me dropping the bags off a ledge and when I got back down the weird skeleton was no longer there.
Sometimes there are stones falling at you from the ceiling. When they hit you, you die. But when they don't hit you, they don't break on the ground, they just fall through it and keep on falling until they disappear from the screen.
Once I got to a place where two large platforms were moving away from each other. You have to quickly jump onto one, run across, jump over to the other one and then again to safety. But the first time I got there I didn't realize that you only get one chance to do it, so I waited for them to go back the other way so I can attempt this on the next try. There was no other try - the platforms kept on moving in opposite directions, completely ignoring any collision detection, moving into other land platforms and finally disappearing behind them.
There's a section in the game called Battlefield where you can see naval mines just lying on the ground (?!?). If that wasn't stupid enough, they're buggy too. I was standing next to one of them and I used the ability to create a clone. The clone triggered the mine, it exploded and disappeared. I then moved into the empty space where the mine used to be and I still died.

Conclusion

Dream Alone is a horrible, horrible game. Worst one I played in years.
It pretends to be difficult, but what makes it hard is not clever puzzles or interesting world creation - it's very bad game design and really poor execution.
DO NOT BUY OR PLAY THIS GAME

Pros

- after I realized how bad this game was, all the bugs and stupid design choices made me laugh

Cons

- story
- animation
- sounds
- menus
- game mechanics
- level design
- gameplay
- traps
- lots and lots of bugs


[quote]For more reviews, follow my Curator page - Sublime Dent.[/quote]

This game is at heart a decent platformer with engaging puzzles and an interesting narrative lick. The horror theme is quite heavy and does well to establish a genuinely unsettling atmosphere, but doesn't stoop to jump-scares or similar tactics.

Overall an enjoyable title and one of the better choices if you're looking for a horror-themed platformer - it does it right. Check out my full first impressions here - https://youtu.be/xSXIOx7BWg4.

Only completed through the cave and it took me about three hours. I strongly suggest purchasing if you want a good story and a difficult platformer.

It reminds me of Limbo a lot, so if you enjoyed that than you may very well enjoy this. We found the gameplay and puzzles to be fun. Figuring out what you need to do is usually pretty easy, however the game is very challenging. It very much requires you to "learn from failure," as you're going to die a lot. But after each death you learn what to watch out for and what not to do. Checkpoints are usually pretty good, but there were a few frustrating parts that set us too far back. The art style is certainly unique, even if I can't play the game without thinking about Limbo. However, the darkness, weather, and styled visual effects can sometimes make it difficult to see things, such as an enemy or where you need to go next. Overall we've enjoyed our time with Dream Alone. Check out the video linked below if you want to see gameplay of the first two levels.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBttfeY2ycw

Great story, REALLY great music, the game combines creepy mood, black&white graphics and challenging traps. Best when played at night.