Indie games routinely take an artistic approach, and Q-Games’ Dreams of Another attempts to further that connection by taking philosophical ideas and combining them with a unique approach to shooter games. Unlike the expected outcome of bullets doing damage, in Dreams of Another, bullets and explosions create the world around the player. Allowing them to progress in the game and learn more about the dreamlike world they find themselves in. Dreams of Another is vastly different from Q-Games’ typical offerings, such as PixelJunk, and on the surface, it conveys a very powerful message to players about life and the meaning of the world around us.
Wait…What’s happening again?
Following a short introduction of one character in the game, “The Wandering Soldier,” players can start their journey through the dream realm. Immediately, I felt barraged by various philosophical ideas ranging from good and evil to the “value” of life and the various items found in it. Some points and lines said by “things” in the game, such as a statue and even a light post, made sense and felt like a nice touch that truly helped the game tell its story. However, others felt out of place; the voices speaking their “sentiments,” as the game calls them, began feeling like the developers wanted to add more philosophical ideas almost at random. While certainly thought-provoking at times, the sheer amount of philosophy being thrown at me made it hard to keep up.
That difficulty in keeping up also carried into the story. There were moments I felt that I would start to wrap my head around the direction the game was leading me in, only for a scene change into something that left me with more questions. The story itself was disjointed; there were times I’d play for 15 or so minutes only for me to complete a section and be thrust back into a slightly changed main menu. After hitting start yet again, I found myself exploring an entirely new section of the story, at times seemingly out of order. Across many main menu returns and scene changes, players follow a group of stories about a clown and his amusement park, a boy whose parents are moving, an aquarium with fish, and a tale of robots. I think I can understand the reasoning for it, as it gave this feeling of actually dreaming, getting information in pieces, new settings, and stories waiting to be told or continued. However, it felt frustrating at times when the screen would fade to black and I’d realize I was back to the main menu yet again. Even though the frustration remained, there was a large feeling of accomplishment when things started to clear up, connecting a family of underground moles to a bell that needed to ring for a piano to play, which was the goal of a character, leaving me feeling satisfied, and I audibly said, “Oh, that’s cool,” sitting at my desk. While hard to keep up at times, following along was a very rewarding experience through every dream realm, and there were unique devices and “boss fights” along the way that helped keep me engaged.
Dreams of Another left me surprised at another very obvious feature. The game is fully voice acted. In the world of indie games, I feel that voice acting is foregone very often, and that’s a shame since voice acting can add a whole new dimension to a story and the way it is told, and, while as I already said some, sentiments were a bit much during gameplay, others were perfectly placed and added some excellent lines for the story and the themes of the game and the current situation. But adding voice acting comes with a risk to quality. And while some parts of the voice acting were passable, the voice acting, in my opinion, is Dreams of Another’s weakest point. The lines felt flat, lifeless, and especially so at the beginning sequence with The Wandering Soldier and his comrade, out of place. It felt as if the lines were simply read off a piece of paper, and the lack of emotion and urgency during it hindered the impact of the scene.
Dreaming of art
Looking around and immersing myself in the world, it became obvious very quickly that this was art in video game form, the most telling feature coming directly from the main mechanic of the game. The world is made up of little dots; even after being shot or exploded by grenades or a rocket launcher, the dots, instead of manifesting clearly, collapse on each other. This art style is one of my favorites; it brings to mind those art pieces made up of millions of little dots in various shades and hues. At times, the art style alone made me find every piece of the maps and put them all together to admire. I’d also find myself almost subconsciously aiming my camera around the area to create scenes of my own. Without a doubt, Dreams of Another is a beautiful game, and the art style, while not standard, is my own personal favorite I’ve experienced in a game.
Soundwise, Dreams of Another does well yet again. It has some low points, especially in some areas where the music feels too repetitive, though I can attribute some of that to the fact that I was too busy clearing out the map, as I mentioned. It goes well overall with the dream aesthetic of the game and is absolutely music that I can imagine myself falling asleep to in the background. It’s ethereal, constant, and almost comforting. I could not imagine a better style of music to accompany a game with this design than the one the developers have opted for.
Satisfaction in chaos
The thing that sticks out to me most about Dreams of Another is that it revels in the fact of how unique it is. Gameplay-wise, there is no doubt that it has a satisfying mechanic behind the gun, creating its world. My personal favorite method of putting everything together was lobbing grenades into bundles of unrecognizable blobs of dots and watching the shockwave of the explosion spread them into their final resting spots. It was chaotic. At one point, I even discovered that there is a “dying” mechanic because I lost myself in the abstract areas and became a blob of nothing but dots before returning to the menu. And during a few of the “fight” portions, I found myself somewhat unreasonably angry at the objects for messing up the area I spent so much time tidying up.
It was an overall enjoyable experience. As I write this, I’m thinking of all the possibilities for a mechanic like that to exist in games. It brings satisfaction and combines it with that innate gamer urge of “destruction” in a way that I think is best experienced for those able to put up with Dreams of Another’s flaws.
Final thoughts
Considering everything, I would recommend giving Dreams of Another a chance. It has many flaws and frustrating moments, but it is such a unique experience that if you could look beyond them, I believe the game has something to offer. Even for those uninterested in the game’s philosophy, the gameplay itself is enjoyable enough to justify a try. I think overall it’s a game that requires you to know what you are getting into, or to go into it with an open mind. But especially for those interested heavily in the philosophical approaches and who are ready for the flaws, it is an experience worth having.
For the most part, this game will be best enjoyed by a very particular type of audience, especially those interested in philosophical musings. I’m not sure if the majority of players will fit into that audience, but I do believe that there is enjoyment to be had on some levels by a large chunk of players. It’s a title that is going to be massively different in enjoyment across different players.
Dreams of Another releases on October 10 for PC and PS5 with PS VR2 compatibility. PlayStation players can pre-order the game now for $34.99.
The Review
Fair
