‘The Dream Machine’ is a game whose concept is built around entering people’s dreams and exploring their unconscious. The selling point of this particular point and click is its artstyle - environments and characters are physical objects created by artists using materials such as clay and cardboard. It is reminiscent of adventure titles like ‘The Neverhood’ or ‘Armikrog’, although it is distinct enough to stand on its own and be instantly recognizable. The visual side is also the strongest point of the title - the levels are wonderfully realized with the enchanted forest being the absolute highlight, both in its scope and detail. The character models are equally impressive - I can’t really think of anything similar in the gaming world. There is one, quite significant, chunk of the game that takes place in a level looking like taken out of the movie ‘Cube’ which left me unimpressed, but other than that the presentation is very strong and often I found myself looking around the levels, appreciating all the little details the artists left for the player to enjoy.

Does the story support the impressive visuals? Mostly yes. The plot is chiefly a pretext to throw Victor, the protagonist, into other people’s dreams, but what kept me engaged until the very end was the wide array of well-written NPCs that Victor encounters during the 14 or so hours it takes to finish all six chapters, my favorite being a knight who doesn’t realize he died centuries ago. I was really surprised at how dark the game gets as it progresses, with flashbacks into Edie’s past evoking the strongest emotional response. This didn’t prepare for the ending, however, which features perhaps the most disturbing scene I’ve ever encountered in a video game. I did feel at times like the final chapter was rushed and too much content was squeezed into too few levels and I definitely would’ve liked more space to fully process the last hour which was very abstract and filled with inventive metaphors.

Another thing that all point and click adventures have in common is the inclusion of puzzles. And in ‘The Dream Machine’ they’re quite uneven. There were a number of times where I felt like they were too obtuse and required scanning every single pixel on a given level. Some of them required re-learning how to use specific objects - an example I can give without hopefully spoiling too much is when finding a book for the 4th time or so the game expects the player to figure out he’s capable of tearing a page out of the book, while in the previous instances of using this type of object it was never possible. Also, some puzzles - especially towards the end of the game, where a larger portion of the game opens up - required quite a bit of going back and forward to get very little done. At one point Victor receives an object that he can use to manipulate his size - this was fun at first, but got tiresome very quickly and I was looking for a way around the level where I could use it as little as possible.

I need to mention a couple of technical problems that the game unfortunately isn’t devoid of. I’ve encountered two permanently corrupted save files (out of ten slots available) which is quite a serious error in any game, however the autosave feature in ‘The Dream Machine’ is quite generous and seemed to be working fine. The game also had problems running smoothly on my Steam Deck - the animations would sometimes freeze for a moment before continuing, the dialogue appearing on screen (the game isn’t voiced) also would appear and disappear in too few frames making it less fluid than it should’ve been.

A half-star? Yes, in spite of this game's promising start, and because there's a reason that “betrayal” is at the bottom of Dante's vision of hell. The early chapters of “Dream Machine” built up tension as the curtain of normalcy gave way to creepy shenanigans and dream-dives ended in short bursts of macabre violence. But it went too far in the insulting, misguided finale by using abortion as a metaphor for self-actualization - a nasty, regressive, and unforgivable interpretation of the biblical Paul: “when I became a man, I put away childish things.”

The Dream Machine is an odd game to play in 2021. So many of its ideas have been expanded upon since its inception almost a decade ago, in other games including favorites like Psychonauts 2, To the Moon, and AI: The Somnium Files, to name a few. But while the general premise seems to tread familiar ground, Victor Neff and the tragic stories of the house terrorized by a sentient dream machine capture a unique energy when combined with the unsettling art style and animation.

First and foremost, this game is a psychological thriller mixed with a point-and-click adventure game. While much of the game is running around and collecting items to use on other items found in the world, the actual act of playing the game is always built on tension and fear, questioning the player on if they are making the right decision. Many of the characters you meet on the journeys through the dreamscape are tortured, grieving, and solemn, and Victor only serves as another source of pain for many of these people to achieve his own goal of ending his family's suffering. This cyclical nature of sadness permeates much of the narrative elements of the Dream Machine, making it a much more serious effort than many in its genre. That said, many of the puzzles and solutions were fun to figure out and there were not many combinations of answers that I would deem unfair or jumping the shark with its logic, even in regards to events happening within a dream, which is an achievement.

Speaking of achievements, the game's presentation is a marvel. The crude character models and DIY environments are full of detail and care, and there are so many more locations and objects than I expected for a game on this scale. Some of the set pieces are brilliant, and it serves the game well to constantly have something new to look at, while having instantly recognizable locations to return to by the same token. The music also deserves a special shoutout, only aiding to the dread captured by every moment of the machine's fleeting existence.

The game's chapter-based structure makes it easier to digest. Playing in sections felt natural, and most of the chapters fell between an hour or so in length, making it a great game to pick up and play. The fifth chapter is the longest by a stretch, but it is easily tackled at once or in pieces due to generous autosaves and multiple available save slots. However, the game runs poorly in general. Even on my moderate PC rig, the game struggles to stay consistent in framerate and the game's text and animations slow significantly after a longer play session. It seems like the engine has not been optimized for modern hardware, which is a shame because some of the game's areas suffer needlessly as a result.

Technical issues aside, The Dream Machine is a disturbing, but ultimately pensive lens into the world of dreams, fatherhood, and redemption and while it may not be for even some niche audiences, it's worth giving the first few chapters a fair shake to see where it lands for you.

Mozão comprou esse há algumas semanas e fomos jogando juntos. Devo dizer que eu queria realmente entender o motivo de tantos elogios a esse jogo internet afora.

A única parte realmente impressionante é o visual: tudo é realmente feito de argila a mão, como num grande stopmotion. Os personagens são estranhos, mas criam uma atmosfera bem legal pra tudo, e os cenários são detalhados até demais ao ponto de atrapalhar.

Agora, em todo o resto, ele só não faz nada bem. Mozão gostou mais da história do que eu, mas concordamos que ela não passa de um "meh". O gameplay é estranho, travado e burocrático, os puzzles são ainda mais aleatórios que os adventures antigos e a versão da Steam é simplesmente uma porcaria técnica, com travamentos, lags e glitches a todo momento.

Talvez na época em que ele foi lançado tenha feito algum barulho, mas ele comete muitos erros pra ser um adventure lançado nos anos 2010. Definitivamente não recomendo a ninguém (e se tiver curioso, o YouTube é sua melhor saída).

Oh, hey. It's that game you heard about from the early indie boom and then forgot about because it was episodic and the last episode took literal years to come out.

Final judgement? Absolutely worth the wait, the game taking its claymation and cardboard aesthetics down a grimy, desaturated path that instantly becomes a look so singular it could not be mistaken as anything but itself. Rough, cubist faces and skillfully kludged environments are punctuated with lovingly crafted, abrupt stop-motion movements and restrained sound design that perfectly fits the borderline oppressive air the game carries.

The Dream Machine is not a whimsical game, despite the focus on dreams and clay. It is, instead, about grim realities, pasts that cling, futures that terrify and the choices we make, big and small, our lives unfurling around them. It's a game that doesn't so much as go for the emotional jugular as it places its teeth against it. There's little in the way of easy heartstring tugs here, emotional jumpscares that aim for easy points. Just a relentless, somber background noise made all the more poignant by the color-sapped stillness of its eerily unreal architecture and the unavoidable feeling that you are being irrevocably drawn into the end.

The Dream Machine is such an unusual game. The plasticine world is beautiful and the general aesthetic is unsettling. The puzzles are excellent and feel rewarding to figure out and as the story progresses, the game becomes conceptually interesting as it tries to give tangible forms to abstract ideas in each residents dreams. The ending is rather abrupt in my opinion as the game explores every character through their dreams other than you, the main character. There is very little to show the personality of Victor Neff in the first 4 episodes, even in his dream which was merely the tutorial. When we reach the last episode, which is arguably the most conceptually abstract, his personality feels like it shifts abruptly from loving and responsible husband to desperate to escape from his responsibilities. Although the ending is rather anti climactic, I can certainly appreciate the choices.
It's definitely worth a go.