PixlBit

Dream Chronicles is an odd point-and-click adventure title, wherein players take the role of Faye, a woman who has just awoken from a horrible nightmare, only to discover that her dream has become reality. Her husband, Fidget, has been captured, her daughter, Lyra, is trapped within a deep sleep, and along her journey Faye discovers that her husband and extended family are actually fairies. The culprit of the chaos is Lilith, the Fairy Queen of Dreams, who has cast a spell upon Faye's home world, Wish Town, which has caused every mortal to fall into a deep sleep. Thus it is up to Faye to crack Lilith's spell, as she travels throughout Wish Town on a strange quest based on unique, yet convoluted puzzles.

The game itself is separated into multiple chapters, each of which takes place in a particular room or area. Initially, Dream Chronicles is portrayed to players as a spot-the-hidden-item (I-Spy) type of experience, as the first few puzzles in the introductory levels are mainly based on finding objects around the room. As the game progresses, the puzzles slowly evolve, making the experience more interactive and action based, bringing it closer to a point-and-click adventure.

In the earlier parts of the game, these puzzles will require players to find several items within an area and then combine them in the right order, so as to create a desired effect. For instance, in a tree house, players will need to find wheels, washers, bolts, and oil in order to reattach wheels to a broken wagon sitting on top of a trap door that players must gain access to. As the game progresses, these puzzles become a bit more complicated, though the premise is generally the same. As an example, one puzzle tasks players with finding several panes of stained glass to lay out in a specific pattern in order to recreate the one previously seen on the ground. In another, players will have to reorganize books on a shelf, placing them in their correct slots.

In order to find these hidden objects, players have the ability to zoom in and zoom out, and can also slighty shift the camera for a better view in most directions. Unfortunately, an issue I encountered many times over was that objects blend incredibly well into the background. While I understand that some of the challenge associated with the game in the first place is based on searching for a well hidden item, sometimes a particular object is absolutely indistinguishable from the environment.

As the game continues, players will be introduced to several action based puzzles, some of which are decently fun and others that are unique, but incredibly unenjoyable. One of the most unappealing challenges I encountered within Dream Chronicles involved a series of paintings and a piano. When clicked, each painting played a small portion of a tune, which then needed to be replicated on the piano keys after the piano first played itself, briefly showing players which keys to hit. Though some of these tunes were short, others were a bit longer than necessary, especially for individuals who have no musical background. The biggest problem with the puzzle comes from the number of paintings on the wall, as there were over six of them. While the puzzle seemed original at first, after the second or third little tune, the allure wore off.

Other puzzles suffered from the same types of issues; seemingly entertaining at first, but suffering from that one fatal flaw that ultimately only served to make them irritating. Another example of a puzzle that started great but became frustrating, involved opening a gate with several objects of different weights. In order to discover which items weighed the appropriate amounts, players had to scour the area for objects and a variety of weights, all with different poundage in order to determine the true weight of each object.

In this particular situation, a conceptually decent puzzle was brought down by the less-than-stellar control scheme. Once the inventory is full, players must put down one item at a time, and then reselect a desired one, rather than being able to pick up an object and move it around at will. Thus, every time players needed to measure a different weight on the scale they had to first select an item to bring it into their inventory, select it again, and then select the area in which they wished to drop it. Couple that already obnoxious system with an on-screen pointer that moved slow as can be (no you cannot change how fast it goes in the menu) and players are left with a slow, tedious, and unbearably boring puzzle.

The largest problem with the chapter puzzles is that they feel so arbitrary and unattached to the game’s story. In between chapters the game tries to connect everything with a convoluted plot detailing Faye's discovery that her family is made of fairies and the world of fairies itself, but none of the different game aspects fit together. While the disjointedness and ambiguity may appeal to some, it ultimately makes the entire experience feel confusing and unappealing.

In addition to finding objects and solving puzzles throughout each of Dream Chronicles' 18 levels, players will also need to keep an eye out for Dream Pieces. In total there are 115 pieces that form several Dream Jewels, which unlock information about fairies and the Dream Realm. Though collecting these gems is a minor distraction from the main focus of each chapter, they serve no purpose other than adding points to the player's final score.

Ultimately, Dream Chronicles is a ninety minute, below-average experience that will appeal to few. It's little more than a slow paced game of I-Spy that offers subpar action puzzles and an out-of-place story in an attempt to give the game some personality.