I hate cockroaches. I absolutely loathe 'em and feel disgusted by the mere mention of those satanic little helpers of the Zerg. I never even managed to play Bad Mojo, despite the excellent reviews and yet I'm oddly drawn to The Dream Machine, despite it being a Cockroach Inc. production. Even despite that terrifying cockroach on the developer's logo. I mean, really, what's wrong with these people? Couldn't they have used a puppy or a naked elf or something for that?Anyway. The main reason I surpassed my urge to scream and decided to give The Dream Machine a try was that its graphics are impressively made out of cardboard and clay, and that the game uses stop-motion animation. It looks of course absolutely beautiful. Gorgeous. Utterly brilliant. On par with the oft forgotten Neverhood. Oh, yes, and the fact that it's a European, indie, adventure game did help quite a bit too.
Thing is, I'm delighted I played the game's demo, signed up for the beta and played through the first free chapter of the game. This is not merely a beautiful game sporting literally hand-made graphics, but a proper -and dare I say, great- adventure too, complete with good and varied puzzle design, excellent dialogue, atmospheric music and a most interesting plot involving a young couple moving into a rather odd new apartment. You owe it to yourselves to at least play the demo. You'll surely go on and play the first (still in beta) chapter after that. The Dream Machine, you see, is easily one of the best adventures I've ever played, and I do believe everyone should try it.
Oh, and while you're waiting for the rest of the chapters to come out and for Gnome's Lair to further cover the series, you can watch the beautiful trailer posted below, visit the official site and find out how the game was created via the Dream Machine blog.
Related @ Gnome's Lair:
Saw this on RockPaperShotgun earlier today, dismissed as "not my kind of porn", but if you love it so much, perhaps I should give it a go...
ReplyDeleteBut is it really THAT good? I mean I am not too fond of typical point'n'click adventures - I played DotT, Monkey Island, Gabriel Knight and some more of the classics, but these were the absolute summits of this kind of games.
So, with that in mind, tell me again - should I play it?
Ok, I might just be overly excited, but I think this one is destined for great things. So you really should at least try the very simple demo. Should take you less than 5 minutes, though it will not reveal much of the story.
ReplyDeleteI say play it, but keep in mind this is a very traditional point-and-click adventure.
Good on you, sir! I'm really pleased to see you've discovered The Dream Machine and given it a nice write up. I did consider mentioning it's Flash-based origins in your last post regarding Gemstone Dragon, but I thought i'd probably mentioned it around the AGS boards too much already;-)
ReplyDeleteI gave it a similarly excitable write up a couple of months ago which you can find here:
http://straydogstrut.co.uk/2010/05/01/life-is-but-a-dream/
I absolutely LOVE this game. I can't praise it enough. It just ticks all the boxes for me: art, story, characters, accessibility. I'm a huge fan of stop motion (I think they actually textured photos on 3D models and rendered out frames of animation, but the result is the same) and as a relative newcomer to adventure games, I found it very accessible.
I would highly recommend it to anyone, you might surprise yourself. Oh and the developers are among the most friendly people you're ever likely to meet (virtually anyway) so do send them your comments and be sure to check out the development blog.
An excellent write-up dear Rambo. I've already sent them my compliments. And I think you're right. We absolutely have to support indie creators like these.
ReplyDeleteOh, and your blog is truly great, you know...
Thanks, i'm quite sick of the green theme now, but my own custom theme is getting there. Sometime this year maybe..
ReplyDeleteYes, absolutely, we do=) I've posted a link to your review over in the comments at their blog. Just spreading the love;-)
Thanks! Oh, and I do believe I'm about to go and link to your place form Gnome's Lair.
ReplyDeleteI just tried the demo of this and indeed it is very pretty and well put together.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link :)
Glad you liked it Ben!
ReplyDelete