Dream Chronicles does what a casual game of its nature is supposed to do: provide a few hours of entertainment as it transports you into a magical world of puzzles. Set in a fairy-tale environment, the story unfolds chapter by chapter, but before you know it, it's already over.
You take on the role of Faye, a young woman who, at the beginning of the game, is dreaming. But when she wakes up from her peculiar dream, her husband, Fidget, is gone. Her daughter, Lyra, is in a deep enchanted slumber, and it's up to you to follow Fidget's clues to break the spell and to save your husband. The story unravels as you continue on to each level. You'll learn a lot more about your in-laws than you would care to ever know.
Similar to many adventures that have come before, all you need is a mouse to point and click. Clicking on items that you can't pick up will give you a brief description of what it is. Items that can be used will go into your inventory at the bottom of your screen. To use the items, all you need to do is click on it and then click on what you want it to interact with. The game is very simple and intuitive, so there is no need for a tutorial.
Gems are scattered throughout the game for you to collect. This adds to your score at the end. As a registered user, you can go online and compare your score to other players. It took me roughly two hours to complete the game, which seemed incredibly short. There were only a couple of puzzles on which I was stumped, but a majority of them can be easily solved through trial and error and a lot of random clicking.
The puzzles that involve pattern recognition are straight-forward, and the game helps you by indicating whether you got the puzzle piece in the right place or not. Clues are also very helpful when you actually have them. Some of the trickier puzzles involved a piano where you needed to play back the tune. Some of the sequences were rather long, so I had to write them down. The fact that I play the piano helped a lot here.
The hardest part is playing the Where's Waldo game in which you need to find items that are hidden in the foliage. Gems are easy to spot, since they are colorful. There were some locations where I basically had to wait for the game to give me a hint, because there was no way I was able to find the items. If you wait long enough, the location of the item will be given away by a sparkle.
There is a good variety of puzzles, many of which just require a bit of logic, unlike some of the more complicated adventure games in which you need an engineering degree to figure out. Dream Chronicles does feel like it's too short, however, with only 18 chapters with some sections only taking a few minutes to go through.
Visually, Dream Chronicles is incredibly pleasing to the eye, at least until humans jump into the picture. The environment is lush and colorful, but the human characters can be creepy-looking. The music is soothing and blends into the background. Without the sound and visuals, this would have been a long two hour experience.
I'm a huge fan of adventure games, especially ones that don't have me gunning for the walkthrough. Dream Chronicles may be on the easy side, but I'd rather feel like I've accomplished something than sit there frustrated, wishing I was able to even find a walkthrough online. This was a great way to spend a couple of hours on a lazy sunny afternoon.
I am a Canadian living in California with my husband and my precious baby Bailey (95lbs of labrador fun). I work full time and go to school, so finding the time to play video games is tough. I still manage to sneak some time in, whether it's playing on my GBA while I wait in line or sitting in the back seat of my car so I can use our dvd player to play the Gamecube on long trips. I've always been fairly decent at playing games to give my younger brother some competition. I started at the early age of 6 when I inherited an Atari 2600. I played any computer game I could get my hands on during those Commodore 64 days. Now I'll play anything from RPGs to first person shooters, racing games or basically anything that's fun and allows me to play with at least 3 other people.
