Dreamlike Worlds Review

Dreamlike Worlds is a casual indie platformer from the creative minds at JustForward. The studio predominantly focusses on a mobile market; however, this latest title has made its way onto the Steam Store, and at the remarkably low price of just 79p (at the time of writing). Showcasing itself with Limbo-like stylisations albeit with an intriguing twist on the aesthetic, I was keen to give Dreamlike Worlds a try.

Although visually Dreamlike Worlds is instantly comparable to Limbo, the game’s developers claim that this is not simply another clone. Instead, they describe it as a hardcore atmospheric puzzle platformer. Some of this, at least, is true. The game is atmospheric, with the key difference between its visuals and its closest neighbours being the addition of coloured backgrounds whilst maintaining a pure black foreground for Stephanie, the game’s protagonist, and interactive world objects. This is about as far as the atmosphere of the game goes, however. The coloured backgrounds change as you progress through worlds, with some alterations to their styles. However, the game’s audio is repetitive and unimaginative, and the animations are equally simplistic as well. For example, pushing a box in the game does not have its own animation. Instead, Stephanie simply pushes the object with her face as you maintain the walking animation. A bit of variation in this department certainly wouldn’t have gone amiss. The same repeating song also becomes grating over time…

As for the claims that the game is a hardcore puzzle platformer, this again is partially true. Whilst puzzles and platforming do come into it, the game is not so much hardcore as it is simple one minute and obnoxious the next. For example, at one stage in the initial world you must jump along some pillars to get from A to B. This is as simple as it sounds. Shortly after, however, you must jump over a gap, and due to the way that the game’s hitboxes are set up, you can find yourself sliding into this empty space despite the character model clearly having made the jump. A little more testing might have eliminated this frustrating problem, which pops up in different forms throughout, but as it stands the game can make you grit your teeth at times through no fault of your own. There are some parts of the game which do require some strategy, such as dodging falling boulders as you fun along a lengthy straight, but for the most part the puzzles are fairly basic, and nothing that hasn’t been done before.

The game boasts a fantastical story to follow as well, but little of this comes to fruition. In fact, much of what I know about the lore comes from the Steam Store description, and not so much from within the game itself. Whilst this background detail serves the make the game that bit more interesting and intriguing once you are in the world, it would be nice to see the revelations unfold as a part of the experience, and not have to be described outside of it instead. When you look back over it, the Steam Store description is highly repetitive in its key features too, with several bullet points referring to the exact same features and none of these are new and shiny for this game specifically either. It is this lack of genuine, original and organic content that generally lets Dreamlike Worlds down. Some of the stated features, such as a “unique physics-based puzzle design” are a stretch of the truth which gamers deserve to be well aware of in advance as well…

The saving grace of this game is that there is a semi-fun way to play it. If you turn off the game sound and instead provide your own ambience-appropriate music in the background, the gameplay can feel a bit more welcoming. The bright colours make the game easy on the eye, and the action is largely at your own pace, so this combination can help to make the game your own. Whilst I call this a saving grace however, it should be noted that to make the game just relatively enjoyable in this way, an effort by the gamer is needed on top of what the game itself has to offer. Truly, this isn’t the way it should be.

I find it incredibly hard to recommend Dreamlike Worlds. If you like the look of this game, honestly, I would have to point you back in the direction of Limbo instead. There is little new, inspiring or exciting about this game. This may sound particularly harsh, but bear in mind the fact that I went into Dreamlike Worlds full of enthusiasm for the intriguing little title, and even with my genuine desire to play it I could not find its fun factor. That, and several the promised features seemed questionably absent as well. Playing along casually with some of your own music helps make the game slightly more entertaining, but on the whole, Dreamlike Worlds doesn’t make the cut. A lack of imagination, some upkept promises and a wealth of unpolished gameplay features make this game regrettably one to miss.

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