A Waking Nightmare.
Over the past few years, roguelikes have been insanely popular, from a Game of the Year entry in Hades to the remarkably well-received Returnal, and especially that of pixel platformer Dead Cells; the genre has never been more popular and diverse in its catalog. However; it’s never been my favorite type of game, despite absolutely loving Hades and Dead Cells, and a few others that I’ve enjoyed to a lesser extent. The appeal of starting from scratch upon each run hasn’t always hooked me, but when they have allowed me to keep some aspect of my progress from run to run, making it at least feel like I am chipping away at something, it’s where you’ll likely pique my interest. Dreamscaper, a game by Afterburner Studios, is another roguelike that immediately got my attention, inspired by the likes of Hades and The Binding of Isaac, and it’s impressive as hell.
Upon initially diving into this adventure, I started to see its inspirations from all over the gaming spectrum. Now granted, many of those games are equally inspired by others as well, making this a collection of dozens of games in some respects. While the gameplay has a Hades-like approach, I get a sense of others like Ashen and Life is Strange lending themselves to the tone and overall aesthetic, such as the blank faces of its characters, or the palette used to create its stunning and artistically beautiful world. Dreamscaper is absolutely gorgeous, even in its simplicity.
Now, out of every game that developer Afterburner Studios has used here as a muse, Hades is the game I keep coming back to when trying to offer up a comparison. You have a series of procedurally structured levels as you progress deeper into, and another location where you’ll then play the social game. And, although while you’re not exactly escaping for the same reasons, Cassidy, our heroine, is combatting her own type of escape, taking on representations of her fear, loss, negativity, and more. Each environment is pushed through by entering through a series of doors, each shown on the map with possible rewards on the other side. Each level is then capped off with a boss that allows you to dig deeper, to move onto a new location upon its defeat, and you’ll repeat this same structure until you reach the final encounter. There are countless other examples that bring me back to Hades, and while I’ll try to stop from constantly comparing the two, it does serve as a basis for how certain systems are adapted here.
The story of Dreamscaper is about a woman named Cassidy, a new resident of Redhaven. As she falls asleep, she enters into a dungeon-filled environment filled to the brim with monsters. As she progresses, she’ll dig into memories that have been blocked for one reason or another. You’ll start to piece together what went on, what has caused this trauma, and it’s fundamentally shaped her as a result. The town of Redhaven and its citizens will also serve as a method of therapy for Cassidy as she makes friends, forges relationships, and uses those bonds to conquer her fears in her dreams. Having the support of those around her will aid Cassidy in her struggle, and the natural ways in which this happens, especially through its believable and well-written dialogue is some of the best parts of what makes Dreamscaper so engaging. As someone who deals with loneliness and anxiety themselves on a daily basis, it’s nice to see a game tackle it without it feeling like something is inherently “wrong” with the protagonist, that there isn’t just some simple fix to make them “better”.
Dreamscaper is essentially a tale of two games; one that takes place in the dream world as a hack and slash roguelike, and the other, a relationship sim where you’ll get to know those around you, chatting them up and offering them gifts. In fact, some might say that this system is similar to that of Persona’s Confidant System as you engage in these social links to make your own character more powerful where it counts; and that is what occurs here. The more that you invest in each of the side characters, such as Eve at the Bar, Rose at the Record Store, or characters such as Alison and Carl, who can appear in few places, it can unlock more bits of story, or new powers and abilities to take with you. It also feels natural for Cassidy to want to get to know some of these people as a few tend to share a lot in common with her and would naturally make good friends for her.
As you push through the dream world, you’ll gather upgrade currencies that allow you to do a few different things. A few locations around Redhaven allow you to invest these currencies in a few categories, boosting certain stats like health and lucid, which is how you power your abilities, or even placing down new room-types inside each of the six locations, such as puzzle rooms that grant rewards, or healing pools for a quick mid-level top-up. This is similar to not just the Mirror of Night in Hades, but also the House Contractor as you would expand the locations you can visit during each of your runs. You can also earn currencies through completing tasks in your journal, another similarity that feels well implemented here. And, as you return back from a run, each of the areas in town that you can explore will often have glowing blue objects that are recipes for crafting new items, allowing you to consistently have new options to make and exchange in order to boost that friendship; providing you pay attention to them and their interests. You’ll also want to craft duplicates of certain items as many of these characters enjoy some of the same things.
The dream world is where most players are going to find their fix, having that “one more run” appeal that is often part of the addictive nature of a roguelike. You’ll always start back at square one, but bosses can be skipped if you’ve defeated them before, but lack the rewards you would have earned had you defeated them again. Still. it’s a nice system that allows you to just fly through locations in order to move on to newer pastures at a much quicker pace. However; you’ll often want to exhaust locations for new weapons, new lucid abilities such as freezing enemies, slowing down time, or burning them with your eye beams, as well as numerous types of armor to track down, and just anything that makes your run that much better. Part of what made games like Dead Cells and Hades so perfect were the combinations of powers and weapons that allowed you to have that god-tier roll of defensive and offensive pick-ups. Having that perfect flow can make or break your run, and in some ways, your experience as a whole. Finding a weapon or magical power that works for the range you want, the damage you need, is crucial as swinging that blade, pool cue, or whatever you can get your hands on is paramount to your success.
Each location has its own aesthetic, whether it’s city streets, the depths of hell, or deep in the forest, the overall design work here is solid in making each location stand out, while still maintaining a similar look. I mentioned before that this game visually feels like it lives somewhere between Ashen and Life is Strange in its texture style and feel, and honestly, I think people are going to see a slew of other games in how it looks to them. I love the fading in and fading out as the worlds are formed upon each entry as it feels like a thought being made into something tangible. You can fast travel to any room you’ve visited previously, making navigation more convenient instead of a chore. As you upgrade more in the real world, more variety in the rooms opens up, more paths to take, and more items to purchase with your in-realm currency called Sand that requires unlocking certain room elements to make them accessible. As you dig more into upgrading the world and you, you’ll find more variety each time you dive back into the dream world. As you start, the world and the adventure will feel rather plain, but that will change dramatically as you invest more time into it.
Locations will have locked rooms that you need to procure a key for or bombs that can destroy the blockage preventing access to that door. Bombs can also be used in combat, so there is a choice whether to save them for progression or use them to blow some enemy into a scrap of digital bits. Keys are not that easy to find, but if you exhaust each location, you’re bound to find at least one or two. Most of the time, those locked areas will lead you to glowing pillars that have new weapons, abilities, or armor, or some other means to make your run more efficient. If you want to switch to that new hotness, you can tap the button, or hold it down to recycle it should it or your previous weapon no longer serve a purpose. Thankfully, the old and new items will be shown with stat comparisons, so you’ll always know if one thing is better than the other. Recycling those old items then increases the amount of Sand you have, which is needed to buy items that have a value amount above them, should you find those rooms that give you a few options such as new weapons, abilities, or health.
When you die, you return to the real world, and while you’ll lose what you were carrying, the currencies you’ve unlocked that can be used to upgrade you and your abilities will remain. This allows you to craft new items, or check your journal to set your starting weapons and abilities. Each location around town either has upgrades to choose from or people to talk to, both benefitting your next run. This balance of spending time in both realms is crucial to the overall experience. Even if you don’t care for the people aspect, spending time here will make the dreamworld runs easier to do and you’ll get so much more out of upgrading Cassidy and her combative arts, that each run, despite being in the same locations again and again, feels more unique on each subsequent run.
My only issues in the game run from a few minor things I can overlook to a single issue I feel is pretty apparent. The difficulty can be all over the place with some enemies absolutely trouncing you, to the inconsistencies to the bosses themselves. Some encounters just don’t feel as balanced as they could be with huge gaps of skill needed from encounter to encounter. While some of this is learning the ins and outs of how the bosses work, I wish there was more visual language or markers given to provide you some sort of heads up in some of these fights, especially since dying sets you all the way back. While there is a similar god mode here like Hades had, I found the difficulty spikes to be the only off-putting aspect of the game, but not one to prevent me from playing or having a good time, though, it did sour some experiences when I would revisit certain fights again.
My other issues, again, which are largely minor ones, range from the painfully small text when playing the game portable to some scrolling issues in your journal, forcing you to scroll all the way down to the bottom instead of being able to press up to appear at the bottom, and vise versa. While there are some filter options to speed this up, it’s a quality of life update I’d like to see just to speed up the browsing. Also, conversations with each of the characters for some reason have two types of dialogue bubbles, even if you are conversing with them in the same way. It’s an odd choice that doesn’t appear to have a reason for the disparity between the two and feels like an odd choice. Apart from the font size, the Switch port is rather good and honestly, I only had a few instances of slow down, but thankfully, no issues during any of the boss encounters.
With a solid gameplay loop in the dreamworld, to very satisfying conversations and upgrade paths with unlocking new conversations, memories, and weapons, Dreamscaper consistently kept my interest. It has a few issues, sure, but nothing that kept me from having fun. I do wish the font size was better suited for the Switch in handheld mode, and voice work could have gone a long way to invoke more emotion out of getting to know the people around Redhaven, but that’s more wishful thinking than a strike against the game. The fact this game was made by such a small team is fantastic and shows yet again that passion and a great idea, even if it’s not wholly original, can produce some absolutely amazing results.
Developer - Afterburner Studios. Publisher - Afterburner Studios, Freedom Games, Maple Whispering. Released - August 5th, 2021. Available On - Nintendo Switch, Windows PC. Rated - (E 10+) Fantasy Violence. Platform Reviewed - Nintendo Switch, Docked and Portable. Review Access - A review code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.