Halley's Dream Reviews

Halley's Dream is an adventure game of sorts where the title character runs around something reminiscent of a dream. The dream world is a wide open space of mostly grassy terrain, and the goal is to simply go from point A to point B. It's like a walking simulator, as some might call it. There are little objectives you do to progress further from one area to the next. Despite my claim to not recommend this game, it doesn't mean I dislike it. The setpiece is there, the ideas are there, but the execution of the gameplay overall is not what it should be. The positives: - Good visuals. The simplistic cel-shaded style and bright colors allows everything to pop out at you. Halley stands out well, and you know what you're looking at when you see it. There's little to no confusion of where you are thanks to the mostly varied terrain and slopes. - I enjoy the music. It's airy and dreamlike, as it should be, and doesn't detract from what you're doing. - The mystery of it all makes you wonder. The negatives: - Controlling Halley can be cumbersome. The general motion of directional movement is okay, but jumping seems incomplete. There's no running, which for such wide open environments, moving around feels very slow. Although you can move slightly faster after using one of those crystals littered about, performing any other action will stop you from moving slightly faster. - Little to no feedback of performing actions with the wands, jumping, and being caught by a dragon or falling into water. - The overall motion of actors that aren't Halley feel unpolished, turning by rotation and animating very simply. - Sound effects mostly aren't there, but what sounds there are are very simple and don't really fit with the scenario. The varied quality and volume makes me feel like they are stock sounds. - Repetitive environments. Other than the dragons' world, the atmosphere and color of the areas may change, but the general environment does not. It's mostly the same grass you see, the same rocks, the same dirt and objects. - No catharsis. While I've nothing against obfuscation and mystery, there needs to be a payoff somewhere, otherwise there is little meaning to it all, and you're left unfulfilled. The issues: - The main character you talk to has bugs related to progressing the speech when a cutscene is involved. Text and the cutscene gets skipped and doesn't display properly. - Climbing (lack of) physics. You can walk just about anywhere you want with enough effort, especially after acquiring the teleportation wand. This isn't a problem in itself, but it seems as though the ability to do so wasn't considered when designing the terrain. - Exploring around and taking orbs early can disrupt the chain of events, making you need to restart the game to the last save point. Overall, I feel this game has unrealized potential and creates expectations that didn't deliver. There's almost a game, here; it's quite clear that this is someone's first project, and it lacks a lot of polish. If there were more time, effort, and quality put into the game's story, presentation, and feel of Halley and their dream, I believe we could have something great.

Really pretty graphics. The game is not perfect, but it's relaxing and I enjoyed playing it.

I like it. It's not a complex game, but I love exploring beautifully crafted worlds

It has a nice art style but fails to save the game when i click the save game. For that reason alone I'm leaving a negative review.

I really like the graphics of this game. Although it does lacks polish, It is well worth experiencing atleast once.