The Dream Machine: Chapter 6 DLC

I bought Chapter 1 & 2 of The Dream Machine as they released all the way back around 2012. I played through those two chapters, and I remember being very impressed that someone was making a point and click game using clay and other materials. I was really excited to play it all, but I understood it was a slow process, and seeing as it was only 2 chapters in at that point, I decided to wait until it was done to play through properly. Of course, I then proceeded to forget all about it and rediscover it now, 7-8 years after it was finished. It was great to get back into, the art style is so unique that it really stands out amongst other point and click games. I have played a lot of point and clicks, and a lot of puzzle games over the years and at this point you see a lot of the same or similar puzzles. It’s quite rare for me to feel like puzzles are fresh. This game had some smart puzzles which took me a while to figure out because they were a little bit more "out of the box" than what I expect from this genre (and because I’m just not that smart). I think it was a decent level of challenging, while keeping me engaged enough to keep going. I would say that I was engaged through the [i]majority[/i] of this game. That is to say though, I definitely felt like the game dropped off a bit once I got to chapter 6. The only way I can think to describe it is that chapters 1-5 felt like they were clear and following a narrative that I was 100% bought into and excited to pursue, but chapter 6 just felt quite convoluted. It felt like a lot of random different things were happening in quick succession that didn’t feel entirely cohesive somehow. If you asked me to recall chapter 6 in order of what happened I would very likely fail. The nature of the story is essentially that the closer your character gets to his goal the more “unstable” things are, so in a way I can’t argue too hard about the story feeling cohesive, it definitely has an arty, dream-like, symbolic twist on it towards the end that perhaps people who love to ponder about symbolism enjoy… But I’ve never been great at that stuff. I’ll get surface level stuff but it just felt like it was losing me at the end. Another review I read also mentioned how throughout the game, your character is free to make choices, or at least, it feels that way. Sometimes in these games you at least get dialog to argue and plead your case before the story inevitably makes you follow the linear story path. At the end, you have no choice to even argue against the decision made, it’s made in a split second, you have to go along with it and then the game kind of just ends. I was left pretty dissatisfied with the ending. Like… all that… for that ending? I kind of get it, I understand why they might have wanted to go down that route, thinking about it after, it is an [i]alright[/i] ending I guess, but the way it was done was so underwhelming in the moment. I think the ending would have landed better if we were given a choice that would cause two different endings. That would have made us, the player, question what was important about the journey that we had taken. It would have made it all worth it, one way or the other, to us specifically. I know for one, I would have decided against the linear decision that was made. [spoiler] Especially given that throughout the game you learn that your character had doubts about being a father and taking on the responsibility that comes with that. He would dream of escaping that situation, instead, being alone on an island, fishing, nobody to worry about but himself. Later on, when his unborn child is in danger, he has a realisation that somewhere along the line he changed his mind, and now just wanted to get back to his life with his wife and raise his child. At the end, the choice the character is given is either you stay in the dreamscape, in that dream/escape forever, leaving behind your wife with no partner and a fatherless child, or your baby dies, you kill the parasite with it, and you go back to your wife. In a way this can be interpreted as him choosing escapism over reality and responsibility, and again, you have no say in this decision. Wouldn't it have been better to give us that choice? Complete his character arc as someone who has decided to face reality, or let him regress back into an escape?[/spoiler] Despite all my moaning, I did enjoy a huge majority of the game and I think this is a great addition to the genre. It is an artistic feat if nothing else. I debated whether to give this a thumbs up, or down. Despite it losing me at the end, it’s not enough for me to disregard everything else and give it a thumbs down. I think if you go into this with low expectations for the end, you’ll agree that overall it is still a good game.