Dream Detective - PC (Steam) Review

Dream-Detective-Logo-Steam Dream Detective - PC (Steam) Review

This is more than your grandma’s hidden item’s game!
Dream-Detective-Logo-Steam Dream Detective - PC (Steam) Review

  • System: Microsoft Windows, PC (Steam)
  • Publisher: Century Games
  • Developer: Century Games
  • Release Date: Dec. 4, 2019
  • Pricing: $7.99 US
  • Rating: E for Everyone
  • Genre: Adventure, Casual, Indie
  • Players: 1
  • Official Website: https://www.dreamdetectivegame.com/
Specs (PC)
OS: Windows XP/Vista/Windows 7/Windows 8/Windows 10
Processor: 1.7+ GHz or better
Memory: 1 GB RAM
Graphics: Radeon HD5450 or better; 256 MB or higher
Storage: 500 MB available space

Who it Caters to

Dream-Detective-Logo-Steam Dream Detective - PC (Steam) Review
Dream Detective caters to a wide age range. Its content is okay for kids, but can still be enjoyed by adults. That makes the game especially great to play as a family with everyone searching for items together to progress. Dream Detective can also be enjoyed alone too, of course, catering especially to lovers of puzzle games. Players that love hidden item books, puzzles, and other games like it, will get the most out of Dream Detective. The majority of the gameplay is finding hidden items, so people that like that kind of puzzle are who the game was made for.

Dream Detective also caters to more casual gamers and serious gamers that want something more laid back to play. There are timed levels to add some pressure but overall the game can be played at your own pace. There’s little pressure of losing, and it’s meant to just be fun. The art is all hand-drawn and painstakingly detailed, so it’s meant to be enjoyed and not breezing through quickly. Dream Detective caters to players that want a game that they can pick up and play casually, being entertained without being stressed.

What to Expect

Dream-Detective-Logo-Steam Dream Detective - PC (Steam) Review
The game is set in Dream Land, and it’s up to you (as detective Allie) to restore order and peace to a land in chaos. You do so by finding specific pictures across elaborate scenes, opening new worlds to explore and clearing stages. You can expect hours of searching for some really challenging hidden pictures across countless pieces of hand-drawn art. You can also expect to find plenty of surprises and laughs amongst all the details because on top of the items you’re searching for there’s plenty more to see!


Story

Dream-Detective-Logo-Steam Dream Detective - PC (Steam) Review
In Dream Detective, you play as a woman named Allie, who is indeed a detective. Her normal life is turned upside down when on an otherwise Tuesday afternoon, she finds herself in Dream Land. While this world at first seems whimsical and fantastic, Allie soon discovers a much darker truth. Beneath the surface, Dream Land is extremely unstable. The previous Time Crystal that holds time in check has been destroyed by thieves! Allie takes it upon herself to try to restore the peace and stability to Dream Land, and save the land from the plague of nightmares that have taken over.

The story in Dream Detective is told through thousands of lines of dialogue and interaction with a huge array of diverse characters. The choices that you make shape the future of Dream Land, and you can uncover countless secrets along the way. It’s up to you to repair Dream Land and fix the bridge between imagination and reality!

Gameplay

Dream-Detective-Logo-Steam Dream Detective - PC (Steam) Review
Dream Detective is a hidden item’s game, so the majority of gameplay involves searching through elaborate artwork to find specific items hidden within it. The artwork is all hand-drawn and extremely detailed, which makes the game challenging but also entertaining as you discover the secrets hidden on each level. There are many worlds in Dream Land to explore and help, and you can choose your difficulty from easy, medium, and hard for each world. There are also different game modes to pick from, which is especially appealing for people that want to play again but with a different kind of challenge.

In addition to the hidden items gameplay, you also have your own castle to restore and customise within Dream Detective. You use items and gold you find in the other levels to upgrade the castle and have choices about exactly how you customise it every step of the way. It lets you make a castle that is catered to your taste! This part of Dream Detective is optional, so you can design the castle all you want if you feel like it. But if it’s not your style, you can just focus on the main narrative and hidden items gameplay. It’s up to you.


Honey's Gameplay Consensus:

Dream-Detective-Logo-Steam Dream Detective - PC (Steam) Review
Dream Detective is a game with a lot of personalities. It’s fun to play, engaging, challenging, and beautiful. It has enough details to keep you entertained and never bored, and lots of different gameplay modes so there’s a little something for everyone. The game is advertised for all ages and has nothing that is inappropriate for kids while still being fun for adults, too. While there are a few downsides (most of which we feel could be fixed with a few patches from the creators, if they chose to), overall we were pleased with what we got in Dream Detective.

Honey's Pros:

  • Dream Detective is an incredible value for its price. The game is very cheap but offers well over 20 hours of gameplay, and even more if you’re looking to reach 100% completion.
  • You can stare at one scene for a long time and still notice new details, jokes, surprises, and more. Dream Detective has so much thought in its art!
  • The ongoing feature of building your own castle is really fun. It lets you collect pieces and renovate alongside the normal gameplay—but there is also zero pressure to do so if you don’t want to, and you aren’t punished for not doing it.
  • Your avatar is also super customisable with hundreds of different outfits to choose from.

Honey's Cons:

  • Dream Detective doesn’t explain all the intricacies of how to play as the game becomes more difficult. For example, you can click to enter some new areas or zoom in on some places—but not in the tutorial, and those features are never actually explained.
  • For a game marketed as “from ages 0 to 100,” some of the text clues are incredibly difficult to understand, or very vague. It’s discouraging for younger gamers if they want to play (and some adults too).
  • There are a lot of timed levels that cannot be skipped or avoided if you want to finish the main story. Timed levels are something that appeals to some, but certainly not everyone, so having so many mandatory ones isn’t a great feature.
  • Some of the background music gets very old and repetitive and isn’t always cut together smoothly. There’s no way to turn just the music off without muting the whole game, either.

Honey's Final Verdict:

Dream-Detective-Logo-Steam Dream Detective - PC (Steam) Review
Dream Detective is a fun game for all ages. It’s especially great for families to play together letting kids and or siblings work together as a team to find all the hidden items. But of course, it’s also perfectly fine for adults to enjoy on their own, too! It’s whimsical, beautiful, and intriguing with a little bit of pressure and challenge to sometimes keep you on your toes. Dream Detective is an especially good value for your money, costing very little for a long, fulfilling puzzle game experience. If you’re looking for a game to play with your kids or little sibling, or just something to help you relax and casually play when you feel like it, Dream Detective is more than worth the price.

Have you played Dream Detective or were you considering picking it up? How did you find it if you did play? Do you agree with our opinions? How likely are you to buy the game now and give it a try? Do you have any advice for others that may be considering picking it up? Drop us a comment before you leave!

Dream-Detective-Logo-Steam Dream Detective - PC (Steam) Review

Writer

Author: Jet Nebula

Living the dream in Tokyo, where you can find me working at a theme café catered towards women. When I’m not writing for Honey’s, I’m working on original dystopian science fiction or blogging about Tokyo’s trendy coffee scene. I spend my free time in Harajuku and Shibuya wearing alternative Japanese street fashion. I love video games, J-rock, tattoos, and Star Wars.

Previous Articles

Top 5 Anime by Jet Nebula