Quick Review: Dreaming Sarah

The lands of dreams are so difficult to walk through when they’re dead-set on showing you your own mistakes.

Dreaming Sarah, a creation of Asteristic Game Studio and Anthony Septim, was published to Steam on March 12th, 2015. It is the story of Sarah, a teenage girl taking a trip through her own subconscious, after she suffered an accident and ended up in a coma (don’t @ me, it’s not a spoiler, it’s literally in the store page description). She’s looking for a way to wake up, however the path is long, complex, and she might not like to remember everything that took her there.

Making my way through that wraparound room
was a nightmare. No pun intended.

Not quite a Metroidvania, the game encourages exploration and you solve puzzles to find items that allow you to go a little further, find new areas, and finish new zones. All in a nice, pixelated, retro style. Some rooms are more special than others; a few of them are outright labyrinthine, meaning you must find your way around. I recall this room that wraps around itself in all directions, and getting to the exit requires falling down at the bottom and landing at the right place back at the top. On her way, Sarah can pick up items that will help her, such as an umbrella she can use to slow down her fall, or a compass telling her the direction to an important item. The inventory system takes some getting used to, it’s a little confusing at first, but I eventually learned to use it.

Oh jesus, is that blood???

While I won’t spoil the entire game, there are decisions that can be made that will alter the environment and, possibly, the ending (as there are two different endings you can get). The game also contains a number of secrets that are acknowledged in the achievements, if you care enough to look for them.

I liked to play through this one. The puzzles were pretty tricky at times, but thankfully it wasn’t too difficult to make my way around. The game is inspired by the Yume Nikki series, which I’ve never played – so if I’m missing out on any interesting parallels, sorry about that. The game also doesn’t save automatically, so remember to save once in a while. I will say it’s really short, though I’m cool with it.

Dreaming Sarah can be bought on Steam for 6$.