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Dream Catchers: The Beginning HD
Score: 85%
ESRB: 9+
Publisher: G5 Entertainment
Developer: Boon Troll
Media: Download/1
Players: 1
Genre: Puzzle (Hidden Object)/ Adventure/ Puzzle

Graphics & Sound:
Dream Catchers: The Beginning HD sports some very interesting graphics between the girls' boarding school you will visit and the dream world you will enter as you try to rescue your sister Mia from a strange sleeping illness. You'll begin the game at the school where she works where you'll find Mia in a coma-like sleep, along with all of the students at the school. The only person who seems to be immune to this strange event is the principal of the school, a beautiful young woman named Gladys. As you begin to explore the school, you are visited by a ghostly specter in the form of black smoke and the world surrounding you is quite fantastical in nature. Flowers and plants glow in an other-worldly fashion, but this is nothing compared to the look of the dream world you will eventually enter. Giant mushrooms, mechanized insects and lava lakes are par for the course in this almost Alice in Wonderland looking dimension you must find your way out of in order to rescue Mia.

Ambient noises will appear in the background such as rustling leaves and hooting owls, and at times, you'll hear mysteriously haunting music but it doesn't play continuously. Also, there is no voice acting, only written dialogue.


Gameplay:
Dream Catchers: The Beginning HD sets you on a mysterious adventure where you must work your way through the real world and a dream world in order to awaken your sister and the others who have fallen under a sleeping spell. You will need to collect items within the environment, as well as complete hidden object scenes to get needed items. When you see a group of yellow sparkles, this indicates a hidden object scene and when you see a lone white sparkle, this indicates an area you need to investigate. Unfortunately, sometimes the sparkle is just in the general area, not exactly where you need to look.

The entire game is a series of puzzles, hidden object scenes and fetch quests to gain the needed items to complete the puzzles. Sometimes I found that there really wasn't a clear indication of where I needed to go next, so it felt a bit aimless. When this happened, the Hint button was always there to bail me out, but I would have preferred a bit more clear direction instead of just being allowed to wander about in the hopes of coming across a needed item.


Difficulty:
Dream Catchers: The Beginning HD has no selectable difficulty setting and it isn't particularly hard, but there are some tedious puzzles. When you encounter those, you can always opt to skip them using the Skip button. I found that the most difficult part of the game was the lack of direction in what I needed to do next. I found that my inventory would be full of items and I might know how to go about obtaining a trapped item, but I didn't have the needed item to proceed. Eventually, I always came across it or ended up using the Hint to guide me, but a lot of the time just felt aimless while I was exploring and looking for potential helpful items.

Game Mechanics:
Dream Catchers: The Beginning HD provides you with a compass that you can tap to highlight the available paths you can take with arrows and you have a journal to keep track of what you've encountered. There is also a Hint button that looks like a dream catcher and you can tap this to guide you if you get stuck. You'll find your paths blocked on many occasions and you'll need to find items to clear the obstructions or to enter locked rooms. It's fairly standard stuff.

Puzzles you will encounter includes putting pictures together, slide puzzles, gear rotating puzzles, memory games and such. For the most part, the puzzles were enjoyable. Some were tedious, but that is what the Skip button is for. Sometimes, I find that I know what to do to solve a puzzle, but might be feeling too impatient to see it through and those times are where the Skip button comes in handy.

Overall, Dream Catchers: The Beginning HD has an interesting story and is clearly the beginning of a series based on how the episode ends. I liked the game, but hopefully future installments will give the player a little more direction. The art style is quite good and I am interested to see where this series will go in the future.


-Psibabe, GameVortex Communications
AKA Ashley Perkins

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