Lucy Dreaming Review

From Tall Story Games, Lucy Dreaming is a retro-style point-and-click puzzler about a young girl named Lucy who is suffering from recurring nightmares. A quirky little puzzle game, Lucy Dreaming reached its funding goal on Kickstarter in just a week. Solve puzzles, flit between dreams and reality and help Lucy overcome her nightmares and unravel a murder mystery.

The game begins with young Lucy falling from the sky before waking up in bed. From here, you’ll need to guide Lucy through her house and, eventually, the neighborhood as she learns to overcome her nightmares through lucid dreaming. To begin your journey through the dream worlds, you’ll first need to create a dream box. The items currently stored in the dream box will determine which location Lucy visits.

From Dreams To Reality

While Lucy is awake, players will explore locations like the church and town center in all their nostalgic pixelated glory. The character’s oversized heads will remind you of the classic NES title, Dennis the Menace—if you’re old enough to remember Super Nintendo titles. Lucy’s hometown is full of quirky characters, such as a lonely satanic librarian and a convenience store employee who can turn his head 180 degrees thanks to his mother’s consumption of jelly babies during pregnancy. Thanks to a surplus of funding on Kickstarter, every character features processional-level voice-overs, which serve to enhance the experience. From Lucy’s sadistic twin brother Lloyd to the thrift shop employee attempting to save the weasel population, every NPC in town manages to be entertaining while still being necessary to the game’s progression.

While exploring the waking world is undoubtedly fun, it’s the dream worlds you’ll visit that truly make Lucy Dreaming a masterpiece. You’ll perform standup comedy in a club for sentient plants, trade trading cards with trolls from a land of baked goods and more in increasingly zany dream worlds. The puzzles here are even more creative than the ones you’ll find in reality.

Puzzling Puzzles

Lucy Dreaming isn’t for you if you’re looking for an easy breezy puzzle game. Each puzzle is quirky, unique and quite challenging. You’ll need to use a combination of context clues, deductive reasoning and your own ingenuity to successfully complete the strange and often humorous puzzles. From finding a way to return your brother’s gerbil without opening his bedroom door to making jam for a contest with improvised ingredients, each puzzle is both unexpected and comical. Sure, the puzzles are tricky, but you’re sure to have a few laughs while trying to figure them out.

If you get stuck, which admittedly I did quite a few times, hold your finger over the little question mark towards the bottom of the screen to reveal what objects Lucy can interact with in the current scene. If you still can’t figure out the puzzle, however, you are out of luck as the game doesn’t offer specific hints. Depending on your preferences, the lack of hints is either a welcome challenge or a frustrating inconvenience.

Keep it Simple

The controls for Lucy Dreaming are pretty simple. To move, tap the spot where you want Lucy to go. At the bottom of the screen, there are four rather self-explanatory buttons—’ Look At,’ ‘Pick Up,’ ‘Talk To’ and ‘Use.’ Tap the corresponding button before tapping a character or object to complete the appropriate action. In addition, players will also interact directly with Lucy’s inventory. For instance, tapping Use before tapping an object in your inventory allows you to use it to complete a puzzle. The straightforward controls are a blessing, considering how difficult some of the puzzles are.

Lucy Dreaming is a comedic puzzle game that pays homage to old-school point-and-click adventure titles. With odd, engaging characters, charming locations and challenging puzzles, this title is a must-play for hardcore puzzle game fans. However, those who are easily frustrated may be better off leaving Lucy to figure out her nightmares on her own.