PEGBRJE: Dreaming Sarah and Hyperspace Dogfights
Narrative exploration and just, like, a lot of bullets.
Dreaming Sarah is a puzzling narrative platformer by Asteristic Game Studio, a solo indie by the name of Andre Silva with assistance from Anthony Septim for music and additional art by Danilo Dias. Players follow the story of Sarah, a young girl who wakes up in a bizarre forest with no recollection or understanding of where she is. She then begins to venture forth into a world full of strange mysteries and space-bending logic that only different dimensions could create.
I’d like to preface that I have not played either of the inspirations for Dreaming Sarah, those being Yume Nikki (surreal horror title from 2004) and Flashback (cinematic sidescroller from 1992). Granted, after playing I don’t believe that this knowledge is completely necessary, for the game follows a mind-bending style of puzzle solving. Players will explore each world, finding conduits that appear as ordinary objects until they interact with them and are thrown into a completely different world. Environments start out confusing as they can be, with some areas looping forever as an indicator that Sarah may not want nor need to be there, or instances where the verticality is looping instead so falling loops back to landing on a platform above the previous. However, it’s this sense of understanding where all of the areas lead and where they connect to others that the sense of exploration is piqued, bringing players back to the central forest areas at times that wouldn’t make sense except for the explanation of ‘surrealism’. Of course, this can backfire at times due to the very nature of the beast, as I went for most of the game never seeing some small regions within worlds simply because I got preoccupied and ended up three worlds deep in another exploration fest.
This is somewhat important due to the nature of the game’s narrative, as the entire thing is a puzzle for the player to unwrap and figure out just what is going on with poor Sarah. Exploration leads to new worlds to piece the player’s understanding of why Sarah may be here, but can also lead to a few moments where not even the player is sure what to do next. Many times it was simply that I explored too far, only to realize I couldn’t go any farther and then forgot that I had been there after acquiring the item in the first place. Thankfully these moments are few and far between, mostly due to the interconnectivity of the levels to keep players able to warp around easily, but that isn’t to say that I didn’t have to check a guide once or twice to realign myself. For major spoilers, the biggest issue I ran into was not being able to finish the game due to not finding the paint can — I never thought to head back to where it was hidden, nor did it seemingly affect anything throughout the game in order to trigger any need for it. Again, thanks to the interconnectivity I was able to reach it with ease and continue onwards.
Exploration is key, but it is what dwells in the realms and what players can do during their stay that makes them interesting. Dreaming Sarah has an array of characters that players can interact with, some having quests tied to them usually involving retrieval of an item to reveal a new piece of the puzzle. As Sarah does not explicitly talk back, many interactions are of the ‘monologue’ type in which multiple conversations with the same NPC can lead to more information, and rarely is the first conversation the only one. Thankfully, NPCs that request an item usually state so up front, so there’s no need to read between the lines.
Dreaming Sarah is an interesting sidescrolling game, boasting a surreal and intricate world design to twist player’s perceptions of their surroundings and understandings to fit the general narrative of the title. While I had a few hiccups along the way, I rarely felt as if there was nothing I could do while stuck in this fantasy world. With a handful of mobility powers to allow players to explore and a story told only through visuals, it’s a good addition to anyone that may be a fan of the inspirations Dreaming Sarah draws from. For those of us that haven’t played either, I’d recommend it to anyone that enjoys platforming titles with puzzles that aren’t mindbreaking, but will definitely challenge how one perceives the game state.
On the opposite end is Hyperspace Dogfights.
Hyperspace Dogfights is an endless space shooter utilizing the power of physics and is made by sleeper_games, an indie solo project from Germany. Players take control of the best™ spaceship in the galaxy in order to combat the enemy. Players are given a simple directive: complete the mission, and get the heck out afterwards to move onto the next one, with upgrades purchasable during the inbetweens of missions. How long will the ship survive is dependent on a few things, namely how well one can handle the ship itself.
Hyperspace Dogfights big draw is in its combat, which utilizes physics based aerial movement to duck and dodge bullets while shooting down whatever caused those bullets. Rotations are handled by 2 inputs for clock and counter-clockwise turning, with another 2 handling the thrusters for forwards and backwards. Admittedly it took a little bit of getting used to, mostly due to the rotations getting a little wonky when the ship is flying in a direction that opposes the rotational button’s seeming direction — or, in easier terms, when I’m holding the right rotation but it looks like I’m turning left. Bullets from the enemies thankfully have lines to indicate their directions and paths, so players can look super cool dodging projectiles in advance (it’s mostly to give them some predictive ability in the chaos). Which brings to the player’s ability to shoot, which is locked to the direction the ship is facing, unless one is able to acquire a different gun with different rules. For me, combat was mostly just holding down the firing button while focusing primarily on dodging and hoping that my own bullets hit the enemy, but this style did have a drawback; shields don’t recharge while shooting. To balance out how strong the ships are, shields can only recharge when bullets aren’t being expended, which caused me to take damage more often than I’d care to admit. And the ship is really strong with its ability to fly into the actual ground to avoid missiles while taking some shield damage as it does.
This game is an endless styled title, so defeating enemies and completing objectives will grant currencies to purchase new loot in between missions, which have a tier system, which then gives a random item based on the chest specifications. Chests do stick around if players can’t afford them, so putting money towards a certain upgrade isn’t a terrible idea, although dying usually means having to restart so I’m uncertain if I had missed the true reasoning behind this feature. Upgrades can range from new guns (and swords?????) to passives that can range from all sorts of abilities to help extend the length of the run. The more features one can acquire the better, because each successful mission increases the difficulty of the run until a boss appears, and some of those bosses are a seriously terrifying pain, almost even more bullet hell-esque than the general gameplay.
I do wish to make a quick note that the visuals are somehow super clean amidst the bullets and the explosions. The neon colours resemble that of a constant setting sun amidst a super-nova, with yellows to purples frequent as the backdrops. Somehow, most likely thanks to the specific colour choices of the lines to contrast the backdrop regardless of its colour scheme, the bullets and explosions always are visible no matter the clutter, which is really quite aesthetically pleasing outside of just the already gorgeous visuals. The only downside I found were the clouds which while give an outline of the ship whilst behind them, still felt a tad distracting.
Hyperspace Dogfights delivers exactly what it’s title intends for it to be, with the ability to warp around space and take dogfights against dozens of enemies. It takes a bit of getting the hang of, but the fast paced combat will get player’s familiarized quickly, and while it may lead to death a few times it lets players get back in just as quickly. If you are looking for a quick combat spaceship simulation of explosions, give it a try and see how you fare.
