One Dreamer Review

One Dreamer is a narrative adventure game that tells the story of the creation of a social VR MMO called Proxy Life. Videogames have saved Luna's life, and she wanted to pay it back somehow, so she decided to make her own videogame with a game programmer named Frank. She realised quickly that trying to follow your dream may be a lot harder than you had initially envisioned. This game will offer a place where people can take a break from their lives and meet other players from far away. Fast-forward five years and the game has hit a standstill; Frank is an overworked and underpaid freelance coder. While exploring the house, we learn that Frank owes money to pay off his bills for an online cloud service called LUX. If he doesn't pay back the owed $5000, a collection agency will be coming to get the money. He also couldn't pay the contractors he hired to finish the framing on the room upstairs, so they quit. Frank is a very relatable character if you have ever dealt with depression or burnout, especially when you work in a creative field. 

You will be playing as Frank, who uses his programming knowledge to navigate this world that is a mix of his real life and a game called Isakai VR. This is the game where Luna and Frank first met and decided to work together to create their own game. We start in his house with Frank sitting on the stairs; you are restricted from going to the room at the top of the stairs, so you head down towards the kitchen. The phone is ringing, and you hear Luna's sister Alice leaving a phone message. She is telling Frank about her plan to finally get this game made; the first thing she tells you to do is turn on the coffee maker because you will need a cup of coffee. Once you have your coffee, you must go upstairs and turn on your computer — a checklist with all your tasks will pop up in the top right-hand corner of the screen. If you want to access this list at any point, hold down the RB button. 

Frank needs to deal with his clients who have been emailing requests to fix the coding on their sites, so you will have to solve coding puzzles to complete these tasks. Your first assignment from your client is to enable online purchases on their site. If you are familiar with programming at all, you will see that the coding here is just like it is in real life. It's very simplistic, which makes sense for players who aren't familiar with programming; all you do is manipulate the variables and the position of objects. Just click on the word you want to use in that line. I have only taken one programming class, but this was all very familiar. I was surprised that you can edit the code for almost every object you come across in the world; it was neat to change the code of the lamp to turn it on or open a door. Parts of the story's plot may feel very familiar to you if you are trying to work a day job to make enough money to live, while pursuing your passion. It may seem like a depressing game to play, but One Dreamer has a great message that may just inspire you even if you have given up on your dreams.

The game is in a 2.5D pixel style with great lighting effects. There isn't too much detail in the characters, which makes them pop from the backgrounds behind them. You can walk into the background and the foreground; you aren't stuck only on a horizontal plane. The game shows a little icon when you can walk towards the back or front and objects that you can manipulate have a white circle to denote this. If you are unsure of what you can all interact with, pressing the left thumbstick will highlight all these objects on that screen that you can view. Some objects, like the coffee machine, will let you turn it on, but others like a door will let you change its coding to remain locked or unlocked. I enjoyed trying to find everything that I could mess around with; it's not very often that you have the opportunity to mess around with the coding in a game. Later, you can manipulate the sprites that will appear in Proxy Life through flashbacks. You can get achievements for changing a goose's name and outfit early in the game, which sounds crazy, but he looks adorable in his little sailor outfit! Still, these little touches of humour are a nice break from the more serious, at times depressing story. 

Even though One Dreamer is an indie game, it has excellent voice acting, which adds to the story. We primarily hear Luna talking while playing the One Dreamer, as Frank is just remembering how these events played out, so we don't hear his side of the story. The music was very well done, and I enjoyed being able to play the piano that he has upstairs in his studio. It was very effective in portraying the story's mood and enhanced the feelings you felt. 

One Dreamer is not an exceptionally long game, but it is a roller-coaster of emotions. There is a lot here that many people will relate to, and it's just a good story about people following their dreams, even when things get difficult. If you have any coding knowledge, the puzzles will seem very familiar or accessible, as the whole game is centred around this. If you don't have previous experience, these parts may be a bit tricky at first but will it get easier to figure out after doing a few of these tasks. The story makes it worth the effort it will take to navigate these puzzles. The most finicky part was trying to stand in the right spot to interact with each item — the controls were a bit touchy, and it took a bit of moving around to get it to line up right.