Sweet Dreams Alex Review

Sweet Dreams Alex is a 2D puzzle-construction game published by Kasedo Games that was released on the 5th of October. In it, you act as a "Dream Builder" — your job is to prevent "Nightmares" from reaching Alex's bed by building a labyrinth to prevent them from reaching her in time.

The game contains a story, which is revealed by diary entries scattered throughout the different levels. Each of them contains more information about Alex's life and her family. The things written down in the diary range from major events in her life, such as moving to a new house, to small stuff, like her dad finding an ice cream shop. Not all of the entries are written by Alex, as she's young and can barely write, so her parents do it for her. The story isn't very interesting — there's just not enough depth to it, which makes the game a little boring, as the entries only provide insight into Alex's life, which isn't very exciting. There's no reason not to read the diary, and it does add a lot to Sweet Dreams Alex, but just not enough.

The concept of building mazes to prevent Nightmares from reaching Alex's bed is an interesting one. On every level, there is a different catch: sometimes, you have a limited number of blocks you can place, while at other times, the Nightmare might be a lot faster. Unfortunately, that's not enough to make levels fun, and everything feels repetitive, so it gets boring really fast. The gameplay just isn't engaging enough, even for a game that's supposed to be casual, and having more gameplay elements would have made the game a lot better. Although boring, the levels are designed well from a gameplay perspective — I've never been stuck not knowing what to do. There are also some hints available for each puzzle and the ability to skip that puzzle in case you really don't know how to solve it, which is a nice touch. The amount of levels (over 250) is a two-sided coin — you get a lot of content for your money, but it means that to finish the game, you have to put a lot of time into it, which can be very annoying for completionists such as myself.

The pixel art used doesn't look very good, and it can be hard to understand what different objects are, although the gameplay is simple, so it isn't affected by that. It's not painful to look at by any means, but it doesn't look great at all, which can ruin how fun the game is. Some things are designed better than others, which makes the worse objects feel out of place, ruining any immersion Sweet Dreams Alex might have had. The customisation options in the game could have been interesting, but it doesn't look good enough for them to matter or be fun to play around with enough.

The music is great, though; it definitely gives the game a casual feeling. It fits the gameplay and is nice to listen to. Although it doesn't do a lot besides that, and it never made me feel anything special. Other sound elements are fine but don't really matter for the game overall, as most of them are in the main menu. But there's nothing bad about the sound design, so it's definitely one of the better aspects of the game.

Overall, Sweet Dreams Alex is underwhelming and boring, but it isn't bad by any means. It can be fun if you like casual games, so I would still recommend it to anyone who likes anything cute and simple you can chill with. Except for how it looks, there aren't really any big negatives; most aspects of the game are just average. All in all, though, with its uninteresting story and repetitive gameplay, it wasn't very fun for me, and that's probably the case for most players, too.