Narrative driven games are often a focal point for the gaming community. The days of merely putting out a fun-filled platformer or puzzle title are long gone and have instead been replaced by the urge to include a novel worth of content for the player to feel lost in. With many gamers demanding nothing short of masterpieces these days, have we reached a point in the road where there is too much focus on the narrative aspect of gaming rather than the gameplay? With this in mind, I have been playing Labyrinthine Dreams on the PC.
Labyrinthine Dreams is a short puzzle game which sees you playing as Beth, a young woman who is at death’s door. Upon her time at predicament, Beth reflects on her traumatic upbringing and after she has seems to get her life on track; she now faces an astute enemy who threatens to once again throw her life into disrepair. Beth revisits important times in her life and the main gameplay is portrayed through puzzles which symbolise her feeling of being trapped in difficult times throughout her life.
The game is the creation of developers Artbane and Volrath who together created Solest, the development studio for Labyrinthine Dreams. In order to fund the game, the duo took their project to Kickstarter and set themselves a low-budget of $6,000. With the studio already proving popular with past titles such as Master of the Wind and X-Noir, Labyrinthine Dreams raised just over $6,000 which allowed the game to be made.
Right from the off you can tell that Labyrinthine Dreams is a story-driven game. From the emotional cries from Beth’s voice and the brutal honesty from her father prepare you for an emotional story. The first piece of gameplay sees you making your way through forests which, as previously mentioned, are symbolic to her feeling trapped in her difficult circumstances. One of the stipulations is that you can only move forward and you can only turn right and it does prove to be a great challenge. With the game not having much depth in terms of gameplay, this is about as difficult as it gets and, although it’s tough, it feels very rewarding when you make it to your desired location.
Sadly, this is all there really is to the gameplay. Once you have played the first section, you will have played most of what the game offers for the rest of the campaign. As you progress through the dreams you do come across different puzzles involving cars and the aforementioned astute enemy, but these are largely similar, apart from when you face your enemy you need to outsmart it and once you realise what to do it’s very rewarding.
With the game being a low budget title, Labyrinthine Dreams has been created using RMVX Ace which has been used to create Solest’s other games. This results in colourful yet simple environments and, although they won’t take your breath away, it allows the story to take centre stage.
The voice acting through intervals is performed well enough but I wasn’t blown away with the dialogue. For a story which revolves around an emotional tale, it felt numb at times as you don’t really get to know the characters well enough from what little time you have with them. The time you normally do have with them are around 30 seconds in-between puzzles and I felt an emotional tie couldn’t be formed in this timeframe. There is music throughout Labyrinthine Dreams and it is often endearing, but it can get too repetitive if you suddenly become stuck on a frustrating maze.
While I do agree that many games go on for too long and could be shortened significantly, I can’t see what benefit the game has for being so short. Although there was a lot of controversy recently with the release of Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes and the length at which that could be completed in, you could change the way you approached the game, but in Labyrinthine Dreams you can only complete each puzzle one way or a slight variance to that one way. There is no reason to replay this game once you’ve completed it, you’ve done and seen everything the game has to offer.
Labyrinthine Dreams is an average experience which focuses too much on the story and constantly trying to force you to have an emotional tie to the story of Beth and her family. I personally wasn’t won over by the narrative, but I do think that there will be people who will get something from Labyrinthine Dreams due to its accessibility and duration. I do feel that the game would have been far better suited to mobile and tablet devices as the game isn’t too demanding graphically or content wise. In terms of conveying a meaningful story, the game falls short and for the main aspect of the game, it isn’t great.
Labyrinthine Dreams is available now on Steam for £3.99