I Keep Having This Dream
Freud would have a field day with this chase sequence
$1.99 Developer Fireflame Games, keephavingthisdream.blogspot.co.uk Platform Universal Requirements iOS 6 or later
Do you remember Pipe Dream? That preinstalled ’90s Windows game in which you played a besieged plumber desperately laying pieces of pipe to stem an encroaching tide of green goop? Well so, it seems, does Fireflame Games – except here the goop is a nebulous “Nemesis” and the sewers are your actual nightmares.
You start down in the dark, with only a general compass direction to steer you to your escape route. At the bottom of the screen, you have a collection of tiles to choose from – each with the next part of a pathway on it. Laying some tiles boosts your attack stat, while others bolster your defense, replenish your health or inch you towards a level-up.
Worse, though, are “Snags.” These tiles act as halting points for the Nemesis on its periodic advances (which is good, because nothing pleasant happens when it catches up to you), they also briefly attack you. When your options narrow down to solely comprise Snags and their variants (even nastier and far more persistent), you’re essentially forced to lay your own downfall.
As you might have guessed, given that it’s a game centered around a nightmare, it’s not the most relaxing, nor is it visually a stunner. Playing is absorbing but rarely surprising, despite the cat-and-mouse element – your demise tends to be visible from several moves ahead. That said, we’d recommend this for those who enjoy strategy puzzle games… or have a bunch of nightmare trauma to work through.
the bottom line. A tense game of path creation in which your demise is instrumented by yourself.