New release: Dreamscape

File this one under “New to Me”: last year, Aldorlea Games released an RPG Maker jRPG by the name of Dreamscape. Today, you can read a new, short review of the the game up on DarkStarMatryx, in which the reviewer describes Dreamscape as reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland. (Insofar as the game’s premise involves delving through other peoples’ minds, it reminds me of Chocobo’s Dungeon.) A snippet from the review:

You will jump into the dreams of people you meet and can exit the way you came in or jump into the dream of another person you meet or person within your party. This allows a lot of back and forth into different landscapes, something you will need to do to advance farther in certain realms. You won’t be worrying about random monsters though, they appear on the screen for you to avoid or confront depending on you.

An interesting aspect that adds some difficulty to the game is the lack of a healing item inventory. Within the dreams you will find food of all sorts that will heal your party. Certain characters more than others depending on the food type. The true kicker is once you pick it up it is used immediately and removed from the map. So you need to use them sparingly and make sure it is the right item for the character needing healed most. There is a bit of a safety net as far as healing goes. You can use a fairy that appears near where you start, at a cost. If she heals your party the dreamworlds will react and make the game more difficult. So using her can be more headache than help.

Additionally, here’s an interview Adam Ames of TruePCGaming did with Indinera (the owner of Aldorlea Games). They don’t talk too much about the game itself there, though Indinera does mention that Dreamscape is more puzzle-focused than his usual fare.