Babies Dream of Dead Worlds

By: Guest Reviewer

On: March 2nd, 2010

[This is a guest article by Malec2b. If youâ€™d like to contribute a guest article to TIGSource, go here.]

Babies Dream of Dead Worlds is a game by Gregory Weir (I Fell in Love with the Majesty of Colors). It takes place inside the dreams of babies. These babies are dreaming of a world inhabited by strange tentacle creatures. In each level, there is a center line of gravity, meaning that when you are above the line, gravity pulls down, and when you are below the line, gravity pulls up. The creatures have tentacles both below and above their body, so they can walk properly on either side of the line. There are also rifts which serve as obstacles as they will send you back in the level if you touch them. The game is rather quick to play through, although there is some added replay value in getting faster times on races and more coins in the collection levels.

[SPOILERS: The rest of this review reveals key aspects of the game’s plot and structure and is hidden under a jump. -ed.]

The game follows the lives of three of the creatures. Each story has three stages which can be unlocked by playing the previous stage in that story and you can move between stories after beating each level. These stages take place in a different babyâ€™s dream and depict an episode in one of the three creaturesâ€™ lives.

Two of the stories follow rather standard video game tropes. One has you racing through increasingly difficult stages, while another has you collecting coins. However, the third story puts you in the role of a researcher studying the rifts. As the researcher, you can talk to people and see their reactions to the events unfolding in the storyline. It would spoil too much to say what exactly happens in the researcher storyline, but the researcher discovers something that puts the rest of the game into context.

BDODW manages to build a strong sense of mood while also maintaining well-designed and challenging gameplay. It’s built on a strong platforming mechanic created by the gravity system. As things get worse for the world in which these creatures live, the game naturally gets harder. The storyline and the gameplay feed into each other making the simple actions of racing, collecting and talking take on more meaning. The characters in this game, despite being strange tentacle creatures, feel very human in their actions and reactions.

TIGdb: Entry for Babies Dream of Dead Worlds

Posted in Browser Games, Platformers | Tags: GregoryWeir, ReviewedByMalec2B

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Jamal

Loved Majesty of Colors, but this was a little too cerebral for me. After a while the game has a nauseating effect.
FrankieSmileShow

It was okay, but I didnt bother with the collecting minigame. The game is already not all that exciting in general, but that was just boring. The first level takes a long while to get like 175 coins… and then the second, like 360 coins!! Stick with the racing and story levels imo!
CMspice

interesting way to unfold a changing setting through gameplay. Completely not impressed on the game mechanics itself, leaves something to be desired at the end.

Kind of funny in context of a game. Like.. it’s telling you just to play games for fun… Within a game you know haha…
John Nesky

This is now my favorite Flash game. I cannot get enough of alien worlds.
Robert

So… is this about global warming or something
deadeye

An interesting game mechanic. But seemed to me like Greg thought the title sounded cool and decided to force the idea into a totally unrelated game. Every so often while playing I was struck by the notion that this was supposed to be a baby’s dream, and it was just too absurd to take seriously.

Though I thought the main drawback was a bit of a clumsy control scheme. Seems to me that regular “hold jump to jump higher” would have felt more natural, rather than toggling the up and down keys all the time. I also had some problems with collision, trying to squeeze into single-block gaps, even when moving at slow speeds.

And honestly, I found the art to be a little lacking considering his previous efforts. I’m not a graphics whore by any means but Majesty of Colors had great art in it, and this seems to be a step back is all.

All in all it sort of feels like it’s unfinished and disjointed. But hey, good idea for a game mechanic.
William Broom

It was cool in an artgame sort of way, but I found the actual ‘gameplay’ to be very uninteresting. Ironically, if the gameplay had been engaging on its own terms, then it would have strengthened the ‘message’ of the game as well.
http://nuclearheart.com/ !CE-9

I was kind of hoping that someone would sooner or later make a game about flying phalli.

In seriousness though, the setting and the game mechanics are mildly, not wildly interesting, and it wasn’t enough to get me through the first researcher level.

Also, sometimes I felt I can’t see enough of what’s above/below considering how fast I could fall. This combined with the lack of action otherwise didn’t make for a rewarding gameplay experience.

I hate to come through as hating (especially as I’m not) — I loved Majesty of Colors and I felt there was potential in the world and the mechanics.
Jamal

“Every so often while playing I was struck by the notion that this was supposed to be a babyâ€™s dream, and it was just too absurd to take seriously.”

Nice review deadeye! I felt the same way — that the theme of the game was disconnected from the action. I’m sure baby’s dream of much more interesting things.
Tom

I didn’t like this game. Infact I thought it was kind of insulting.

Right off the bat, it comes out with this insane artsy concept of babies dreaming: Okay, babies don’t have a perspective on anything so what do they dream about? I get that, but what does that have to do with this game? Babies don’t know what races are, or coin collecting, or fuckin scientists.
The art’s so lazy aswell. I mean yeah, impressionism, but come on! There’s like one tile to represent the whole environment.
Why are there multiple paths? What’s the baby ethnicity thing about? What are the researchers talking about? At first I thought maybe it’s my fault n I’m too dumb for this game, then it throws a fucking RACE LEVEL at me and long story short I don’t like it.
Jamal

I like your stream of consciousness style Tom. And yeah, I get what you’re saying, you have a lot of good points. My first reaction was also, woah this is way over my head!

Did anybody actually like “Babies Dream of Dead Worlds”?
Anarkex

I so didn’t like this game, and you know it’s kind of heartwarming to read the comments and see that for the most part I don’t have to explain why. Game is trash.

Favorite moment: At the end of the researcher story, the one that’s supposed to explain why the world is disintegrating if you could only read every last one of fifty billion shitty Zelda dialog boxes scattered around the level, one of the horrible crayon dick ant creatures says, for absolutely no reason, “I wonder what our babies dream about before they open their eyes for the first time”. And by favorite, I mean it made me want to actually kill the pretentious little baby who thought he was such a little philosopher for dreaming of this. A single tear rolled down my cheek.
William Broom

@Jamal: I actually liked it a lot, though I didn’t really make that clear in my first comment.
Jamal

Well good on you William!

And thanks for stepping up mate! Cheers to you!
ortoslon

middle branch playthrough http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFxg2DeaKzA
http://www.jonas-kyratzes.net Jonas

I liked it, but I was a pretentious baby.
Jamal

LOL! Yeah. Yeah I feel you man.
deadeye

Just to be clear, I don’t really dislike the game, I just feel that it’s disjointed and lacking polish. And I hope I’m not offending Greg, I’m just giving my honest opinion.
Phrenologist

For all of its pontificating, the game wasn’t any fun to play, and if we’re talking about games as art that throws up a huge red flag.

It’s like, you’re watching a movie about the French Revolution but the whole time you see a sound guy in the background holding a boom mic and wearing a pair of jorts.
Duncan

Great concepts, and I love the themes. The name of the game was perfect as well, but I do agree that it needs to be more fun. I was very impressed by the underlying motifs, but the message won’t be conveyed unless the player is propelled through the game by compelling gameplay. Think Braid; that had a perfect balance.

To me, this game sparked the question “what do babies actually dream of?” If they haven’t been introduced to society yet, do they dream of abstract concepts? Dead worlds? The problem is that without compelling gameplay, the ideas aren’t really conveyed.
Baba Yaga

That was kind of fun. The gameplay had some fun ideas, but wasn’t super fantastic. Overall, the game didn’t seem all that interactive, since everything but you stays in the same place all the time. I know that sounds weird, but it makes me feel like there’s no real tension between the character and the world.

It was very interesting to me that I was the most entertained by the researcher levels by far. I really liked the dialogue, even if it was super short. I actually felt rewarded when I tracked down a character and talked to them; a feeling that never really came in the race or coin levels. Those tentacle beasts are just so darn cute, you know?
Jamal

“Overall, the game didnâ€™t seem all that interactive, since everything but you stays in the same place all the time.”

Baba Yaga, that’s very interesting, I hadn’t thought of that.

As far as dialogue, to me was OK, but there were too many characters to talk to, and most said only one sentence.