Back to Bed is an artistic 3D puzzle game with a surreal twist. It tells the story of Bob, an unlucky narcoleptic who has a tendency of falling asleep in his boring office and then proceeding to sleepwalk into the dangers of the big city. Luckily, Bob has a subconscious guardian named Subob, whom spawns from the mind of Bob and whose job it is to protect the sleepwalker from any danger and guide him back to the safety of his bed.
The ever vigilant Subob must guide the constantly sleepwalking Bob on a journey through a series of surreal painting-like cityscapes where the boundary between Bob's dreams and reality have vanished, as Subob is part of Bob's subconsciousness. The result is an artistic dream world that is recognizable, yet totally different from the real world, where many things are not what they seem and dangers to the sleepwalker lurks deeper in.
Name
Back to Bed
Companies
Bedtime Digital Games
Released
8/6/2014
Platforms
Android, Linux, Mac, Nintendo Switch, Ouya, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PC (Microsoft Windows), PlayStation Vita, Windows Phone, Wii U, iOS
Back to Bed is a surreal puzzle game where you have to guide sleepwalking Bob back to his bed through a series of surreal dream worlds. You do this by placing obstacles and using the environment to guide him to bed without letting him fall or be woken up. There are 30 levels to the game, although they repeat with an extra step in Nightmare Mode. Playing through the levels in normal mode was generally pretty easy, although there were a couple of trickier levels mixed in. The levels only reset when Bob wakes up, so even if he falls off, you can move around the objects you need and move/remove some hazards without losing your progress each time you start over. In Nightmare mode, you play through the levels again, but you also have to retrieve keys along the way. The keys don't stay collected if Bob falls, so to finish the level you have to get all the keys and get Bob to the door without falling. This was definitely harder than the regular levels and in some was pretty frustrating. Getting everything you need without falling involves figuring out an intricate series of steps and then executing them correctly, and messing up even one step means you start from the beginning again, which could be pretty annoying on levels that were more complex and had more keys. I didn't end up needing to look up any answers, but figuring out some of the Nightmare levels wasn't much fun. The game has a very surreal art style. The artwork references major surrealist artists, such as Dali and Escher. The narrator with the creepy voice and the soundtrack combine with the art style to create a dream-like atmosphere. The game was a little buggy. There were a couple of places where Bob can get stuck walking into a wall or where apples stick to the underside of surfaces. The only way to fix either was to reset the level. The movement also gets weird if you try to move with keyboard and click with mouse, but works fine if you use mouse alone. I also had the game crash when I tried to skip the end credits. Back to Bed has cool artistic inspirations and mostly enjoyable puzzles, but is a bit short, a little buggy, and occasionally frustrating. It isn't my favorite puzzle game, but I thought it was overall pretty good and I'm interested in checking out other games from this developer. 6/10
