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TLDR: What the god damn f..?! The dev’s need help. Like, actual psychological help.
General Thoughts/Overview:
The Dream Machine (DM) has got to be one of the darkest point and click adventures I’ve played in a long old while. Think ‘I have no mouth, yet I must scream.’ as a solid benchmark comparison.
The game has an odd and unique art style, being a stop motion animation along an extremely primitive ‘Wallace and Gromit’ vein. The material based sets over digital art gives the game a truly one of a kind and slightly unsettling vibe which fit the theme very nicely.
You play as Victor Neff, who moved into an apartment with his pregnant wife not a single day prior to the game. Uncover a nefarious scheme and travel through dreams in this point and click adventure.
Pros:
Dark and twisting. DM gets progressively more convoluted and disturbing as it progresses. I honestly feel like a fair portion of this game was the developers dealing with their own inner demons. The story and its various inhabitants get even darker when you think about exactly what they’ve been doing in the real world, and what their dreams could be reflecting. It gives the game as much depth as you’re willing to interpret.
The animation really fits the theme. DM is such a unique project that hits home partly because of that very different style. And being novel gives it value for exploration artistically, if you care about that sort of thing.
The mixture of puzzle types is surprising and refreshing. DM makes excellent use of mini game style puzzles, environmental puzzles, inventory puzzles, and actually logically plausible puzzles in combinations with these, meaning the problems never get too stale.

Cons:
The sound choices are just terrible. They fit exactly what they’re meant to. But did we really need ear rape screeching as the lift doors jam? Did we need that god awful sound as you connect to the senders? Did the lift alarm have to be an actual alarm volumed accordingly? No. We didn’t. And giving them sounds that weren’t just terrible wouldn’t have lessened the experience.
The cheap old chapters 1 & 2 don’t work as a demo in the way I feel was intended. The game doesn’t even begin to get into its swing until chapter 3, and by chapter 5 it’s nothing like how it starts out. That and chapters 1 and 2 combined take all of an hour or so to finish, and the full game is easily 10-12 hours long.
This game is poorly optimised and in desperate need of some qol upgrades. Bug wise I hit quite a few potentially game breaking bugs, including all my saves being wiped (bar the auto save), an instance of my autosave being corrupt, and the game crashing frequently until I turned off ‘processor heavy’ art, which wasn’t effecting my processor performance at all. QoL wise the game has no double click to move, no skip dialogue, and no fast travel options (You get a buggy and ineffective fast travel in the final chapter, which is most welcome.)

Suggested improvements:
Some quality voice acting could take this game from the unsettling adventure it is into something truly unforgettable. The Dream Machine could make itself into the real world, were it brought even more to life by talented actors.
A double click to move. Good lord, a double click to move. This is such a basic pnc QoL improvement that it shouldn’t ever need to be stated.
Choices at the end of the game. I see why the dev’s didn’t give them, but c’mon. After all the other truly disturbing content in the game, a choice at the end would just be the cherry on the cake. Especially if it had… unforeseen… consequences.


Overall Recommendation:
This is a tough one. DM is so different that it needs to be played by people who like unique games. It’s a darker point and click adventure, with strongly mature themes, so it’s a welcome addition to a grown up gamers library. DM is so unique that it’s difficult to peg beyond this, and that comes at a cost. You need to be in the mood to play this game, and you won’t know if you’re in the mood to play it until you’ve tried it, which might well put people off it entirely. The story and themes and even the art will also put off quite a few people, who will find it jarring, unsettling, or just not fun to experience.
This game is not for children. It is not for people looking for a light hearted point and click adventure, and it is not for people looking for any kind of fast paced action. Its puzzles are fairly logical, however some are made significantly simpler by experience both in the real world, and in the world of pnc games.
I’d also argue this game isn’t for people who played and enjoyed the demo-like chapters 1 and 2. It changes vastly between that first instalment and the later ones. The tone becomes much darker, if you aren’t expecting that it might well be an unpleasant surprise.
My last caution is that the game is horribly overpriced if you buy it in its parts. This isn’t a 25 quid game, it’s a 5 quid game. Be absolutely sure it’s on sale and pick them up then, as the whole bundle goes for around 5 quid then.
Overall I do recommend this game, artistically, for the story, and for the puzzles… but for whatever reason I felt hesitant to give it the thumbs up. I guess part of being completely unique is not being to everyone’s taste.