This is a British point and click adventure where you play as Lucy. Your main objective starts with trying to solve your nightmare issue. You continue to have the same nightmare, and you’re able to make a dream box to counter it. But things get more interesting as you try to solve a cold case murder mystery at the same time. There’s a lot of comedy thrown in, while still maintaining the important subject matter of solving a past crime in a small town. Discover the secrets of the past while you enjoy a casual yet puzzling adventure.

Here’s what I liked:

British Humor — There’s a form of comedy known as British Humor, which can be described as sarcastic and deadpan. If you enjoy this type of humor, then you’ll be clicking on everything in sight to see what Lucy has to say. There’s a curious cast of characters, especially the ones in the dream world, that bring a lot of funny moments. For example, you can read plant jokes to a Venus flytrap in your room, and later, when you have a dream about plants, you find yourself in a comedy club with judges ready to hear these same jokes. The bartender happens to be your pet, but in a humanoid form, and the dialogue is hilarious. Often, the jokes will depend on your way of thinking. The dialogue works as a means to get you to think of things yourself, and if it’s funny to you, it’s because of what it made you think about.

Use of Sleeping — Sleeping in this game is never actually a resting moment. You go to sleep to tackle your nightmares. These dreams are their own world, where items you collect can be used in the various dreams you can have. These are based on what’s in your dream box. You can place reading material to set the location and an item to help you. It’s as if you are playing two different point-and-click games in one.

Here’s what I didn’t like:

Too Much is Too Much — Lucy has a rucksack that she can use to store items she finds. This is common in this genre, but it gets a bit packed at times. There is an arrow to scroll down your items. Sometimes you have to use an item with another, and it’s not convenient to have to use the arrow as well. There is also an item that stays with you the entire game, as somewhat of a joke, but you’re constantly using it with things without realizing that it will never work.

Using Items — There are four different interactions you can do while playing. You can look, talk, use, and pick up things. You must use the left bumper on your controller to choose which interaction you’d like to do. The problem I had was that it’s a very cumbersome system to use. I know these types of games are very much based on mouse and keyboard, but I have played similar titles where I wasn’t feeling annoyed with the system using a controller. It might be because there are too many items in your inventory at one time. I’m not sure if the right bumper could have been utilized as well, to make things a bit quicker when choosing which item you wanted to interact with.

Hint System — Having played so many titles of this genre, I wouldn’t call myself an expert, but I do generally have a good idea of what needs to be done. The hint system in place highlights what can be interacted with. In a lot of cases, the same things are still highlighted even if you’ve done everything with the item. This game, though silly at face value, is also pretty challenging. At times, you may feel overwhelmed with doing things in your dream world and the real world. Also, once you have all the dreams, it makes things even more complicated since you can change items around. There aren’t many hints for what you have to do in these situations.

Wrap-up

There are a lot of funny moments to experience. I really liked the humor, and it was wildly entertaining to run around and experience the interesting characters and the town. The game can be pretty difficult, with a lackluster hint system and too many items to interact with. The dream system was really clever, but at times, it could cause some headaches with figuring out what to do. A little adjustment with interactions and the hint system would have went a long way.

Score: Reader’s Choice

Lucy Dreaming was published by and developed by Tall Story Games Ltd on Xbox One. It was released on May 31 2023, for $18.99. A copy was provided for review