Number one, In a dream I told my mother - ~~~
Positives
This game took the genre of surrealness and expanded on it in such a captivating way that I had to write this review immediately. First off, the music is wonderfully chosen. The anxiety-inducing sounds that appear during the more creepy moments in the narrative add to the player’s immersion and on the other side of the scale we have the emotionally-charged melodies that play periodically and always successfully drew the most sentiment out of me (especially when climbing the final ladder). The protagonist you play as is a blank slate that you can insert yourself into although it’s still very clear that they have a backstory attached to them. There were so many metaphors and detailed passages to wade through that I spent the better part of an hour, reading, going back and rereading, trying to get every single detail and after that venture, I found myself very surprised and impressed.
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(Attempted) Plot Deconstruction
From what I got of the story, our protagonist is a nondescript oil platform worker that has been sent off on a water expedition by some researchers to explore the bottom of the ocean. Since our protagonist has nothing to their name and nothing to go back to, they agree to be the diving man for the expedition. Taking the rig down, they immediately are surrounded by the overwhelming darkness of the ocean and we begin to see flashes of their memories once they reach the bottom of the sea. A nightclub filled with spirits of people that once were, one perpetually burning house filled with memorabilia of their life and childhood, a factory where drained workers seemingly work in loops creating nothing… forever stuck in their cycle, a classroom which makes you feel that if you work hard and put in the effort someone or something should come to reward you or at least congratulate you, but it never comes, sitting in your mother’s chair and reminiscing, discarding all of your possessions and ascending, finally climbing the final ladder. Will you ever truly leave this place or are you just returning to the darkness where the sights and thoughts of your past will forever follow you? It was a beautiful and truly a 10/10 experience for me.
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My Questions/Notes
Here are some random thoughts that arose during my playthrough
- He screams until he sleeps, it seems.
- Were their mother and father drug addicts?
- Why does the diver feel his father’s embrace after the man in the Slurry Stream climbs over him? Is the man his father?
- His father lies in the collapsed church… what could this mean !!!
- My first ending was waiting in the classroom for something to happen and finally getting credits.
- Where is the diver going now? Was the expedition, in the beginning, real or did they die when they went under and was this a sort of pre/post-death hallucination?
- Questions, questions, questions…
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Criticisms
None; I honestly and unequivocally loved playing this game. Discarding everything I picked up was the most cathartic moment for me.
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Overall Impression
Loved.