Dreams is an incredible, unique game that you should check out for numerous reasons, but I'm going to specifically review Tren here.
Tren, a game built within another game (by the devs of the game themselves), is one of the best games of 2023. I easily sunk something like 10 hours into it and completed the full game, 100%ing too. It's the most impressive creation I've ever encountered in Dreams, and could easily be a standalone release.
It took minutes for the question of "how could a game that forces you to stay on tracks be that fun?" to be answered, and answered again, and again and again. The gameplay is straight up joyous. It brought back memories of playing with the wooden train tracks I had as a kid. I had a constant smile on my face and was stoked to see the little train do any sort of trick, and broke out laughing whenever the physics worked in some unexpected way, flinging pieces across the scenery.
The scenery, by the way, is SO meticulously detailed that you could spend the whole game in free cam mode and still have a great time. It's akin to an "I Spy" book, where little scenes built from models and household objects played out across the landscape. I had to slow down and start playing through the time trial levels without watching the timer because I just wanted to check out everything across the ~100 levels.
Because there are like 100 levels! And new, interesting mechanics showed up again and again. Even by the time you are at the last few levels, Tren has still more wonderful surprises built with so much care, just to be featured in one or two levels. The same goes for the music, there are dozens of tracks and you will be hearing new ones right till the end. The music perfectly suits the fun-loving mood of the game. I've started listening to it outside of playing the game, because it's honestly just that good.
If you have Dreams, I can't recommend you play Tren enough. If you don't have Dreams, Tren is a great reason why you should pick it up. What a blast!
Tren, a game built within another game (by the devs of the game themselves), is one of the best games of 2023. I easily sunk something like 10 hours into it and completed the full game, 100%ing too. It's the most impressive creation I've ever encountered in Dreams, and could easily be a standalone release.
It took minutes for the question of "how could a game that forces you to stay on tracks be that fun?" to be answered, and answered again, and again and again. The gameplay is straight up joyous. It brought back memories of playing with the wooden train tracks I had as a kid. I had a constant smile on my face and was stoked to see the little train do any sort of trick, and broke out laughing whenever the physics worked in some unexpected way, flinging pieces across the scenery.
The scenery, by the way, is SO meticulously detailed that you could spend the whole game in free cam mode and still have a great time. It's akin to an "I Spy" book, where little scenes built from models and household objects played out across the landscape. I had to slow down and start playing through the time trial levels without watching the timer because I just wanted to check out everything across the ~100 levels.
Because there are like 100 levels! And new, interesting mechanics showed up again and again. Even by the time you are at the last few levels, Tren has still more wonderful surprises built with so much care, just to be featured in one or two levels. The same goes for the music, there are dozens of tracks and you will be hearing new ones right till the end. The music perfectly suits the fun-loving mood of the game. I've started listening to it outside of playing the game, because it's honestly just that good.
If you have Dreams, I can't recommend you play Tren enough. If you don't have Dreams, Tren is a great reason why you should pick it up. What a blast!
3 Comments
@ThinkingFella If you like puzzle games, check out Rbdjellyfish's stuff (including the gold valley series) and definitely check out 800pixelgorilla's LOCK, which is legitimately one of the best first person puzzlers on or out of Dreams imo. If you like more quirky stuff, the Pig Detective series is a lot of fun and exponentially increases in quality. Trip's Voyage is a must-play if you like platformers, it's an insanely impressive Mario Odyssey clone. There's also the other official game by Media Molecule, Art's Dream, which was another great display of the game's potential.
There's certainly more that I'm forgetting about/am not aware of, but at this point there are numerous games made with serious effort and lots of love. It's very much like itch.io or newgrounds, plenty of glitchy, half-finished projects, plenty of memory joke games, but also lots of actual bangers.
There's certainly more that I'm forgetting about/am not aware of, but at this point there are numerous games made with serious effort and lots of love. It's very much like itch.io or newgrounds, plenty of glitchy, half-finished projects, plenty of memory joke games, but also lots of actual bangers.
*memey joke games, not memory joke games
ThinkingFella
7 months ago
I'll no doubt check out Tren now, your great write-up just completely sold me on it. The games I've tried on there were impressive, but nothing to write home about tbh or just meme games.
Maybe recommending games inside of dreams is the best use for a review of it. Any other games in there worth checking out while I am at it?