In Projected Dreams, you find yourself in a beautiful room full of toys, all ready for you to use to create shadows to solve little puzzles.
Creating shadows on your walls feels like a timeless thing that all children do at one point or another. Projected Dreams captures that childhood activity with a cozy puzzle game where you have a goal shadow that you need to create. The room itself is always packed with items, with drawers to open and stuff to move to find even more to play around with. These different items can be placed on tables to then create the desired shadow shape.
At first these are fairy easy, requiring you to just stack a few objects, but as you get further into the game there’s a perspective shift and you will find yourself needing to make sure you’re placing the right items on the right tables. There is also a star rating system to show how exact you are to your goal, providing a good guide as to what you need to work on. You can rotate items, but there is a real physics based element that can cause your tower to topple over quite easily.
At the end of each level, you will get a Polaroid camera photos showing a little memory or instance of your family. This slowly creates a story around your character and about their family. As you continue through the story, your room changes as you age. Boxes are unpacked, new furniture gives your room more character, and you really start to grow up. It’s quite fun to watch your surroundings evolve and provide you with more items to stack and create shadows with.
Projected Dreams was showcased at both Devcom and Gamescom this year, where I got the chance to play the demo. Actually lining up the shadows felt challenging, especially as some objects wouldn’t quite stack the way that I figured they would. It does feel like the shadows need specific toys at specific angles, but there isn’t a timer or any need to rush and the environment feels so relaxing. I quite enjoyed the look into the life of the main character and was interested in seeing how the toys and room changed as this child grew up. It’s a delightful puzzle game that feels lovingly made.
Projected Dreams is currently in development, but in the meantime, you can add it to your Steam Wishlist.
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