From Lara with Lovecraft.
In Dishonored, Blink is sort of headshots but for movement, snapping you between points with toe-curling specificity.
It takes the stodge out of vertical exploration and edits plodding stealth into a series of catlike pounces.
It plays that role in Dream Cycle, too, especially when combined with levitation and silenced SMGs.
A beautifully banded sandstone channel, screened by stalactites.
A hint of crystal in the dark, or the seductive glimmer of running water.
Dream Cycle is made up of horribly tantalising spaces like these.
Shes searching the Dreamlands for her friend Erin, one of many victims of a mysterious sleeping sickness.
Can you make it out again?
Sometimes, the answer is no.
Which might not sound very fun, and indeed, I can’t recommend Dream Cycle as it stands.
You spot the routes and hit all the buttons with perfect timing or you perish.
This world might be solvable, but its never accommodating.
I say compressed, but the buildings are often more like body cells caught mid-duplication.
I have a screenshot album full of archways that feed into kaleidoscopic snakepits of other archways.
Elsewhere, waterfalls spill from empty air and hammered planks form haphazard paths around doubled-up columns of floating rock.
But I cant explain the roofs that have roofs, or the balustrades gnashing together like angry teeth.
The fascination of these spaces is that they don’t feel made for me.
(Other anachronistic level pieces serve as dropzones for tastier weapons, like lightning pendants or sniper rifles.)
The game also keeps you guessing about the time of day.
Enemies arent always sitting ducks, either.
Can you make it out again?
We too often grade procedural generation systems in terms of whether they conjure something that feels properly hand-made.
