Babies Dream of Dead Worlds

By: Guest Reviewer

On: March 2nd, 2010

[This is a guest article by Malec2b. If you’d like to contribute a guest article to TIGSource, go here.]

Babies Dream of Dead Worlds is a game by Gregory Weir (I Fell in Love with the Majesty of Colors). It takes place inside the dreams of babies. These babies are dreaming of a world inhabited by strange tentacle creatures. In each level, there is a center line of gravity, meaning that when you are above the line, gravity pulls down, and when you are below the line, gravity pulls up. The creatures have tentacles both below and above their body, so they can walk properly on either side of the line. There are also rifts which serve as obstacles as they will send you back in the level if you touch them. The game is rather quick to play through, although there is some added replay value in getting faster times on races and more coins in the collection levels.

[SPOILERS: The rest of this review reveals key aspects of the game’s plot and structure and is hidden under a jump. -ed.]

The game follows the lives of three of the creatures. Each story has three stages which can be unlocked by playing the previous stage in that story and you can move between stories after beating each level. These stages take place in a different baby’s dream and depict an episode in one of the three creatures’ lives.

Two of the stories follow rather standard video game tropes. One has you racing through increasingly difficult stages, while another has you collecting coins. However, the third story puts you in the role of a researcher studying the rifts. As the researcher, you can talk to people and see their reactions to the events unfolding in the storyline. It would spoil too much to say what exactly happens in the researcher storyline, but the researcher discovers something that puts the rest of the game into context.

BDODW manages to build a strong sense of mood while also maintaining well-designed and challenging gameplay. It’s built on a strong platforming mechanic created by the gravity system. As things get worse for the world in which these creatures live, the game naturally gets harder. The storyline and the gameplay feed into each other making the simple actions of racing, collecting and talking take on more meaning. The characters in this game, despite being strange tentacle creatures, feel very human in their actions and reactions.

TIGdb: Entry for Babies Dream of Dead Worlds