There’s a Tiny Man in My Pocket! Wake The Dreamer Previewed

There’s a Tiny Man in My Pocket! Wake The Dreamer Previewed

By Julie Morley

No, really, on my phone. There is a man living on my phone.

It’s really funny – I missed out on the Tamagotchis when I was a kid. But I sure remember them. I was only in Elementary school when they made their way to America and gained popularity among the wee children. Just a little creature was living inside this perfect, adorable plastic egg and you had to take care of it. Originally, it was designed to prepare teenage girls for motherhood but it caught on with a broader customer base. Inside each egg was some sort of lively creature that the player had to take care of, like a child or pet, which means feeding it, disciplining it, the works.

Even though I missed out on Tamagotchis, with Wake the Dreamer I get to enjoy a similar experience. Wake the Dreamer is an iOS and Android simulator game that operates in real time, similar to the Tamagotchis. The character is a little man with little direction in his little life on your mobile device. He’s in a crappy apartment, unemployed, and his love life isn’t looking too lively at the moment. He’s a miserable little character trying to make it in the world but can’t until you tell him how. Wake the Dreamer is all about giving this character a bit more direction and a better life.

Once you enter the picture, you’re forcing him to make better choices to get his life together. Maybe if he talks to that girl in the apartment he’s liked for eons, just maybe something could spark there. What if he goes for that higher paying job to get himself into a better apartment, he may be a little bit happier. Explore the world with your character to improve his life.

But everything changes when he falls asleep and a whole new world opens up for you.

Wake the Dreamer is divided up into two different worlds: the live world and the realm of dreams. Spend as much time as you want in either of the worlds and do as you please. In dreamland, your character can do just about anything, even fight off alien creatures. Just about anything is possible and you never know what scenario is going to pop up. But, like most dreams in general, there’s plenty of fantastical elements. On top of that, a mysterious character, by the name of Sand, is inexplicably heavily interested in your character and always manipulates him into sleep. We don’t know who he is or what he is up to, but it just doesn’t seem that good.

Unlike most apps, Wake the Dreamer is designed as a sidescroller with low bit or pixel-based artistic style. Though the game runs in real time, it’s expected to be played in brief 20-40 minute intervals by the average player. The Kickstarter campaign is running through August 27th and has a funding goal of $50,000.

[facebook][tweet][Google][pinterest][follow id=”Cliqist” size=”large” count=”true” ] [author image=”http://cliqist.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/julie.jpg” ]Julie Morley is a freelance writer and comic artist from Spring, Texas. She attended the Academy of Art University for two years, studying Animation and Illustration. Whilst here, she learned about writing comic scripts, storyboards, and general storytelling.  Since leaving college, she has been working on personal comic projects, stories, and illustrations. She aspires to release a self published comic within two years. For the majority of her life, she has been playing console games, typically being third-person shooters and sandboxes. Her favorite game of existence is Dark Cloud II (Dark Chronicle) and her favorite Indie game is Gone Home.[/author]