Every Day The Same Dream
Genre: Puzzle
Game Review
Every Day the Same Dream is a short, 2D art game that puts the player in the role of a man whose life is about to change. The creator, Paolo Pedercini of Molle Industria, developed for the Experimental Gameplay Project in 2009. Honesly, it is quite satisfying and elegant for what it is. It’s not a very long game, and repetitive with slight variations each time. Day in, day out, it's always the same and nothing you can ever do will change that. Or will it? The game lacks a traditional storyline, the course of events has the player control a white collar worker and guide this avatar through the daily grind. If the avatar gets dressed, drives to work, and sits at his cubicle, the dream will restart from the initial bedroom scene. These may seem like small things, but when your options are so constrained, any sized rebellion can seem large and important. In practice, this works a little like a point-and-click adventure game, since you are basically just moving left or right and interacting with the space bar.
An old woman in the elevator offers the cryptic message: "5 more steps and you will be a new person." This actually is how many variations of the day are left. Figuring out all the little changes and options that allow you to get to the end is really satisfying. Once the player deviates from the predetermined path and initiates five specific interactions, the dream restarts in a new state with the player's avatar as the only person in the game world. When the player next returns to the office and passes the empty cubicles, the avatar stops to watch an identical character leap from the rooftop, and the game ends. The thought put into this game shows that simplicity can be packed with meaning, and the ending of the game left me speechless. To me, Everyday Is The Same Dream was a game about who you are and whether you matter. I asks you to take a step back and think about your life. If you have 10 minutes spare Everyday Is The Same Dream is well worth a go. If you think it's boring at the beginning, play all the way through and then tell me what you think. If you still think it's boring, well, go get a heart. :P
Every Day The Same Dream Guide
Solution to Every Day The Same Dream
Dream #1: The Day He Went To a Cemetery.
"BEEP BEEP BEEP
The man just woke up. He could not believe that he just had a dream of his normal, yet very boring day. He was hoping that he could escape his boredom by dreaming, but he was working even in his dreams. Well, maybe he could personally do something else instead...
The man turned off the alarm, dressed up, talked with his wife, then rode the elevator. The same old lady was there, saying the same thing: "5 more steps and you will be a new person." When he got to ground floor though, he decided to go left to the back of the building, instead of to the parking garage.
There, the man saw a homeless person. The man decided to talk to the homeless, and the homeless said "I can take you to a quiet place." The man decided to tag along, wanting to be free from the monotony of the workplace, and the homeless led him to the cemetery."
Dream #2: The Day He Pets The Cow.
"BEEP BEEP BEEP
The man woke up. He felt that he just had the strangest dream, one where he decided to ditch work and talk to a homeless guy behind their apartment. While it may have been a dream, it felt different from his normal day, and he enjoyed that. The man dressed up, talked with his wife, got to the elevator, and talked to the same old lady. This time, she said something different: "4 more steps and you will be a new person".
When the man got to the ground floor, he checked the back alley again, but the homeless person in his dream was not there. He walked to the parking garage, but during his drive, he decided to stop the traffic behind him, get out of the car and walk out of the screen (either way). In a nearby grass patch, the man found a cow who was mulching on some grass. The man decided to pat the cow, then get back to work in his same boring cubicle. While he passed his boss though, the man noticed that their stock value has started to drop drastically in value."
Dream #3: The Day He Caught a Leaf
"BEEP BEEP BEEP
"Another dream..." the man muttered to himself as he woke up. He dressed up, and went on to his daily routines. When he talked with the old lady who always rides the elevator with him, she said this time: "3 more steps and you will be a new person."
The man checked behind the alley, but no homeless person. During his drive to work, the man looked out to see the same patch of grass he dreamed of, but he did not see a cow. When he parked his car though, he looked at the dangling leaf. Waiting for a while, the man saw as the leaf finally got dislodged from the tree from all the wind, and the leaf started to fly away. Reacting quickly, the man caught the leaf, which was more interesting than work. Then the man remembered about his job, and rushed to his cubicle. As he ran in and got another late lecture by his boss, he saw the stock charts again: they just kept falling."
Dream #4: The Day He Went To Work Nude.
"BEEP BEEP BEEP
After waking up to realize that it was another dream, the man thought that this might also be a dream. To test this, the man decided not to wear his professional attire. His wife simply said "Dress up, you're late". The old woman who always rode the elevator with him simply said: "2 more steps and you will be a new person".
While the man was getting to work, he looked for any evidence of what happened in his prior dreams, and he realized that none of them exist. When he got to work, the boss was furious when he saw that the man was not wearing a tie, and instantly said: "What? Where is your tie?" Behind the boss was the company's stock chart, showing that they were dropping even lower. Before the man had any chance to say anything, the boss said: "You are fired!" "
Dream #5: The Day He Decided To Die.
"BEEP BEEP BEEP
The man woke up, knowing that what he had was just another dream. He didn't know whether he was still in a dream or not, but he knew that he did not want to go back to work today. Just about anything was better than sitting in his cubicle all day, endlessly clicking a mouse. The man thought about what else he could do, when it dawned on him that his cubicle was right next to the stairs to the roof of the company. He shivered at that thought, afraid of what he was planning on doing, but after thinking about it a lot, he decided that this was the only way to get out of doing the same things over and over again.
So the man dressed up, and did his daily routine. He talked with the old lady on the elevator, who said "One last step and you will be a new person." The man looked for anything from his previous dreams, but again, he found that they all disappeared from his normal life. Once at his office, he met the boss again in front of the company's dwindling stock charts, and instead of sitting at his cubicle, the man kept walking right to the edge of the roof, placed his briefcase down, stood on the railing, then fell to his death."
Dream #6: The Day He Was a New Person.
"BEEP BEEP BEEP
The man woke up. He was hoping that his last dream was a reality - at least it meant that he no longer was chained by the dreadfulness of reality. He has had so many dreams within dreams that he could no longer tell whether this was a dream or not, but even if it was a dream, he could not think of another way to break up the monotony of his everyday life. Giving up, the man decided to dress up, and go to the kitchen to start another dreary day.
Except when he entered the kitchen, his wife was no longer there. The man was surprised - his wife was very loyal to him, and even though she was a part of his monotonous day, he felt incomplete without her there. The man kept going, hoping to talk to the old lady who rode with him in every dream, but even she was not there. The man started to really panic when he noticed that alongside everything that he dreamed about, everyone else that was usually a part of his everyday life simply disappeared. Even his boss and his coworkers disappeared, only leaving behind a stock market chart that showed that the company has gone bankrupt. The man kept walking to the roof, and saw another person that looked just like himself standing on the railing of the roof. Just as the man walked up to him, he saw the other man fall to his death..."
