Deep Sleep
Genre: Puzzle
Game Review
Now this is something we don't see often. Deep Sleep is on the concept of lucid dreaming, a state in which one is aware that one is dreaming. Deep Sleep is incredibly effective at convincing us we belong to this dream state. In Deep Sleep, you are stuck in a nightmare dream. The player has to escape the nightmare his mind has created. And as he or she explores the dark, mysterious world of sleep, it slowly turns out to be something more than just a nightmare. Something in the depths of your own mind wants to pull you even deeper. Someone will escape this dream for sure. The question is - who is that going to be?
Deep Sleep is a browser-based escape flash game, perhaps had to be the most enjoyable point and click game I've ever played. I played this game last night and it is incredible, it gave me the chills and a very thrilling experience. The atmosphere is a true spookiness and a sense of foreboding throughout the game; I am totally creeped out. Most flash games take horror as "loud noise and something jumping into your face", whereas this was done more as eerie and creepy. The lack of monsters actually got me tensed up because I kept expecting something to happen but it only very rarely did.
Every time I open a door at night, it's hard now not to think there's a creepy 8bit black monster walking towards me. That black monster thing sure got my adrenaline pumping. I am genuinely terrified when the phone whispering "Wake up! You have to wake up!" with no way to turn it off. This is the perfect game for Halloween is right around the corner.
I loved how the ambient music suddenly swelled during each of the scares in the game, and I am surprised that a game with 8-bit graphics could manage to convey a creepiness I honestly didn't expect. I also love the use of 8bit because super awesome graphics really aren't what makes a game great - it's the gameplay and story that shine through without the distractions. I am amazed by how the developer created such a disturbing, unsettling atmosphere, without relying on fancy effects or buckets of gore or anything. The graphics suited the game well, just like an old horror movie.
Deep Sleep Guide
Solution to Deep Sleep
1. Check the green vase for a key.
2. Go right and unlock the dresser with the key. Collect the blue cube.
3. Head left again, to find the skeleton in the bed. Collect his arm.
4. Leave the room to the right, and follow the stairs down, through the kitchen, and into the basement.
5. Pick up the cloth.
6. Go to the furnace (but not right up to it). Pick up some coal from the heap on the left, and put the bone in the metal box on the right of the furnace.
7. The bone now acts as a lever - pull it to switch the furnace off.
8. Go back to the kitchen and then right, to a room with a leaking pipe. Use the cloth on the puddle of water to get a damp cloth.
9. Take the damp cloth back to the furnace, and use it on the handle to open the door.
10. Take the key from the furnace floor, then click the back wall.
11. Click and drag your mouse to clean the wall, which will reveal a 4 digit number. It's randomly generated, so write it down.
12. Go back upstairs until you're outside the room you started in. Head north to the balcony, and follow the stairs to the office.
13. Take the phone off the hook, then open the desk cupboard for a flashlight.
14. Use the key from the furnace to open the top drawer of the desk to get some batteries for the flashlight.
15. The door in the kitchen is now open. You'll need the flashlight to get through.
16. Go forward and collect the gold statue if you like.
Then go left and forward twice more to get outside.
17. Climb in the lower window to get inside a tiled chamber.
18. Enter the code from the furnace wall into the console to unlock the door. Then open the door by clicking the very top of the lever next to it to rotate it.
19. Use the flashlight to light a path.
20. Go north until you see the pickaxe on the wall. Once you grab it
21. The door opens and a monster starts chasing you.
22. Run back to the tiled room and close the door.
23. Go back out through the window, and down to the bottom of the stairs. There's a hook here you can take.
24. Make your way back to the kitchen, then upstairs, so you're back outside the starting room. The door to the right is blocked 25. but you can break through it with the pickaxe to clear a path to the beach.
26.. Collect the net, and combine it with the hook you picked up from the stairs.
27. Take your new 'net with a hook' to the stairs outside to the tiled room (through the door in the kitchen). Use the hook/net combo on the uppermost window to gain access to a radio room.
28. Take the gold key from the wall and unlock the blue cube with it, to get a shiny blue gem.
29. Head back to the beach where you got the net. Go to the lighthouse, and climb to the top.
30. Put the blue gem in the lighthouse light source.
31. Go downstairs again to find the shadow creatures are coming after you!
32. Run back up to the to of the lighthouse, and use the levers to point the light at the shadow creatures.
33. Wait a few seconds for them to be destroyed, and you've won the game.
