Reveil — Wakey-Wakey
Lucid dreams are not something I have a lot of experience with. I prefer a “deep and dreamless slumber”. I don’t want to have to do things in my mind while asleep. Reveil is a game about waking to dreams that loop into each other. You play as Walter Thompson, a family man with a wife and daughter, waking up in a house that seems temporary. Exploring the house, you find bits of story and puzzles to be solved.
This is a short demo that you can complete in about an hour or two. Reveil is being developed by Pixelsplit and published by Daedalic Entertainment. Some of their previous games include Tales of the Tiny Planet, Deadly Days, and Indoorlands. Reveil is their first-person game, a P.T.-like psychological horror walking sim with puzzles.
Dream Logic
There is something Lynchian about the dream atmosphere in Reveil, but perhaps not quite as surreal or absurd. It’s a more predigested dream aesthetic that feels less raw because of the puzzles. They require a different kind of suspense that Lynch would not be interested in; they make too much sense as soon as you make connections between the points of interest. They have to make sense for the game to work.
The contrast between the childlike puzzles and the ominous atmosphere in your daughter’s room also undercuts the sense of menace and danger to her. It is heavily implied in the demo that the girl might be in danger, but it does not tell you what that danger might be. The game keeps hinting at something horrible happened or will happen, but you only see the puzzles and interactable points of interest.
The Dad Trope
Games like these tend to rely on a sense of fatherhood and caring about children that a lot of gamer dads might appreciate. Personally, I didn’t find the narrative and the dad trope all that interesting in Reveil. The “dark past” boilerplate has been done to death in narrative exploration games like this, and it’s just not for me. This is a matter of personal preference more than a judgment on the game itself, which might be good.
What I like most in walking sims and atmospheric first-person games is not so much a perfect story, but the sense that there is more to the environment and the puzzles than meets the eye. The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is my personal choice of a walking sim done well in that sense. I hope Reveil will be layered in the same way upon release.
Disclosure: Reveil was previewed on PC with the Next Fest October 2023 public demo. It will release on Steam, Xbox, and PlayStation.