Dreamview Weekly Roundup #107

Diving through our burlap sack of beautifully penned fan mail, it’s clear that folks are craving a sneaky peek behind the Impsider curtain. In keeping with full transparency, we’re delighted to formally unveil the Dreamview Weekly Roundup Studio Tour! Endearingly known as D’Wrst, this thrilling attraction promises unrivaled immersion for riders seeking the complete Roundup experience. Feel the rush of the selection process via head-spinning corkscrews! Wince at the pain of scalding hot coffee spraying all over your precious notes! Hold on tight as you plummet down into the side-splitting depths of the Punnel!

For pre-ride entertainment, we’ve generously provided a copy of every prior Roundup as mandatory reading alongside 24-hour video timelapses of our liminal office spaces. No fast-pass system is currently in operation, but we’re prone to accepting bribes of strawberry laces or insect legs. All that being said, rock on up and enjoy the ride! Do please keep your hands and legs inside the vehicle. Remember: there can only be five of you.

WHIRL 2: Here We Blow Again#

by magbjor

Estimated playtime: 2 hrs

Chasing that lightning-in-a-bottle moment is forever a challenge for us writers (albeit a wonderful way to log your daily steps). That’s nothing on Luke Gale, a stubborn storm chaser and protagonist of magbjor’s singular follow-up. Whereas the first WHIRL prioritised the chaotic glee of driving into tornadoes, the sequel introspectively barrels into the eye of the storm, interrogating what motivates chasers to confront disaster without hesitation. Instead of hurtling into high winds, we’re initially tasked with poking through abandoned homes, evacuated due to the (very much still present) enormous tornado in the area. A slower affair then, but one that allows magbjor’s talents as a filmmaker to flourish, aided by voice acting from veteran Lidlig. Evocative writing and emotional spectacle collide in what transpires as a metaphor for societal displacement. Gale’s character model is curiously void of detail, except for arm bandages whose wisps resemble ghostly trails, a touching detail for a character constantly on the cusp of death. Give it time, and WHIRL 2 eventually crescendos into a more familiar finale. Although this time around, the storm feels a touch more tempestuous.

Pendulum Space Waves Music Generator#

by giant585dark

Estimated playtime: N/A

Another year, another chance to witness an intergalactic sneeze of rock debris as folks flock to catch a glimpse of the Perseids meteor shower. Lack the tenacity for stargazing long past bedtime? Crane your necks towards the Dreamiverse for this celestial - and musical - alternative. Shifting gears from the disciplines of character art and egg hunting(se abre en una nueva pestaña), giant585dark’s latest is comparatively tranquil, a transfixing toy in which players conjure sonorous chimes from oscillating planets. Orbs crossing a central line - represented as a beam of light emitted by a Sun - triggers a single note to ring out across the stars. Each sound is somewhat muted individually, wherein multiple crossings evoke grand choral scales. For those who crave music of the spheres on-demand, squeezing accelerates time, creating more frequent (and more cacophonous) swings. As a reflection on nature’s synchronicity, it’s as orbitally resonant as they come.

Rusty Recharged#

by TopazMacky

Estimated playtime: 2 hrs

Trapped in a scientific facility riddled with test chambers? Sassy artificial intelligence overthrown all human life forms? Little tip from us, on the house. Poke around for the nearest dustpan and brush. See, in TopazMacky’s long-awaited sequel, it’s the cleaners that come out on top. Clumsily tumbling out of a cardboard box, Rusty’s introduction instantly creates a lovable underdog distinct from other mascots in the Dreamiverse. Fittingly enough, one strong comparison point is Tren: an object lost to time rediscovered with all its analogue ingenuity intact. Make no mistake, Rusty is quite the old clever clogs. Through a series of puzzle chambers, players are tasked with deploying their varied toolset - including propellers and brooms - to obtain hidden Intelligence Cores. Gain enough Cores and you might just make the stupidity-shaming AI upstairs tremble in fear. We’ve never played a puzzler that manifests the accumulation of intelligence across levels so literally; imagining Rusty’s acumen skyrocketing in parallel to ours though is oddly endearing. Too late for us to super crouch into a spring clean?

PERFECT HUMAN#

by ninobonelli

Estimated runtime: 3 mins

Shoutout to our Impsider overlord Jen for cottoning us onto this one; if anything, we shouldn’t be surprised this pitch-black laboratory comedy appeals given their extensive history in the field. Presented as a recovered video diary, Perfect Human painfully follows the myriad of failures by a disgruntled scientist attempting to create the perfect specimen. Fairly tricky to say the least, but we never seek to discourage ambition. Fittingly, each rejected subject and even the scientist himself resemble broken mannequins, dead eyes and limb joints not just visible, but embraced. Uncanny aesthetic choices harken back to early Laika or stop-motion animator Jan Švankmajer, lashing each scene with shocks of surreal horror. Yet, ninobonelli’s short feels firmly grounded in the realities of creative struggle. As the scientist rattles off his specimen’s laundry list of skills, it’s the microscopic flaws that nonetheless bubble to the surface, that illogical self-doubt feeling all too familiar. Perfect Human posits that those oddities are the essential ingredient to perfection; advice that’s crucial for everyone in this coMmunity.

Click X-Press#

by Keduko_

Estimated playtime: Replayable

Running a world-renowned, debatably haunted blog certainly has its perks; sleepless nights owed to the terrifying necessity of getting clicks is one side-effect we could do without. Consider our souls cleansed by Keduko_’s ludicrously handsome idle game, enabling clicking catharsis sans any existential dread. The pitch is blissfully concise: mash for one minute to collect dots subsequently churned back into upgrades for the next bout of clicking. Tapping faster may activate score multipliers, but scores will only soar so high without assistance, lest one risks breaking their own digits. Robots, zombies and genies are just a few companions for hire - we couldn’t possibly list them all for um, sanitary reasons. Let’s stick with that. Recently featured on the Daily DreamSurf playlist, Click X-Press appeared to instantly captivate players and frankly, we aren’t shocked given its compulsive loop nor immensely satisfying audio-visual design. In fact, it’d be nice to hear those dots pop into our inventory. Just one second, we’ll be back soon.

Check out the playable edition of this week's Dreamview Weekly Roundup right here in Dreams!

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