SLUMBER REALM
The 90s. I remember them, as an older millennial. I was born in the 80s proper, but when I was a lad, it was the good ole nineties taking over. It wasn’t the usual one, not here, not in Poland riven with brute transformation caused by the fall of Soviet Union. We do not share the same memories or paraphernalia of nostalgia with our Western neighbours, nor do we have the same influx of American steamroller of pop culture taking over. It did happen, of course… but delayed. Slowed. Filtered. In fact, world 90s happened here in the ascension of the new millennium.
But some trapping of the era did filter through! PlayStation appeared in shops and rentals. Tony Hawk and skater culture exploded with rapid expansion into the consciousness of the youth. Things began being filtered into what’s cool, and what’s lame. Tamagotchi and its countless bootlegs flooded the schools. Walkman and MP3 players soon after became a thing to showboat your status. And Arcades… These had a brief life here, but they were glorious. Holy temples of gaming where gaming at home was unaffordable dream for most.
And so, I like SLUMBER REALM vibe. It is that nostalgia trip to a time of youth. Sure, it feels more American-sided, pure in its execution, but some of the vibes translate well even to this day. And filter of time makes it more blurry and therefore easier to accept, anyway! You play as an anxiety driven youngling with all the problems of a 13 years old - school tests, mean lunch ladies, first crushes, bullies and unending desire to be seen as With It. As the glorious, luminous, untouchable Cool Guy.
And all those fears, all those pesky thoughts gnawing at your psyche manifest in the Dreamland. When you sleep, your nightmares take form proper. And it is here when the game takes place, when you rely on core archetypes of your very being to fight those evil Knightmares. That’s not a typo, by the way. The entire story, framed through a dream journal, is about our brave warrior - us! - facing these personifications of various dreads. And it’s all pun-rich environment that would make any dad proud! And so, you’ll face against Buffoli - a tough broccoli man. Skeletune, clearly a nightmarish version of a nasty music teacher. Or perhaps fear of piano lessons? Freemoney.exe - I know that one well, when as a young lad I was more than eager to download more free RAM to my humble PC…
And the game? A combolicious deckbuilder. With clever ideas to work with! It’s a very compact game, mechanically. You only ever play with maximum of nine cards, forming a grid. The order and placement of cards matters, as many of them interact with the cards after or before them. Each card triggers if a singular roll of six-sided dice lands on the number within that card trigger range. And so, weaker or more common cards trigger often, with a breadth of rolls between 2-6, while uniquely powerful cards might be way more demanding, needing you to land a 1 or 6 to trigger.
Here’s where the mechanical depth of the game lies. Sure, you might have a powerful card that only triggers on a roll of 1. That’s… Not great, gameplan wise. But put a card in front of it that triggers on rolls of 1 to 3 that says “activate the next card” and you’re cooking with gas now. That is the briefest way of describing this game simple complexity. It is all about finding interactions between cards that allow them to trigger more often, to loop, to retrigger. Some cards have limited uses, other need charging up with multiple activations before they go off and other still have variety of modals that exchange resources or statuses for some alternative effect. Cards come in 3 Main Flavors - universal, daytime and nighttime, triggerable every round or every other round, respectively. Finding a devastating combo is the name of the game.
Especially since there are a plenty of additional little systems to help you snap the game over a knee like Bane did to Batman that one time. Each run begins with you picking 2 of the 4 aspects. Aspects decide what cards are in the pool but also offers abilities you can trigger, spending resources you gather from activating cards - or consuming snacks. These abilities further define your run, allowing you to modify cards in some way or prepare your target for a whooping. Then, of course, it wouldn’t be a roguelike without powerful relics - Memories of key moments that offer powerful modifiers to your dreamy attempt at clearing nightmares away.
Runs are curated to be very quick - no humongous maps to cross, no countless enemies to smash. A couple of fights, a few alternate routes if you want to challenge yourself against elite enemies, and then a nasty boss that might require your little card-machine to work very well before they outpace you and level up to be a threat you can’t handle. Between runs meta-progression kicks in, and it is as flavourful as it is well executed. You decorate your room with variety of knick-knacks, each generating certain amount of coolness you can spent to unlock new cards, memories, enemies… And you buy these items with your allowance! And, uh… Dream money? That somehow, you get from bashing tougher enemies in your dreams. Now that would be great feature of real life, too, not gonna lie.
Here a singular flaw of the game rears its ugly head. The Pacing. It is, at the same time, very good and very infuriating. See, the very good part is because it is clearly made to stretch the game properly. Give you steady source of new bits to play with after each successful run. A new card, a new trinket… You can always buy 1-2 items, unlock 2-3 new things for the next run. But that’s also a bit of a showing for the very limited scope of the game - they cannot shower you with unlocks, because the game is rather small. Very few aspect limited memories, relatively minor number of cards, a baker’s dozens of enemies to face. It’s a fun game, don’t get me wrong, but the well of freshness will dry out fast.
Still, I am having fun with SLUMBER REALM. It executes its premise very well - lots of puns, thick stylizations into the 90s vibeset. That summary card at the end of each run gently roasting you for variety of reasons or praising your efforts is always a nice touch. And while the card pool is not enormous, there’s still just enough variety between the mix of aspects to find new interactions and combos that click just right and let you blast through a run with little challenge. In fact, to such a degree, that I would like deeper, bigger runs to really push my builds through a grinder! But hey, I do appreciate that not every deckbuilder needs to be a brute, made to manhandle my jublies in the most indelicate manner. SLUMBER REALM is a breezy game in that regard - never too tough, never too demanding, light and quick, but also never boring.
Comments