Since the moment human civilization was founded, the fight against disease has never stopped.
In the process, too many people bravely resist the attack and then fall straight down, even if they face the sharpest scythe of the Grim Reaper.
These people are not fearless out of ignorance, but it is the spirit of "living to die" that gives them courage.
But Alzheimer's is a special case, and no one can fight it.
This disease is not fatal, and its horror lies in the fact that it will hollow out the treasured experience, the skills to survive, and the relatives whose blood is thicker than water, leaving only a blank shell of the brain, adding a lot of burden to the family and friends.
Compared with death, losing the "meaning of living" is more frightening.
Magical unfolding
Out of professional habits, when I learned that Long Dream was a game with Alzheimer's disease, I silently drew a portrait of it in my heart.
According to past experience, since the game has chosen the deep theme of Alzheimer's disease, its story must be very sentimental, and combined with its "text adventure" gameplay, this is likely to be a story that unfolds from the perspective of a patient, focusing the story on "fighting the disease", and as a result, watching those precious memories being taken away continuously, but unable to do anything about it.
This is the case with "Alzheimer: Guardian" and "Room 301 in 6 buildings" before.
So, in the end, it gets my eyes moist, and that's a success.
The style and gameplay of "Room 301 in 6 Buildings" are quite innovative
However, after five minutes into the game, I noticed that something was wrong with the story.
First of all, it did not directly let me substitute the patient's perspective, but let me play a young man in his thirties, Wang Han, who was plagued by trivial matters such as marriage urging and unemployment, and coincided with the worsening Alzheimer's disease of his grandfather Han Zhaosheng, who needed him to go to the hospital to accompany him, and the plot unfolded.
And about the plot of Wang Han, there is not much description of the sentimentality about my grandfather's illness, but let me play him as him to experience his embarrassing conversations, job search for a wall, being educated by children and other daily life embarrassments.
After this operation, not only did not make me feel sad, but it almost gave me joy.
I was thinking: Did I guess wrong? Is this a joyous game?
As the process progresses, questions are quickly answered.
If you've played Wild Monkey Studios' last game "Bad Boy", it should not be difficult to find that the protagonists of both games are called "Wang Han".
As everyone guessed, "Long Dream" is indeed the sequel to "Bad Boy", and the mischievous Wang Han in the previous work has now grown up, but the nonsensical energy in his body has not faded, which is what embarrassing things are done in this work.
Regardless of the developer's purpose, in short, in this plot playing Wang Han, there are too many content with joyful elements in the form of text, pictures and other forms, scattered in various details of his work, love, dating and other life, giving the game a relaxed and interesting atmosphere.
Of course, joy begets joy, and the gamemakers didn't forget the theme of the game.
As the patient's caregiver, Wang Han will inevitably accompany his grandfather to spend every day in the hospital and witness his various performances.
In this relaxed and humorous atmosphere, players will understand the plight of Alzheimer's patients from an undepressed "third-party perspective", and also have a general understanding of the patient's family background relationship and the identity and personality of each character, so as to better substitute into the game.
As the story progresses, the game introduces the player to Han Zhaosheng's story.
In this storyline that unfolds from the patient's own perspective, the game uses an excellent scene narrative to show me the image of an old hero who fought bandits, worked as a postman, and participated in the Korean War.
And I was fortunate to follow Han Zhaosheng to hide from bandits in the village, solve neighborhood disputes while delivering letters, and conquer US positions in the Korean battlefield... Finally, under the anxious cries of his loved ones, he lay back on the white hospital bed.
All this is just a dream, a dream that is about to be taken away.
I have to admit that this "double line parallel, first happy and then sad" method does bring a certain shock, it first leads the player to the world in a gentle and unconventional way, and at the same time can slowly transmit the emotions in the producer's heart to the player without deviating from the main purpose.
This is much smarter than the way of pouring a "chicken soup bowl" when you come up.
Those memories that have been taken away are difficult to retrieve
But it's a pity that because the joyful content in the early stage occupies a certain amount of space, and the entire game process is really limited, the sad part in the back is particularly rushed, and the emotions are not well transmitted to the player.
In addition to emotions, what is also affected by the process is the shock of the story.
In fact, halfway through the flow of the game, it is not difficult for players with a little game experience to guess the follow-up plot through the details in the text information, which directly leads to the final effect of the screenwriter's long-term baggage.
The combination of these two has led to "Long Dream" being inferior to similar works in terms of "reaching tears", although the problem caused by the short process is likely to be caused by insufficient game development costs, but considering the subject matter, it is still somewhat regrettable...
Meticulous
After talking about the narrative rhythm of "Long Dream", let's talk about the game's display of the theme.
In fact, in the story line of grandfather Han Zhaosheng, the game maker cleverly integrated the information he wanted to convey, from the symptoms of Alzheimer's patients such as vague concept of time, intermittent memory, and unable to extricate themselves from fantasy, to the shaping and praise of those unforgettable experiences in the old man's life, it is not difficult to see the author's progressive narrative skills, making the game performance very impressive.
The first thing that Alzheimer's patients lose is often the concept of time
Not only that, but through the text and graphics of the game, it can be seen that the screenwriter of this game either examines kung fu in the context of the story, or is a military history lover like me.
Take the plot of the Korean War as an example, the game not only depicts the 50 submachine guns, Mosin Nagant rifles, M1 carbines and M1919 heavy machine guns and other weapons and equipment equipped by the Chinese Volunteers with pixels, but also shows us a Korean battlefield close to history and can withstand scrutiny through many details such as anti-germ warfare propaganda slogans on the wall, political cadres who teach classes for soldiers, and health soldiers who urge soldiers to kill flies and rats.
The game has limited interactive content, but it adds a bit of fun
In terms of text, historical events such as the US military's germ warfare and the "fight and talk" between the two sides in the later stages of the war are not only on the timeline, adding further to the authenticity of the game, but also some dialogue can help players understand background details and characters.
For example, when enemy aircraft attack, Yuan Shouzhen, the eldest brother who took Han Zhaosheng to the battlefield, would quickly determine whether it was an artillery calibration machine, and then judge from experience that it was a US B-25 bomber, and quickly enter the tunnel fortifications with other displays to hide.
At first glance, this style of writing seems to be a bit of a horse-like "entrainment" (not pejorative), forming a certain dyslexia for players who do not understand the relevant knowledge, but in fact, the information contained in these words is a complement to the game's story.
Taking these two simple dialogues of Yuan Shouzhen, I can see at least two hidden messages: 1. Even at the end of the war, the US military still has air superiority on the front line and can frequently launch bombing and artillery strikes on our positions; 2. Brother Yuan Shouzhen is a soldier who has received education and accumulated a lot of actual combat experience, and he takes great care of recruits, which is a microcosm of the volunteer soldiers of that year.
Of course, the example I gave is only the tip of the iceberg in the game, and in fact, the memories of Han Zhaosheng are basically expressed in this form. The excellent scene details and text information brought by the meticulous study combine with each other, and this realism undoubtedly paves the way for the slow disappearance of the subsequent memory of Lao Han, and when this magical chemical reaction occurs, it forms a sad story that inevitably makes people sigh.
Overall review
Despite the limitation of the amount of receptors, "Long Dream" is a little insufficient in the creation of story suspense, and the gameplay is not very rich, but the production team is still at a limited cost, through the excellent use of narrative methods and in-depth examination and polishing of picture details and text content, it finally presents players with a good work with popular science propaganda significance and at the same time worthy of taste.