Howdy! I’m back again with another indie title (in this case, series) that is more than worthy of a review: the Deep Sleep Trilogy. Released almost ten years ago now, the Deep Sleep Trilogy is a series of pixelated point-and-click horror adventure games made by one developer, Scriptwelder. Scriptwelder is a solo game developer from Poland who got his start in the prime era of ArmorGames, and has developed close to a dozen games since then. The three we’re focusing on today were actually some of his first, and in my opinion, some of his best. So turn out the lights, drink some warm milk, and drift away to the land of dreams.

The first game of the trilogy, Deep Sleep, opens with the infamous Nietzsche quote, “When you stare into the abyss the abyss stares back at you.” Not long after that, you ‘wake up’ and start moving and interacting with the environment. Recall that this is a point-and-click game, so clicking on everything that isn’t a blank wall or empty floor is important. You’ll find a key that unlocks a dresser that holds a small box, and upon picking up that box you’ll realize that you never woke up. Your new objective becomes obvious, you have to find a way to wake up. Picking up items allows you to solve puzzles that progress your game and give you new tools to continue forward, which will help you find out what’s really going on in the realm of dreams. Be wary though, you are a foreigner in this land and the natives aren’t exactly friendly to newcomers. You have to wake up to escape this nightmare, but knowledge is power when it comes to dealing with lurking threats. Make sure to look in every nook and cranny, there are secrets to be found and lore to be understood.

Minor spoilers from here on down, so be warned.

Alright, now that I’ve explained what the games are, I can give my thoughts on them. I really do enjoy these games, and for plenty of good reasons. The best of which is the atmosphere and story, which pull you into the game and don’t let you go until you’ve ended it. Within your first few minutes of the first game, you’re immediately thrown off balance by the complete change in environment. I mean, there was LITERALLY a SKELETON in the bed you just got out of. Moving on from there, you continue to move through dark areas all while trying to figure out how to wake yourself up. Jumpscares, chills, and legitimate threats to your safety prevent you from relaxing and leaning back in your seat. I will never forget the first time I touched that pickaxe, all thanks to Scriptwelder’s wild imagination and development expertise. On top of the atmosphere, the lore that the game revolves around is super intriguing too. I won’t go into it here because I sincerely want you to experience these games for yourself. However, these games use a similar storytelling method to many other games I enjoy. These games simply make you work for the story, meaning that you have to explore your environment to figure out what is going on. The paper scrap system in the second game best symbolizes this work-for-your-lore system, and I think it really gets you invested into finding out the mysteries of the world you find yourself in. The gameplay and puzzles are all intuitive, even if some of them might cause a feeling of embarrassment for not thinking of the solution earlier. Nothing feels unfair or unreasonable, further cementing logical thinking as a requirement for the games. Combining a dark atmosphere, intuitive gameplay, and bone-chilling scares makes the Deep Sleep Trilogy what it is. The trilogy is a fantastic set of games that are absolutely worth the cost, and you’ll get to support a solo developer pursue his passion and create even better games.

The Deep Sleep Trilogy costs $5 on Steam, an incredible cost for three games that could go for around $20 (in my expert opinion). Purchasing this bundle supports Scriptwelder in developing more amazing and creepy games, including a potential sequel to the Deep Sleep games that may be in the works right now (wink). This is Andrew Carlin, signing off for now.

About Author

She always wanted to be the writer and her dreams came try with the site https://papertyper.net/. Amelia has been working there for 3 years and she likes writing different papers and  essays. It is very interesting fir her to collect different information, choose the main one and create the text. She knows different types of styles and also knows 3 foreign languages. Because of this fact she can prepare different tasks for students.