MouthLondon - London Student & Youth Magazine

Game Review: Everyday Is The Same Dream

Posted on Oct 31st, 2012 by Luke Finlay-Maxwell · No comments yet · Tags: Everyday Is The Same Dream, Game, Molleindustria, monotony, Review

Pin It

Everyday Is The Same Dream is an incredibly stylish, thought provoking art game created by Molleindustria (creators of the infamous 9/11 game Inside a Dead Skyscraper). The game sees you playing as a typical 9 to 5 office worker and focuses on his commute to work. You must dress him, drive him to work in rush hour and sit him at his desk. If you continue to do this routine, nothing changes and the man’s life continues as normal. However, if you try and find ways of breaking the routine things start to become interesting.

To progress through the game, you must find different ways of breaking the monotony of the day: be it going to work without any clothes or talking to a homeless man on the street. Thankfully, a woman in the apartment’s elevator will say how many variations of the day are left, to stop you constantly looking for new things to try. The variations themselves are often touching, and slowly reveal the monotony we as people sometimes face in the workplace.

Driving to work in rush hour can be incredibly frustrating and tiresome, but it’s not until you’ve done it 4 or 5 times in Everyday Is The Same Dream that you realise how repetitive it really is. The game opened my eyes to the routines we create for ourselves and how, if we allow them to, will forever loom over us the rest of our working lives.

…the game’s art design is beautifully crafted to funnel the player into a sense of monotony…

It doesn’t hurt that Everyday Is The Same Dream looks fantastic. While only 2D and using a limited colour palette, everything about the game’s art design is beautifully crafted to funnel the player into a sense of monotony. Every room’s camera angle feels professionally positioned, making every scene feel like an interactive stylised painting. Just as much attention has been paid to the soundtrack, which never becomes grating or tedious, even after multiple play-throughs.

Any game that makes you think is great, but Everyday Is The Same Dream takes it even further and asks you to take a step back and think about your life. If you have 10 minutes spare Everyday Is The Same Dream is well worth a go: it’s stylish, thought provoking and completely free. Play the game through Molleindustria’s website here.