Dreams Do Come True

Introduction

"Dreams Do Come True" is another game made for A Rainbow of Positivity game jam held back in June/July of 2019. A game jam meant to celebrate gay pride month and the power of the rainbow of diversity. Sadly, the only decent game I've run across from that event so far was "Vindicators 2" but I have several more entries to look at and at least one of them is fairly promising in my opinion.

Story

On the story side of things the game starts out rather slow. So slow, I thought the game was broken at first. After all, you spend the first couple of minutes of this game panning over an island multiple times with several lengthy pauses on certain parts for no apparent reason. In all honesty, I think pianotm would be doing himself/herself a favor by cutting the opening intro down to the military base suddenly appearing and then cutting to the colonel chewing out one of his men about the sudden change in their circumstances.

Outside of the slow opening the game also suffers from feeling a bit empty for a Role-Playing game. Even one that can be readily beaten in less than hour. Though, I suppose my feelings on that front are partially my own fault. After all, I was so distracted by the horrible music playing during the ending that I skipped over a lot of the end game dialogue in order to make it stop!

Gameplay

The game features your usual turn-based combat with characters using either TP or MP in order to perform special attacks. Albeit, the bulk of the playable cast seems to rely on building TP in order to use their special abilities. In fact, my only major complaint about the game on this front is that the weapons and armor in the one store in town are rather over priced. Though considering you don't need to upgrade weapons in order to beat this game. I suppose it's not really necessary to address that problem.]

And while I could point out the lack of difficulty on the combat side of things. The game isn't meant to be about fighting, but about free love and expression. As such, it would be kind of strange if you and your friends couldn't easily overcome the various snakes and whatnot that pop up with the power of friendship/love.

Graphics

On the plus side, the game does contain a few custom assets. On the downside some of these custom assets are on the ugly side. So much so, I couldn't help but belch out that tired old line from redlettermedia, "WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR FACE!!!!!!".



Outside of a few questionable faces the game's areas look decent enough I suppose. Though the game does suffer from some questionable mapping decisions such as breaking the town up into at least three different maps with one dedicated to housing the church, another the business district, and the final one I'm aware of being dedicated to a residential district. Or at least I'm assuming the third one I came across is meant to be a residential area. In my opinion, town maps should largely be restricted to a single map. After all, you don't want to feel like your wasting the player's time when it comes to navigating your world. Though, I suppose such a large number of maps dedicated to the town could have been inspired by professional games like Final Fantasy XII and so on. Either way, I'm not really a fan of such large maps. Especially in a game that's meant to be a pretty short ride.

Music

"Dreams Do Come True" has probably one of the worst soundtracks I've ever had the displeasure to listen to. I suppose part of my hate is because I really don't care for the style of the music on display in this game, but my issues go beyond the iffy song selection. After all, the music also suffers from being excessively loud at several points. All and all this made for an auditory experience that just grated on my ears and left me feeling angry and frustrated.

Bugs

I did manage to find a couple of minor graphical bugs in this game.



Conclusion

"Dreams Do Come True" is a game hampered by some iffy dialogue and even worse music. As it stands, I'll give this game a 2. A score most would consider rather generous, but that's only because my standards for contest games are usually a lot lower. After all, I really can't expect anyone to throw together a master piece in a couple of weeks.