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Independent Sleeping Beauty

Welcome my friend, to one of the most recognizable exponents of young girls playing through weird and horror stories, coping with deep psychological dilemmas and situations, adding some horror, but at the same time also a sweet-flavored dream-like environment for you to enjoy together with Mary, the sleeping beauty. Welcome to the dream!


***Heavy spoilers in the hidden content, be careful with that~***


Character Background and Development

Well now, it´s a truly interesting thing. Mary and the characters surrounding her indeed seem to have a certain personality at first, according to the different endings and situations you unlock you realize the “true personality” of all of them.
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(Since she is in that dream world to escape from the reality of her abusive father. Since her mother died, and her uncle can only come to help her sometimes. From the bunny and fox´s behavior we can deduce they don´t really love her… given that they enjoyed hurting Mary when failing the petal´s riddle. Think about it… Mary is just a young child. Of course it would be understandable for her to escape into a pink-colored fantasy.
So we have the pink-dreams Mary and the reality Mary (she´s called Mari). She needs to put effort herself to be able to overcome those obstacles. She does it alone in the dream world… because she is alone in the real world, though receiving support from her uncle and the angel (butterfly) sent to her. The feels man.)



Then you realize the true personality of the characters; the harsh situation that Mary goes through.

There´s no really character development per se since it´s such a short game (I mean characters are already established as who they are); but it´s very enjoyable and focus-taking to uncover the reality of the situation.
When certain character´s plans don´t go the way their want, they show red eyes, red words that aim for…. very strong topics.




Soundtrack - graphic design and concept of art

I love the art, both music and graphic.
The music is completely entangling, bewitching, magical… and full of horror too. Combines so good with the message the game wants to send; from the sugar-flavored essence of a child´s dream, innocence and tenderness, to background music that creates an enveloping atmosphere of psychological consternation and abhorrence.
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(The intro song and cover picture is so befitting of the first description. Mary is just a young child that wants to believe in magic. When arriving to the other hallway, where the plushies can be found, the girl (now called Mari) is surrounded by blood, weird and scaring sounds. The whispers are a reference to her subconscious fears too)



The way the art, seemingly beautifully harmless at first, reveals at times the… different natures of the characters, you can say. The way that the certain true feelings, facts and even key items are not “allowed” in the pink world, but need to work through indirect mediums. The music collaborates well to this feeling.

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(The angel, her savior, which is the butterfly by the way, can only call Mary from afar; for she needs to discover him and enter to the true fourth hallway door. Only Mary can open that door. So the true good characters, like penguin that represents uncle Glenn, can only give hints to her… it´s very difficult for them to directly state what Mary needs for her salvation)


Interface and user interaction

No problems since it´s simple and short, no bugs. Adventure and fantasy games need that for battles, long psychological and interactive games need that for properly finding, combining items, interact with a complex environment… it´s not necessary here. Well, I think it´s great that the interface tries to be as less invasive as possible so as to get submerged in the game setting.
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(since you cannot access to the inventory, but only need to remember if you have keys, that´s not hard. You do have an upper status screen… but that´s also important, so you can see with your own eyes the change from Mary to Mari)




Story development

If there´s something I love, are games with multiple endings. Here´s a bunch.
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(There are 4 official endings, and one easter egg/joke ending, you can say)


The story develops according to the choices you make, the more endings you clear, the more you understand what is this about. Because since it´s made for that (it´s a short game) when playing again you realize thing you didn´t before. You observe better the environment, and understand more and more.
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(Speaking about the environment…the other characters say that this dreaming world is made for her… but is this not a blatant lie? The radio and the fox say directly not to look for hidden doors, not do deviate from the pink-colored path which leads to a bad ending. As I said before, the tools that are meant to save her are hidden or presented in indirect ways. Only the penguin, his uncle, wishes for Mary to overcome the dream no matter what. The dreaming world is also made of her fears; even in them she cannot escape from the image of her father, represented by the boar.
And for her to be free for her dreams, she need to face her nightmares head on.)



If you allow her to, this young maiden will gracefully save herself.