Amihailu in Dreamland review

Although you probably already knew that.

Warning: This review may contain spoilers. But it might not tho.

What Is It, Though?
Amihailu in Dreamland is a surreal exploration game made by Mikhail_Faulken. It's one of those games where you explore and you talk to people and you find out what's happening, entering the shoes of a girl who is a former student at the Bromnian Military Academy. The game takes off after the events of Hell Diary. But it is by no means required to play that game before this one in order to understand the events of the game. Facts are delivered via little clues hidden in the cryptic conversations you have with the dream universe's characters. They seem to prop up everywhere, talking about concepts that have made-up names that are as long and winding as the Nile River. I mean, even the main character's name is a tongue twister (Amihailu).

It's a curious beast of a game. The non-linear maze of rooms do prove confusing, but after a while you get the hang of it. The game has parallels to other surreal exploration games like Yume Nikki, and I'm Scared of Girls but unlike those titles, this focuses more on psychologically breaking down your mind. It's a mind screw, basically. It relies so heavily on symbolism, surrealism and cryptic dialogue that I can just imagine fans making arguments over what exactly each symbolism means or represents. Warning: it's not a game for everyone, but then again, it's not meant to be. In fact, I found myself somewhat spellbound by its universe of scattered logic, wild tendencies, and confused directions. Also, this isn't the type of game that holds your hand. It's intelligent, it's unique, but most of all, it's tough and frustrating. The world of the dream is an expansive enigma, full of twists and turns. But one question keeps raising itself in my mind: is this game structurally sound? Does the logic of the game make sense? Or is it simply too confusing to play, and too frustrating to find your way through its maze of rooms and contraptions? When does the non-linear exploration of a trippy dream world become monotonous and confusing? And why?



Story & Presentation
The game starts by revealing as little story as possible. But this is OK, because it's supposed to be centred around revealing mysteries one thread at a time. The game's struture consists of a labyrinth of rooms that exist in Amihailu's dreams. It is her dreamland, a collection of various linked locations where characters flit in and out of scenes as fast as you can say "Galwihanawe". Often NPCs come to and fro among the hallways of the varying maze-like interior, just like they're wandering spirits in purgatory seeking rest. I say this ironically, because are there are literally some Spirited Away-esque ghosts later on. But the characters feel like ghosts themselves. Aside from Mikhail, Amihailu's friend just wander around this world, talking to you in various instances but very rarely providing interesting information. When you speak with them, it is in a cryptic language that I can't make sense of, but still find very interesting. The atmosphere of this game reminds me of a good David Lynch film (that is, any David Lynch film), in that it is a parade of what are essentially mind screws, that relying on symbolism and absurdism to further perpetuate that the player is out of place in this dream world.

Amihailu is an intelligent game. It has this trippy and weird kind of surrealness that doesn't rely on jump scares to exact its creepiness. The introduction is disjointed and random, but after a rocky start I began to notice patterns in the conversations that would give me clues to the story. Still, sometimes I felt like an outsider looking in. The game has a kind of inner hostility towards the player that I found fascinating. You explore and find notes around the world encouraging you, "To win, you gotta want it!" OK then! That says a lot. It felt like a kind of empty encouragement, as if the game was just tolerating your existence. This was a positive. You want to ask for directions or useful information about characters? You'll get half-assed answers that trail off into the distance. The game doesn't necessarily want you to finish it.

The location where we're at is supposed to be the Fringe of Hell. Hell is a subject that is brought up a lot in the dreams of Amihailu, but many of the character's histories regarding the Hell World are hard to piece together. Mostly - I'll admit I'm bad - I just forget names really easily. So events like "he's the brother of who-and-so who is the girlfriend of that guy who is the captain of the force" become pretty blurred to me, especially if they're only glanced over once, and fleetingly too. To get those kind of story mechanics inside my head you're going to have to really hammer them in in some kind of way.



That, for me, describes a downfall of Amaihailu's story - is that I wish I could understand it. I know this game is surreal and it's supposed to not be understood, but I would at least want to get some of the character's familial relationships right? The very minimal dialogue is well-placed, but sometimes too confusing to decipher. The beginning of the game especially, is introduced too quickly with not enough character development to make me care about Amihailu. At the end of it I kind of know the same as when I began. The real character development begins around the half-way mark, and by then it is too late to start building. By the end I cared about Mikhail and Amihailu, but I didn't understand the method of Veronica's madness or even remember what that 4th character's name was. Despite not feeling attachment to many of the characters, I still appreciated their existence flitting in and out of Amihailu's presence. I just would have liked to see their arcs mature a little longer as well before the end of the game.

I did, however, feel a sense of comradeship between Mikhail and Amihailu, but more of a platonic one than a romantic one. That's why I was disappointed when I was rewarded for saying happy romantic things to Mikhail rather than treating him as I would a younger brother. I felt like the relationship scale between Mikhail and Amihailu was unbalanced and focussed too much on the little things I said, because it was served up as points to be earned for saying nice things, rather than what a real relationship should be like - accepting one another's faults. So perhaps a different way to track the relationship between you and Mikhail could more accurately represent how to earn a good ending. Using conversation choices that are more meaningful and integral to their relationship rather than a light insult or two that may in fact strengthen their relationship, if it was real. Usually it wouldn't matter to me about these kind of relationship choices, but because it is so integral to achieving a good/bad ending, it kind of annoyed me. Keeping in mind that I'm not the type of player to "replay" these kinds of things to get the best ending, even though I did on this one.



This game had a sly sense of humour. There were moments, such as Amahailu stuffing lemon candy into Mikhail's mouth, that were hilarious. Or asking people where to find the snacks. These moments contrasted well with the serious ones, providing lightness to the moment. I like when horror or surreal games try to get you to experience all kinds of emotions, and humour can be a good emotion to explore. I think more humour would fit this game well.

The ending was also quite abrupt. I am not sure whether "open beta" means that the game will be extended - I do know that Mikhail intends to add more puzzles to the game, but I'm not sure if this will just be in the further construction of paintings or altering the way the storyline ends. Either way, it would have been nice to tie up every single character's arc, not just the romantic arc between Mikhail and Amahailu.

Graphics/Audio
The word that I would use to describe Amihailu's graphics would be "astounding". From the moment you are plunged into its world, the visual aspect of the game assaults you with its goodness. The custom resources and beautiful pixel art are entirely engrossing. The palette of the world is actually quite limited, consisting of the rich yellows, oranges, browns and greens that are present in the title. It reminded me of one of those flashbacks from an 80's police television drama. There was also a lot of dithering used effectively, retro-style graphics, and sharply contrasting colours that helped create this buzzy dream world. Parallaxed sunsets lie behind transparent windows, that move as you walk. I like how Mikhail has paid so much attention to detail in crafting a beautiful and engrossing world, with mostly custom resources. There were also some beautiful sound effects chosen, such as those when you boot up certain computers, or machinery. A lot of the background music blended in well so much that I didn't recognize it. Overall, this game had a beautiful and immersive graphical style that served its purpose.



The mapping in general was good. There are a lot of rooms and hallway, especially towards the start, that were mostly empty and didn't look that finished. I know this is an open beta, so these maps might be modified, or not. But a little care in providing detail, especially in the beginning hallways, would prove profitable. There are sections of the game where you get teleported by radios into some kind of isometric view, which was a mind-blowing and excellent experience. The isometric areas were beautifully mapped, and I truly felt like I was exploring some kind of magical land when I was in these areas.

Gameplay
Where do I begin? This section is difficult to write because I have varying opinions on Amihailu's gameplay. Let me compare it to a long marathon of anime or your favourite TV show. You are excited to watch the show because you've heard so much about it and it seems like it's really good. You have good impressions of it, the glimpses of story you have heard from friends who have watched it say it's the best around. So you watch a few episodes, and you get hooked. But somehow along the way, there seems to be a lot of filler with not much of the story getting anywhere. I mean, it started off good, but where did character B go? How did we get to where we are now? Did I miss an episode?
That's how I feel with Amihailu somewhat. Initially, it is a series of rooms that unravels to tell a story, but after a while things get repetitious. Exploring a non-linear world that used to be full of secrets now runs dry, because the pacing slows down and you're stuck trying to find that last item for about 10-20 minutes. A surreal exploration game thrives best on getting lost in a non-linear world full of twists and turns, but some of the items that you're required to get can be missed so easily that you end up going in circles and circles and wondering when this plot line will end if you keep interacting with everything around you.



Sid Meier is quoted to have said, "Games are a series of interesting decisions." The Director of Firaxis Games and creator of the Civilization series, among others, has echoed this statement on many occasions and during many interviews. What initially captivated me about Amihailu was the exploration of the unknown. But after a while, it ceases to become unknown, because you're forced to traverse it sometimes. A common feeling when I played this game was, "I've been in this hallway about 10 times, but I still can't find the thing I'm looking for." The more I visited a place, the less the experience of exploration elated me, and the more it became like a chore.

I see methods that the developer is using to combat this. There are in fact Metroidvania influences in the game, such as finding items that unlock new areas, that make traversal of existing areas more meaningful. Warded locks to cupboards conceal important items, but they can only be unlocked by another key item. In fact, some of these devices are optional. But still, there weren't enough interesting points in the traversal, and I found myself wandering for a very long time before finding an item I'd walked by about 5 minutes earlier.

This game had a couple of puzzles, and I'd describe them all as "meh". I think puzzles could really soup up the gameplay of Amihailu, if that's the direction that Mikhail wants to take it in. But they need to require a little more thought than "switch the computer on that is on this screen", or "punch a few numbers into a radio that you saw earlier". These puzzles probably have to be more frequent as well in order to earn their fun. I appreciate Amahailu's cleverness, but it needs diversions to interest me, and stop gameplay from being overly repetitious.



Conclusion
This is a game that I have such mixed feelings for. On the one hand, there is the Lynchian feel and brilliant "middle-finger-to-everyone-who-don't understand"-ness that pervades this, but I just can't shake the feeling that it's... a little boring. There's not enough. Yes, it's intelligent. But is it well-constructed? Does it have a nice structure? The answer is often a 'no' for me, and it is so frustratingly on the verge of brilliance and becoming the most awesome thing ever, that I wish it wasn't held back by the different decisions that it made. Graphics wise, and atmosphere wise, it is impeccable. It is an experience, even still, to play and I would recommend it to all who enjoy this genre. The game is huge and expansive and well-crafted, yet still being intelligent and clever at the same time. It's a mind screw, and it refuses to let go of your brain until the end. If you're the type of person that doesn't get stuck easily (like me), then this game might be a dream come true.

Thanks for reading.