Bad Dream: Fever (BDF) is a point-and-click psychological horror, the most recent of the Bad Dream series. I’ve played all the little ones (~20 minutes, free from the developers), as well as Coma. I think of all the Bad Dream games Fever was both my favorite and the one I found to be the most frustrating.
Why My Favorite?
While games in the series are known for their minimalist pencil drawing style, Fever has a really nice boost in the graphics, with full-screen scenes that are well detailed. The ink that is infecting the world is really well done versus the trademark pencil on taupe paper, as are the other weird phenomenon going on.
I liked the story, which hits on some emotional points that really resonated with me, but that I can’t be clearer on as it would be a huge spoiler. It is both human and unsettling, in part because it does hit on some very human emotions.
Likewise, the game has a “twist” (like many) that is very well done, IMHO, but again, that’s all I can say about that. 😁 It is more linear than others in the series, but I’m fine with that.
The game also does a rather awesome job of building in limits on where you can go into the story so that it doesn’t feel as forced as it can in some other games.
Why The Most Frustrating?
There were primarily two things that I found frustrating. One, which is admittedly common to all the Bad Dream games (and many P&Cs in general): not being able to pick up items until you need them. It’s just annoying and frustrating, even though this game, at least, does attempt to give reasonings for it.
The bigger frustration though were some of the puzzles themselves. In previous Bad Dream games, it may have taken me a while to figure something out, but some of the puzzles in Fever had solutions that literally would have never occurred to me, EVER.
I only got through them by finally giving in and Googling then just staring at the results like wut??? How… And while I get why the solutions were the way they wore and it did work awesomely within the framework of the game’s story, there just wasn’t enough of a hint or guidepost to possibly point me in the right direction. And even once I knew that kind of solution was now on the table, it still didn’t help with further puzzles because again, not enough context/clues.
Overall Thoughts?
Despite those frustrations, I quite enjoyed Bad Dream: Fever and the only reason I didn’t finish it in a single sitting was my sweetie popped in with a late lunch while I was playing. But as soon as he’d headed back home, I got back to it. I would say, definitely plate Coma before playing this one though, at the minimum, otherwise, some parts will just seem to come out of left field and leave you looking at the game like I looked at those solutions. 😅