Dare to Dream - Final Rating

Written by Will Moczarski

Dare to Dream was the first main game I had the pleasure of playing for the blog, and it was quite the enjoyable experience, too. However, I am unsure how it will (and should) fare in our PISSED rating because it’s a shareware game, meaning its production values aren’t exactly triple A even by the standards of 1993. 

Dare to Dream – WON! Christian’s Lair

By Will Moczarski

This is where I unfairly left you hanging last time:

“I find “my” rock lying here and am very pleased to see it. Also, I can investigate the statue’s left nostril. That is kind of neat as I was primed to look hard at things’ nostrils when I needed to pull the snot from the tree’s nose. Whatever I try to do, my hand cannot fit inside the tiny hole. Maybe it’s time to pop another pill! But let’s save the game first, shall we?”

And this is how it worked out:

While that wasn’t necessary (I can’t enter the nostril and am kind of thankful for that) I find out that I can’t enter the statue’s mouth either. Its glowing eyes mesmerize me whenever I get too close. I quickly realise what I did wrong: I need to insert the unicorn key in the nostril. It is really obvious, to be honest. That shuts off the glowing eyes and I can finally enter the NiteMare. I’m treated to a short ending sequence and that’s that:

Let’s move on to the third and final part then, shall we?

Dare To Dream – Darn That Dream

By Will Moczarski

Last time I was stuck with nothing left to do. I had explored all of the rooms and exhausted all of my options, or so it seemed. After another bout of meticulous pixel-hunting I found not one but two new exits I had previously overlooked. And both were familiar to me. You see, I had already played through episode 2 of Dare To Dream last July right after having finished episode 1. I didn’t take many notes back then and whatever I did write down I lost in the meantime. Also, I didn’t get around to writing a blog post because, well, life got in the way. Life being my beautiful little daughter who was born last summer.

Now as she is slowly learning that nights are for sleeping I finally got around to picking up where I left off all those months ago. I always thought I had a pretty good memory. If that is true (and it’s probably not) it doesn’t apply to adventure games, I guess.

Dare To Dream – In Search Of The Beast

Written by Will Moczarski

Did you miss me? I sure missed blogging.

It’s been a while since I tackled the first episode of Dare To Dream: In A Darkened Room. I navigated Tyler’s dream world, in that case an almost deserted nocturnal city with just a few wacky NPCs to interact with. At the end of the episode, I awoke and had an argument with my best friend Terry whether I had been trespassing in his dream or the other way around. The second episode, In Search Of The Beast, begins at Terry’s fort – right after the end of the first episode.

Dare To Dream – In A Darkened Room

Written by Will Moczarski

We’re back in little Tyler’s dreamland! I’ve decided to play one hour at a time in order to remember everything important for this write-up. Also, I need some kind of structure. Thirdly, I’m not bent on going crazy because of all the pixel-hunting. And let me tell you, it has already been quite the test.

Each chapter represents one hour of gameplay, accordingly. The first chapter is very short. Let’s hope it won’t always be like that…

Game 122: Dare To Dream (1993) – Introduction

Written by Will Moczarski

It’s main game time! After two games set in the “palace of deceit”, Cliff Bleszinski decided to take a different approach for his third game. Conceived as a shareware game in three parts and written for Epic MegaGames, Dare To Dream is more polished, more immersive and generally more advanced than its predecessors. It is still a shareware game and probably shouldn’t be made to compete with mainstream classics like Day of the Tentacle or Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers, which were released the same year. But all things considered, it looks, plays and feels much more like a professional product than the two high-school outings I’ve previously played through for this blog.