In order to get my mind off the looming graduation date and Valentine's Day, I immersed myself in a strange little game called Sphera. It's about a little girl named Tess who has a rather difficult life. Her father is at war, her mother works in a factory (picture Rosie the Riveter), and her brother is just plain evil.
When Tess picks up the Sphera, she is transported into a world filled with her dreams. She must make her way through her own dreams to the end where she has to confront her worst fear.
Hey gamers! Valentine's Day is over, thankfully... nothing like being single and alone on Valentine's Day. Lucy wanted to throw an "I hate Valentine's Day" party, complete with a black heart piñata to beat the crap out of, black candy hearts, black flowers... and well, you get the picture. Luckily, Morgan and I talked her into going to see sappy movies instead.
We couldn't decide on sad, sappy romance or funny, sappy comedy. So, we saw both. Meanwhile, "somebody" in the house had to keep rubbing it in that he had a date. That annoyed Lucy to no end and when "somebody" asked if we could do his laundry for them, she threw in a very red shirt with very white boxers, or were they briefs? Can't wait until "somebody" finds his very pink undies! Ha! Clearly Lucy is rubbing off on me, and I'm not sure this is a good thing.
In order to get my mind off the looming graduation date and Valentine's Day, I immersed myself in a strange little game called Sphera. It's about a little girl named Tess who has a rather difficult life. Her father is at war, her mother works in a factory (picture Rosie the Riveter), and her brother is just plain evil. When Tess picks up the Sphera, she is transported into a world filled with her dreams. She must make her way through her own dreams to the end where she has to confront her worst fear.
I must say, this game is strange. It's not scary, just... bizarre. Tess's dreams leave a lot to be desired and are incredibly depressing. The story really focuses on the fact that Tess is bullied by her brother, and several of the characters in her dreams call her "stupid." I didn't like the storyline at all. I thought it was harsh and unnecessary. The concept had potential, but the follow through failed, in my opinion.
Let's move on to the game play. There wasn't any ambiance in the game, which made it feel kind of flat, but it had decent voiceovers. However, the voices are connected to the music, so if you turn off the music, you also lose the voices. The graphics are all hand drawn in cartoon style and very well done.
There aren't a lot of hidden object scenes, but the hand drawn items matched what was in your head. Some of the hidden object scenes were rather dark, literally, not figuratively, and it made it a little difficult to pick out the objects.
There were only a few puzzles, most of which were very simple. Several of the puzzles repeated themselves, simply with different solutions. Also, locating items outside the hidden object areas was, at times, very frustrating. What do I mean? Well, you know you needed a certain item, but it would not allow you to pick it up until later in the game once you'd accomplished a particular task. However, there was not a lot of doubling back to previous scenes, which I liked, so the game flowed pretty well in all other respects.
I will say that Sphera is different. The story and the graphics make it that way, but it's still an odd little game with a very twisted ending - and a hint of a sequel. I think Lucy probably would enjoy this game a lot more than I did. Here's a little peek at the game.
