To be honest, I have been playing mobile games since the Symbian days, when I could play Snake all day long. Over the years, game graphics have gone from pixels to 3A to full-screen ray tracing, but there are fewer and fewer games that really allow me to calm down and complete levels. Recently, I came across a pixel-style puzzle game called "Dream Twins". After playing it for more than ten hours, I couldn't help but want to chat with my fellow fans.
Let's talk about similar games first. To be honest, the platform puzzle games on the market now either focus on time retrieval mechanisms like "Braid", but have high operating thresholds and poor mobile adaptation; or they take a dark narrative route like "Inside", but the depth of puzzle solving is average. "Fantasy Twins" chooses a more retro "inner world" gameplay - the protagonist advances a mechanism in the real world, and the inner world will change simultaneously. This design reminds me of the dimension conversion idea of the old game "FEZ", but it emphasizes causality more than FEZ, rather than simply rotating the perspective.
The advantages are obvious: the puzzle design is very clever, and there will be no stumbling blocks in the early stage. In the middle and later stages, you have to remember the status of the two worlds at the same time, which gives you the pleasure of reasoning. Moreover, the pixel art style is exquisite, and the dynamic effect of raindrops falling on the girl's umbrella is more interesting than many high-definition games. Coupled with the fragmented narrative, it is a bit like "Braveheart". The complete story is pieced together by collecting memory fragments, and the ending is quite tear-jerking.
But there are also disadvantages. Compared with the similar game "GRIS", the operation feel of "Dream Twins" is a bit hard, and the jump judgment is a bit erratic. Maybe it was deliberately designed to cooperate with puzzle solving? In addition, frames occasionally drop when switching between worlds. This happens to all the Snapdragon 8+ phones I use. The optimization should be improved. The plot foreshadowing is well laid out, but some of the lines are a bit too heavily translated, which makes it a bit of a drama.
The charging mode is 0, which must be praised. Nowadays, many independent games sell monthly passes as soon as they are launched. This game is simply free, and character skins and in-app purchases are not compulsory. It is considered the conscience of the industry. The developer is Shenzhen Yunbu Interactive Entertainment. It has done stand-alone puzzle games such as "Mountain and Sea Traveler" before, and it seems that it really wants to build a good reputation.
In short, for players who like brain-burning puzzles such as "Chrono" and "Monument Valley", this game is worth a try. Especially veteran players around 30 years old may be more able to understand the artistic conception of "finding oneself in a broken world". 😊