Lucy Dreaming review (PS5) – a hilariously British adventure

Lucy is one of those children who is too old for her age. She has a quick wit, a sharp tongue, and a recurring nightmare that might just be the key to solving a decades-old mystery in her small British town. If you’re an adventure gamer who loves Monty Python-esque humour, a world full of eccentric characters, and a genuine mystery to solve, then Lucy Dreaming might just be the ticket for you. We checked out the game on PS5 to see what it’s like to play the game with a controller, too, and you might surprised at what we’ve found.

Yes, Lucy has dreams: it’s in the name of the game. But what the name of the game doesn’t tell you is that these dreams are actually nightmares, and they’re particularly relevant to the plot of the game. Lucy lives in Figgington, a quaint town in the north of England – or so I assume from it’s accents, sarcastic residents, and general grey demeanour of both its residents and streets. You know, the kind of town that was once quite nice but has now, in certain aspects, turned into a run-down brutalist nightmare with mums who hog the pavement with pushchairs because there’s nothing else to do (yes, that’s in the game).

The thing about Figgington, however, is that it has some deep dark secrets tied to an old-money family who lived there and tried to open a theme park. We can’t really say how without spoiling it, but this is all linked with Lucy and the monster pursuing her through her dreams.

I dreamt of Figgington last night

These dreams aren’t just for show – they’re actually used as a clever game mechanic. See, Lucy can manipulate her dreams by creating a dream box by her bed and putting different objects into it. For example, you might want a giant rubber duck to be able to traverse water in one section, but then you might need to swap it out for a giant teddy bear so that he can help you interact with the environment in the next. Handily, Lucy can wake up from her dreams by drinking a potion. This means that she can wake up, swap out objects, then get back in bed and go to sleep, where she will wake up (don’t ask) in her dream in the same position. This is a long and round about way of saying that, much like a game like Day of the Tentacle, you’ll be able to go back and forth, modifying the game world in one way or another (with dreams this time, not time).

In each of these dreams, you’ll get items and abilities that allow you to go into the nightmare where the monster is chasing you and fend it off in some way. That essentially marks the end of a chapter, and ties into the overall mystery of Figgington, which involves tracking down an enigmatic murderer. Between dreams, you’ll be pedalling your bike around town, talking to its inhabitants, visiting its locations, and solving puzzles.

Lucy Dreaming’s greatest strength lies in the amazing world it creates. Figgington and its surrounding area of chock full of kooky and fascinating characters that will give you a laugh a minute. There’s dim-witted shop employees, a librarian who uses a machine called “Satan”, and a baking judge with a name eerily similar to Paul Hollywood’s. A lot of thought and hard work has clearly gone into creating and writing the denizens of Figgington because each and every one feels like a fully developed character. Not to mention how each of them uses British slang and speaks conversationally, rather than like a robot, which is a downfall of a lot of adventure games. I can only liken Lucy Dreaming’s writing to that of Stephen King: it flows with an easy readability and colloquialism that draws you into its world.

Riddle me this

The puzzles are generally good too. To get the mum off the pavement we mentioned in the first paragraph, you have to give her little sprog (okay, I’ve definitely been playing too much of this game) a bottle of juice from the shop. The problem? You’re a child with no money. The solution? Well, let’s just say perhaps that shop employee who isn’t so bright can help you. There are also musical puzzles and environmental puzzles, all of which have good hints that point you in the right direction, and there are very few times where you’re left feeling cheated by a puzzle in Lucy Dreaming.

Saying that, there’s one area where, for me, Lucy Dreaming falls down, and that’s in its sometimes frustration pixel hunting. Because the game gives you such a rich world to explore, it also gives you a lot of items to interact with, as evidenced by Lucy’s room. When you light up the hotspots in here, the number of objects you can look at is overwhelming. This is exacerbated by the fact that Lucy Dreaming is played using verbs. It doesn’t have a huge verb wheel like Monkey Island, for example, but it does have look at, pick up, talk to, and use. I’m not the biggest fan of verb wheels to begin with, but the sheer number of objects that can be interacted with in each scene combined with the four verbs can create a mammoth task of pixel hunting the correct item and getting the right order of verbs to accomplish a simple task – something that’s made harder with a controller (we’ll get there). Your miles may vary here because I am aware that some people love obtuse mechanics and like to really tease their brains with puzzles, but I play adventure games more for their story, so games with lighter puzzles such as Lamplight City are more my speed.

Lucy Dreaming on PS5 – revelations and frustrations

This brings me to how Lucy Dreaming plays specifically on the PlayStation 5. Many adventure veterans would balk at the idea of playing a point-and-click on a console because of the controller, and they’re both right and wrong. I loved playing Lucy Dreaming on PS5 because I got to see the game’s astonishing pixel art on my 65″ QD-OLED. You might think that pixel art is low resolution and so you would see diminishing returns, but I think that games of this genre are sometimes best played in this manner, as a lot of effort gets put into the game’s artwork, so seeing it on the big screen really allows you to appreciate the time it took to draw and paint Lucy Dreaming’s world.

Using a controller itself does have its issues. The game’s cursor moves slowly with the thumbstick, and there’s no way to speed it up by holding a shoulder button as is often the case with other console adventures. The verbs also make everything extra frustrating. That’s because if you are trying different verbs on different objects, it resets every time and you have to slowly move the arrow around again, which can become monotonous. Granted, there’s only so much that can be done in this department, but it’s worth mentioning if you’re looking at the console versions specifically. There are, however, nice shortcuts that allow you to press the D-Pad and shoulder buttons to chance inventory screens and flick between verbs. This alleviates some of the frustration, but control wise, there’s no getting away from the fact that mouse and keyboard is best for adventure games. So, you’ll have to weight up whether you want big-screen graphics or intuitive controls.

Read our Let Them Trade review

Overall, I really loved Lucy Dreaming’s world, characters, and artwork. The game’s utterly sardonic British humour will keep you giggling to yourself like a madman throughout its roughly 5 hours of playtime, and it’s just really hard not to have a good time playing Lucy Dreaming, even if its object hunting might drive you around the proverbial bend at times. The game’s controls on PS5 can also present a challenge, but you do get to play this beautiful adventure on the big screen, so the trade-off is yours to decide upon.