Dimensions of Subconsciousness

Dimensions of Subconsciousness is a 3D labyrinth game with a naive and incredibly patronizing story, unfinished maps without any consistent art direction (but lots of opportunities to get stuck in the geometry), and no gameplay apart from a few trivia questions (where the correct answer is always the last one). It is quite possibly one of the worst games I have ever reviewed. [h2]1. Story & Setting[/h2] You play an egoistic and manipulative manager with anger problems. The game starts with a black screen and treats you to a sequence of voice-overs, in which you get confronted by your employees. You then apparently have an accident, are thrown in a coma, and awake in some sort of purgatory, where a disembodied voice tells you that the only way to escape is to give correct answers to the questions that it will ask you. There's nothing new, imaginative, or particularly interesting about this story. The characters and the setting get barely developed at all. It just seems to exist to provide a framework for the equally bland gameplay. Once in purgatory, you proceed through different levels - some small, some large and labyrinthine. There is no player guidance in the level design whatsoever. Each level represents a part of your personality, and in case you don't see the obvious, each level greets you with a floating text like "The arena represents your anger". The game constantly overexplains itself, this is in line with the lengthy "greeting" dialog when you enter purgatory. There is no room for mystery and no reason to explore. It's a strange contrast that the game explains the gameplay to a point that makes it even more boring (because it takes away all possible mystery), but leaves you completely alone when it comes to navigating the levels. [h2]2. Gameplay & Mechanics[/h2] Dispersed in each level are statues of light, which can be activated, upon which the voice asks you a question about one of your character faults. You get four options to answer, and the correct one is always the last one, which talks about a "white light" that you're apparently supposed to pursue and that seems to simply describe the attitude of a decent human being, but in an unnecessarily convoluted and pompous way. The voice then patronizingly acknowledges "That is the right answer". After answering the questions of all statues in a level, you can take the exit to the next one. Occasionally the voice imparts unbelievable bits of wisdom such as "Straight is always the straightest line". I'm not joking. That's a line that the voice utters with all the gravitas of its "I'm the judge of your character" attitude. This could have been unintentionally funny, but I mostly found it just sad. The philosophy that the author is trying to propagate is actually one that would be worthwhile to follow - don't put yourself over others, don't manipulate people, don't let yourself be controlled by anger, etc. But the game doesn't let you experience situations where these points would be relevant. Instead, the author decided to force the player through labyrinthine levels and a long and boring set of trivia questions that don't even require any thought, all to please an incredibly arrogant, self-righteous, and patronizing "higher being". The setting is so clumsily constructed that it probably motivates players more to rebel against it than to engage with the philosophy. [h2]3. Graphics & Presentation[/h2] The game was built in Unreal Engine 5 and makes use of many unique features including raytracing, but it doesn't look good. There doesn't seem to have been any art direction at all, the levels feel like they are filled with asset packs haphazardly thrown into the game. Barely anything has been done with the lighting. The game is a good example that even with the most sophisticated engine on the market, you can still produce crappy looking games. Sound effects are barely present. There is voice acting, but the protagonist has been voiced by someone with the acting talent of a wooden stick. He's supposed to represent a machiavellian character with anger problems, and he reads his lines with the emphasis of an announcer going from line 35 to 43 in a weather forecast. The voice that asks the questions is much better acted, though that assessment assumes that it was actually meant to be gratingly patronizing. [h2]4. Usability & Accessibility[/h2] The game provides a resolution selector as well as 5-step quality settings for view distance, shadows, lighting, textures, AA, post-processing, effects, and foliage. I played with everything on "Ultra" and it still looked bad. There are 3 volume sliders for music, effects, and dialog. That's all. No accessibility settings exist. Keys cannot be rebound. I was unable to proceed past the fourth level - I did find four statues and answered their questions correctly, but could not find the exit door. I did get stuck in the geometry multiple times and had to revert to an earlier save. I asked for help in the forum, but never received a reply, the game seems to have been thrown on the market without any support whatsoever. The game lets you walk so close to a wall that you can see through it and look at the raw map behind it, which is rather confusing. The fourth level in particular feels unfinished, as there are large untextured structures everywhere. [h2]5. Conclusion[/h2] I do this very rarely, but I can only recommend to stay away. This is a train wreck of a game where every component comes with massive issues, and there is no redeeming quality whatsoever. I can't see an audience that would enjoy it, except when they approach it from a "so bad that it's good" angle, but I never found that convincing. I can't even bring myself my usual "hopefully the next game will be better" statement because I simply do not see any basis whatsoever for a better game in the future. Just stay away.