3D exploration to the moon
Dreamside Maroon tells the story of Aster, who wants to go to the moon. He exists in a strange world of floating islands, and travels around by a vine that grows in whatever direction he wishes.
With dreamlike, beautiful 3D graphics and spacey ambient music, Dreamside Maroon immediately draws you into its magical world. It doesn't matter why Aster wants to go to the moon, or why he travels by Vine because it's really pleasurable to do so. This is an exploration game - there are essentially two areas in the game, but they are huge. Exploring all the islands is quite a task, and it's easy to lose track of time.
Control is via keyboard, and you can move the camera around with the mouse. Holding Shift makes the vine grow, and the cursor keys will direct it wherever you want. Hit space and Aster jumps, and he can walk around the islands you find. While moving on the vine is great, on foot Aster isn't too good, and the controls feel imprecise. Thankfully, if you fall, you're transported back to the vine. As mentioned above, the graphics are really pretty and the music and sound effects are really effective in making the game very relaxing. The creaking noise of the growing vine is especially nice,
Dreamside Maroon may seem a bit pointless to some players - there's no death, and while there's a story of sorts, it's not very important to the experience. The only bad part about Dreamside Maroon is the lack of a save point. You can play for an hour, but if you exit, you'll return at the start of Aster's journey.
Dreamside Maroon is a beautiful game, and it's incredibly high quality for free!
