Kaushik's Web.

Mediocre Mornings

For someone who has no experience of the mundane life that begins with cubicles, Every Day the Same Dream can be quite the frightening experience with boredom. The monotonously melancholic soundtrack that plays in the background adds to that touch of repressed urge that you feel trapped in your life.

Programmed as an art game, Every Day the Same Dream the monochrome graphics do not inspire. Yet the touch of colour – even the pale yellow of a fading leaf – suddenly changes everything. OR, it changes nothing if you ignore it.

5 more steps.
Every Day the Same Dream does not “dare you to be different”, or tell you that “everyone is unique”. It tells you a simple story with simple acts that can manifest in different ways.
Sometimes, you need to wake up from the everyday dreams. You need to.

The definition of split personality

Ahhh, the age old conflict between the Good side and the Evil side. Between the Alliance and the Horde, between the Jedi and the Sith and a whole lot of analogies. Except, in the real world there is very little separating good and evil.

In Flipside, the only thing separating good and evil is the enter key. As Hannibal Hildorf, a madman on the loose whose mind is not quite stable. It vibrates between two extremes - of Happyland bunnies, cheerful clouds and pink bumblebees vs. polluted backgrounds, dreary landscapes and evil nurses.

Press the enter key and the landscape flips to reveal the opposite side. Initially you flip to do certain things like attacking or climbing walls (dark side) or jump and be immune to attacks (light side). However, after a couple of flips, you start noticing the differences. First the palpable differences, and then the deeper themes.
In the dark side, you can attack - but you are also harmed. In the light side, you cannot attack, but you do not get harmed either. Which side will you choose? Do you become a rampaging, slobbering madman - a cliche that needs to be sedated and debilitated or do you become the lovable child-man, able to see through the darkness and dreariness of real life through the lenses of a three-year old.

I am guessing that you can play through the entire ~10 minute game with any one side - there were multiple paths when I did see it. This game is worth a try to see just how well you can mod something.

Oh, did I tell you that it was a Source based mod? Yes, well the engine powering this 2D platformer is the same as that which powers Counter Strike: Source or Portal. Yes, you do need at least one Source game to play this free mod (it installs directly into Steam). If you do have one game, then go ahead and download it. It’s highly worth the time you take.