Bad Dream: Fever

About Bad Dream: Fever

Bad Dream: Fever was made by Desert Fox, the Polish studio behind Bad Dream: Coma, and released on Steam for Windows and Mac in November 2018, with a Nintendo Switch version after. It is now free to play on Steam.

The world is covered in strange ink, and an unknown plague has gathered its cruel harvest. The city seems completely empty and dead, but in every corner there are manifestations of fear, sorrow, frustration, loneliness and suffering. The store asks you to act with caution, to expect an enemy where you least expect one, and to try to save at least one person, warning that sometimes full effort is still not enough.

You play by clicking through still scenes: an abandoned public toilet scrawled with 'not ready yet', shuttered shop fronts, a back alley, a park and a cluttered toy shop. You pick up items, combine and use them, and solve riddles that the makers say need an unconventional approach. The art is sepia pen and ink, and dark blue ink seeps over walls and floors and sometimes swallows the whole screen.

It suits players who like slow, sad, surreal point-and-click horror with moments of cruelty, in the line of Fran Bow or Rusty Lake, rather than chases or jump scares.

How to play Bad Dream: Fever

1. Install it free from Steam, or buy it on GOG or the Nintendo eShop.
2. Click on objects and exits in each scene to examine them and move between places.
3. Pick up items, then use or combine them from the inventory to solve the riddles in your way.
4. Watch how each location changes as the ink spreads, and come back to places when something new appears.

Tips

• When stuck, revisit earlier scenes; the ink changes them and new things become usable.
• Some puzzles need an unusual idea rather than a hidden item, so try combining what you carry.
• Read the scrawled messages on the walls; they are part of the clues and the mood.

Questions