A 2 Steam

Back to Bed 

So I am already breaking the alphabetical listing, but hey my blog my rules to break. But really it's because the "A" game I am playing is taking a little longer for me to form an opinion on than I thought it would.

Back to Bed is a puzzle game pure and simple. Getting sleepwalking Bob to his bed is the goal of each of the short single screen levels. 

You run around the puzzle manipulating objects (as an odd little dog-boy in a blue onesie) so that Bob's walking path will lead him to his bed. Putting huge green apples in his way to make him turn a different direction, moving stairs and bridges, avoiding the alarm clocks that will wake him up and so on. Don't let Bob walk off the edge either because then he resets at the start of his path.

It starts out slowly introducing the concepts and then mix and matches them to make harder puzzles. Understanding the way to manipulate Bob's path and actually getting to the objects and placing/using them is where the difficulty hits. And for me it eventually hit too hard. Some of it has to do with the control scheme (it recommends a controller which I did use) and it's lack to tight precision that it feels like it needs for some of the timing the puzzles require. Back to Bed is on phones and tablets so I am guessing being able to tap the exact location works a little better than the off-angle controls. The controls could be better.


I played through the first two sets of 10 puzzles and half way into the third but then my patience started to fizzle. I'm not especially great at puzzle games but when combined with real time movement my brain starts to falter. This is not a knock on the game, the difficulty just eventually exceeded my ability to enjoy it. And there are 2 additional Nightmare sets of puzzles as well...

The real charm of the game is the Escher plus Dali like way the puzzles fit together. You run up walls, through portals and over obstacles in a bizarre path that leads all over the levels. Getting your little guy to where he needs to be is as much of the game as getting sleepy Bob to his comfy bed. Combined with a good selection of music and some Twin Peaks Red Room backwards talking narration the game's clean, stylized (I really like how it looks) and easy to read visuals top off what I will call a quite good puzzle game. Like many puzzle games, Back to Bed makes me wish I was smarter. 

For about $5 you get around 3 hours of play (maybe doubled if you delve into the Nightmare mode). Maybe check it out on a touch device rather than Steam.