By Bixyl Shuftan
My SL wife Charlee recently gifted me a game that for many here will bring back memories: Dreamlight Valley. Produced by Gameloft in cooperation with Disney and Pixar, this cozy game allows you to interact with many of their characters from recent films to cartoons your parents saw.
Explore a world filled with the magic of Disney as you discover rich stories and build the perfect neighborhood alongside Disney and Pixar heroes and villains in this new life-sim adventure game. Welcome to Disney Dreamlight Valley.
Disney Dreamlight Valley is a hybrid between a life-sim and an adventure game rich with quests, exploration, and engaging activities featuring Disney and Pixar friends, both old and new.
Starting a new game, you chose your character's appearance, male or female, hair color and style, etc. Then comes the introduction in which you go on vacation to a place in the country you haven't been since you were a child. You lie down and let your thoughts drift, then you feel yourself falling. And the next thing you know, you're in some place with purple thorns all over, and some wizard in a blue robe is trying to zap them without any luck. You recognize him as the Disney character Merlin, and the two of you have a talk, in which he explains the situation. The place is called Dreamlight Valley, and while it was once an idealic place, but for some time has been under "The Forgetting" in which these purple thorns, called Night Thorns, began choking off the memories of it's inhabitants. Most eventually fled or disappeared, but Merlin, Mickey Mouse, Goofy, and Scrooge McDuck remained, not giving up.
Merlin suggests that perhaps you might have some magical power over them. You try, and you're able to magically make one vanish. As you make more go away, you find they often leave coins, seeds, or dreamlight shards behind. Merlin will then tell you to go after the royal tools, a pickaxe, a shovel, a watering can, and a fishing rod. Merlin will also suggest you stay at the small house not claimed by anyone.
Having gotten the tools, your task is to restore the valley. This means making contact with the other three characters and helping them out, such as helping Scrooge fix his store and Goofy fix his stall, both of which Scrooge's construction service will charge you. You'll also need to get rid of the larger thorns blocking the way to the castle. There, you find a number of characters have retreated to their worlds. You can unblock the portals to them one at a time, go through, and convince them to return to the village. This usually means setting up a house which you'll need Scrooge's help to build.
Characters have a "friendship" level which goes up as you interact with them from talking to playing games, and doing "friendship quests" which appear after the character levels. You also assign a kind of task to each, gardening, mining, fishing, etc. which will boost the output when you do this activity when you hang out with them. Quests, friendship ones, and others you get by coming across objects or a place, can also reveal a new character or give you something useful.
Various critters inhabit the Valley, each place having different kinds such as rabbits and squirrels. By giving them food they like, you can eventually tame one and keep it as a companion.
There's also various orbs of power you need to place in their respective pillars starting with the Orb of Friendship in the village's Peaceful Meadow. While quest objectives, they certainly give the impression of progress in restoring the Valley. Doing various tasks will cause your Dreamlight level to go up. You'll need it to unlock more areas of the Valley such as Dazzle Beach, which get you access to more things, some of which you'll eventually need.
As time goes on, the village will start to get a number of people living there as a result of your efforts. It can be a challenge to fit in the houses, and other buildings. But it's also fun to see the various characters interact with one another. Some characters such as Donald Duck are full of chuckles. Cooking is a part of many quests, so you may want to bring Remmy of Ratatoiulle back to the village early on.
Dreamlight Valley has two expansions. In "A Rift in Time," you head to Eternity Isle after Jafar messages you for help, asking you for your help. You find a new Royal Tool, the hourglass, which has the ability to pull some objects to you. But as you can probably guess, Jafar's intentions aren't quite what he's been telling you. The other expansion is "Storybook Vale," in which a land of myths and fairy tales has been torn apart by Malificent and Hades and needs you to restore it. With the new tool, the Royal Net, you capture snippets to help the Lorekeeper restore the various stories.
While the game is single player, one can invite others to their realm. You can't take care of quests while in multiplayer, though you can still gather objects. This includes one that appears at no other time in the game. Players can also browse the boutique store of their host and get any clothes they designed.
There's also cosmetic content which you can purchase.
Dreamlight Valley is available on Steam for $39.99 US dollars. The two expansions are $29.99 each.
Bixyl Shuftan
