‘Dream Catchers: The Beginning’ Captures Your Imagination on iOS

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G5 Entertainment and Boon Troll have teamed up to bring us a new hidden object puzzle adventure. Dream Catchers: The Beginning tells the story of Mia, who is away at school and her brother who comes to find out what has happened to her and everyone else at the school. It is a fun and engaging game worth checking out!

'Dream Catchers: The Beginning' Captures Your Imagination on iOS

Type of app: Hidden Object Puzzle Adventure (HOPA) game

Platform/where to buy: iPad (iPhone version as well); available in the iTunes App Store

Developer: Boon Troll / G5 Entertainment

Description:
* 77 head-spinning levels
* 17 puzzling mini-games
* 2 impressive worlds: dream and reality
* 14 remarkable achievements

Dream Catchers: The Beginning Major features:

You play as the brother of Mia, who takes the central role as a teacher hired at a distant boarding school for girls. She has remained close to her family, but is suddenly out of touch. As her brother, you arrive at the school and discover that an unknown disease had struck Mia, the students and other staff – they fell asleep one by one and haven’t woken up.

'Dream Catchers: The Beginning' Captures Your Imagination on iOS

As you would expect in a mystery game, there is much more going on than immediately meets the eye – you uncover multiple parallel plot lines that all converge as the game progresses, and small stories of individuals that give you added things to do, and little oddities and curiosities that add flavor.
Add to that the

Dream Catchers: The Beginning adds to the normal mystery mix a dark shadowy figure who seems to be able to hunt and haunt across dreams and dimensions, and also the fact that as you attempt to solve each mystery you find yourself pulled into dreams and need to solve more puzzles and problems to escape!

Throughout the game you will encounter objects scattered around the environment, hidden object scenes, combined-object puzzles, and mini-games that range from very simple to rather complex. Some of the characters you meet in the dreams will help you and others will need you to do something first.

Ease of use/Overall performance:

Dream Catchers: The Beginning conforms with genre norms – if you have played any other hidden object games, you will settle into this one immediately – it is a fairly standard genre game in terms of mechanics and gameplay. This isn’t a bad thing – I found that I greatly enjoyed the way things flowed throughout the game and wouldn’t have messed with anything.

You can choose to play in Casual or Expert mode, with Casual mode offering generous hint system recharge and object highlighting. Expert provides a more solid challenge and is quite difficult at times. I only completed the game on Casual mode, replaying segments on the other level.

As noted the technical aspects of the game are excellent – great visuals, snappy performance in terms of load-times and transitions, tap-accuracy is solid, and I never had a crash. The sound and extras are all excellent, and overall I was very impressed.

'Dream Catchers: The Beginning' Captures Your Imagination on iOS

Would use again/recommend?: Definitely! From the very start I was drawn into the story, and Dream Catchers: The Beginning provided an engaging experience. The puzzles are set up to be challenging but not frustrating. The story is engaging and keeps you working through area after area. The characters are unique and interesting and provide helpful clues and fun distractions along the way. You will spend several hours working through Dream Catchers: The Beginning, and it is enjoyable throughout!

Suggested changes/wish list for updates: Nothing

Source: Publisher provided review code

Price: Free download – (iPhone here, in-app purchase for full game is $6.99 for iPad, $4.99 for iPhone. On sale through June 20th for $4.99 / $2.99)

Here is the Dream Catchers: The Beginning trailer:

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About the Author

Michael Anderson
I have loved technology for as long as I can remember - and have been a computer gamer since the PDP-10! Mobile Technology has played a major role in my life - I have used an electronic companion since the HP95LX more than 20 years ago, and have been a 'Laptop First' person since my Compaq LTE Lite 3/20 and Powerbook 170 back in 1991! As an avid gamer and gadget-junkie I was constantly asked for my opinions on new technology, which led to writing small blurbs ... and eventually becoming a reviewer many years ago. My family is my biggest priority in life, and they alternate between loving and tolerating my gaming and gadget hobbies ... but ultimately benefits from the addition of technology to our lives!