Back to Bed (Wii U) Review

By Thomas Wrobel 09.07.2017

Review for Back to Bed on Wii U

Back to Bed is a simple puzzle game that sees players control a dog-like creature attempting to keep a sleepwalking man safe. Somewhat confusingly, the man appears to be sleepwalking within his dream, as the landscape seems to be a collaborative work by M.C. Escher and Salvador Dali. To guide the man around the surreal landscape, you put large apples in front of him (maybe René Magritte contributed, as well), which will for some reason force the man to rotate 90 degrees. The player must ensure he gets to the safely of his bed, avoiding any holes and hazards, to complete each level. Essentially, that's it… but is it enough?

The first ten levels or so are easy enough so as to be completed almost without thinking. More time might be spent wondering why the developer chose 'b' for menu confirmation than any of these puzzles. While a gentle tutorial/introduction is good in a game, worries set in pretty quickly that this goes past casual and straight to boring. Things are made a little more interesting by the staircases in that provide a welcome reality-bend, letting you walk on walls as if gravity shifted. This fits the aesthetics Escher influences, although some may know this little trick more from the film Labyrinth. Oddly, though, Back to Bed hardly uses these structures, and never in a way that really adds to a puzzle.

Thankfully, despite this, things do get a little harder with the introduction of movable bridges. The game's at its best when the 'impossible' nature of a level layout influences where you must place the bridge. This is pleasing, but rare. More often than not, the difficulty comes more in the execution of a solution rather than the working out of it.

Screenshot for Back to Bed on Wii U

Helpfully, little footsteps show where the sleepwalker will go, but only up to a point, so it's fairly easy to place things just slightly off. Sometimes the floor's position can be ambiguous too, meaning you can't always tell when it's safe to jump from a ledge. Later stages also require some elements of timing, or object re-use, which also may take a few attempts to pull off as you quickly run around. Finally, the levels also have a 'nightmare mode,' which is unlocked after completing all the levels normally. This adds extra things to collect in each stage, but doesn't really make the puzzles more interesting. The main problem overall is the level design is never that engaging. It bafflingly never takes advantage of its most interesting features: the impossible layouts and the walking on walls.

Back to Bed can be played fully on the Wii U pad, which at least makes it easy to multitask play with doing or watching something else. Players looking for something a little more engaging, or with more substance, might be better of trying something else.

Screenshot for Back to Bed on Wii U

Cubed3 Rating

4/10
Rated 4 out of 10

Subpar

Essentially, Back to Bed is a game about figuring out how to redirect a hapless moving creature to safety over weird landscapes. If you want to play a game, then, about figuring out how to redirect a hapless moving creature to safety over weird landscapes, then it's hard not to recommend… Lemmings. It's not that Back to Bed does much wrong, it just doesn't quite do enough right to sustain interest.

Developer

Bedtime Digital

Publisher

Bedtime Digital Games

Genre

Puzzle

Players

1

C3 Score

Rated $score out of 10  4/10

Reader Score

Rated $score out of 10  0 (0 Votes)

European release date Out now   North America release date Out now   Japan release date None   Australian release date Out now   

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