The idea of the game appeared thanks to the authors' keenness on various types of Drag-to-Match games. "We really liked this genre," says Pavlo Vysotskyi, the game designer of the project, "but we always felt restricted by the fact that the game elements were too close to each other. We decided to give the player more freedom letting to connect the spheres regardless of the distance and placing the elements further away from each other".Despite being new the game mechanic is easy to learn since the potential connection lines are highlighted but it does not make the game less interesting because you need to find the optimal route to make a long chain.
At the very beginning of the project it became clear that the game needed a meta-level where the player could spend the resources received while playing. Between levels the player builds new structures and each of them gives access to new bonuses, new types of precious stones or brings a certain income. Advanced structures have dwellers who live their own life, move around the valley and talk to each other.
"The choice of the fantasy setting was not random," says Andriy Plish, the artist who created the graphics of the game "we wanted to create the atmosphere of a fairy tale where each dweller would be unique and evoke feelings of affection in the player". All the dwellers are busy doing their job and have their own habits. Gradually in the valley will settle Merchant, Troll, Knight, Elf, Fairy, Captain, Dwarf, King and Wizard.
In adventure mode the goal of the game is to build all the structures. Once you build the last one, Dragon will appear and fulfill the dreams of each dweller.
There are 150 unique levels in the game with the spheres and obstacles set manually. Each level can be repeated several times in the Quick Play Mode to get various medals and rewards.
Certainly, the opinions of players differ but practically all of them agree that they enjoy making long chains: "I like making long chains. My record is 48 spheres!" says one of the players.
Mayplay Games is planning to make a sequel of the game with the same dwellers but in the winter setting. Lots of ideas that were not fulfilled in the first game will be implemented in the second one. For example, the dwellers will give quests for certain levels with a unique goal like making 15 chains of one color in a row, finishing a level in 5 moves or collect a certain quantity of resources.
You can download the game here: http://mayplaygames.com/files/Dreamsdwell-Stories.exe