Title: Back to Bed
Format: PlayStation Network Download (PS4 241 MB) (PS3 460 MB) (PSV 221 MB)
Release Date: August 25, 2015
Publisher: LOOT Interactive
Developer: Bedtime Digital Games
Original MSRP: $19.99
ESRB Rating: E10+
Back to Bed is also available on PC, iOS, and Android.
The PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation Vita versions were used for this review.
A copy of this game was provided by the publisher for review purposes.
PS Nation Review Policy

Bedtime Digital Games arose as a student project which then transferred to a dilapidated and freezing warehouse in Aalborg, Denmark. They had a successful Kickstarter, lost team members to more lucrative lives, and eventually became a professional entity in 2013 led by Klaus Pederson and Jonas Byrresen, proving that dreams do come true – less by the dreaming and more by hard work and commitment.

Gameplay:
Bob is a narcoleptic guy with a kind of subconscious dog that looks after him in his dreams.

Bob walks along while you control Subob… the anthropomorphic dog with Bob’s awake-face, so-named because he is SUbconcious BOB. You need to guide the sleeping Bob back to bed through a series of sleep themed artwork puzzles. You achieve this feat by putting objects in his path to make him turn. Bob only turns clockwise. If you put your object in the wrong place Bob might walk off the edge of the area and fall.

Once you’ve guided Bob onto the correct path you may skip ahead to the end of the puzzle by pressing the triangle button.

Sometimes elements in the levels aren’t what they appear. You may see an object you need to get which looks to be completely out of reach. It’s not. You just have to think outside the box and use your imagination. Since Bob always turns right what do you do when his bed is on the left?

The apple is a hat. I have no idea. Things People Say In Their Sleep for 200, Bob.

You’ll encounter some things which will wake Bob up if he walks into them or if they walk into him. You shouldn’t let that happen. But if it does it’s OK. There’s a trophy for that. There are trophies for several negative achievements.

On PS4 when you fail at an attempt to get Bob back to bed, he resets but you do not. This is a great effort-saver because you can continue to plan how to affect his route fresh from your failure. However, if you wish, you may restart any level from scratch by pausing the game and hitting Retry. There’s a trophy, YO!, for doing this five times in one puzzle.

On PS Vita when you fail you have to hit Retry. Slightly disappointing, but given the limitations of the older system and how minimal the issue, AKA First World Problems, no DING against the score.

Seriously, check the trophy list for trophies earned while failing. The developer, Bedtime Digital Games, has done a great job at making failures rewarding. I got the trophy “Groundhog Night” by just holding down the triangle button and fast forwarding through ten fails.

The camera always follows you instead of Bob. You may use the right thumbstick to pull back or zoom if you need to but even if you can’t see Bob in normal view you can generally tell his path by the ghost footprints ahead of him.

Unfortunately I did get Bob stuck at one point. I had to hit Retry to unstick him. Computing is hard when you have a game with so many variables. And considering I was not doing well with this level, I am not sad.

The Cross-Save on PS Vita is seamless and instant. The only surprising bit about the Vita controls is that you can’t tap the screen for anything in the menus or anywhere. You must use the buttons and sticks. Typically on PS Vita one can tap the screen to start or choose the levels. But no DING against the score. This Cross-Save feature is perfect! I quit out of the game on PS4, turned-on my Vita and it was just simply there where I left off. Effortless.

Back To Bed looks wonderful and plays perfectly on the Vita. The Cross-Save dynamic is exceptional. You just pick it up and keep playing on every device in the current PlayStation ecosystem.

Beware the nightmare levels. Just beware.

Visuals:
The game is lovely on every platform. On PS4 it’s 1080p/60FPS even though there’s no reason on Earth for it to perform so high. Apart from the console wars.

Audio:
The music is fun and apropos and the environmental sounds are oddly appropriate. At times certain sounds emanate from the controller. My favorite of those sounds is “Rock-a-bye Baby” each time you succeed.

Online/Multiplayer:
This game is single-player only with no online component.

Conclusion:
Back To Bed is a credit to the devs who worked so hard on not just this game but on their lives while trying to keep this game alive. They’ve succeeded splendidly.

Score:

* All screenshots used in this review were taken directly from the game using the Share functionality on the PlayStation 4 and the Vita’s built in screen capture feature.