Hush, little baby, don't make a sound...
Dreaming Mary
is a sidescrolling adventure game made by Accha (a first-time game maker) with RPG Maker VX Ace Lite in April 2014. What started as a cutesy fetch-and-minigame quest, upon deeper inspection turns into a child's nightmare.
The real Dreaming Mary contains examples of:
- Book Ends: The player will start questioning the game after "beating" the challenges, entering the tree and reaching Ending 2. Mary's nightmare finally ends by entering a different tree.
- Controllable Helplessness:
- Ending 3. If you forgot one of the keys, the white tree gets corrupted, the monster arrives, and you can't escape anywhere.
- Downplayed in ending 4: the room you are in is completely safe, but you can't exit it. Besides examining it, your only option is to go to bed and start again.
- The End... Or Is It?: Ending 5. Did Mary actually Mari really escape, or was it still All Just a Dream?
- Implacable Man: You can't stop the Boogeyman.
- Musical Spoiler: The music at the pink tree seems a little... off.
- Nightmare Face:
- All of your friends sans Penn Guindell when you fail their final requests.
- The shadow monster shows one if he manages to catch Mary. Made out of static.
- Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Mari is being sexually abused and kept captive by her own father.
- Surprisingly Creepy Moment: Even if you never discover the Dark World, getting 4 seeds with three petals remaining (you are forced to give up a petal to get Boaris's seed) leads to a secret cutscene right after entering the tree. "Good girl. Sweet girl. You're mine.".
- Taxidermy Terror: The boar's head in the corridor.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: What happens if you forget to take one of the three keys from the stuffed animals on the couch or the Golden Leaf Key. Both actions lead to the "Red Credits" ending.
The beginning of a nightmare...
