Game Review #240: Back to Bed (Nintendo Switch)

Reviewer: A.J. Splutter Developer: Bedtime Digital Games Publisher: 2Awesome Studio Category: Puzzle Release Date: 4.11.19

Price (at time of review): $4.99

Buy Back to Bed from the Nintendo Switch eShop here.

A Painting Come to Life Back to Bed is a puzzle game that has you controlling Subob, the subconscious dog-like guardian of Bob, who’s fallen victim to his twisted mind as he sleeps. Back to Bed gives off vibes of a game similar to Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker if he ever met the M.C. Escher ending to the 1986 cult classic movie, Labyrinth, and combined them into one being to form a new game. It’s extremely surreal. Your task is to pick up objects like apples to use as walls and fish to use as bridges and the like, as you guide Bob (as the title implies) back to bed—safely out of harm’s way.

Visuals and Audio I really enjoyed the abstract art and picturesque locales introduced to me in Back to Bed—which was only further complimented by the ambient and haunting songs that played during the levels. Another thing that sticks to your mind while playing is the disjointed instructions that come at a jarring pace, and seemingly sound like they’re spoken backwards, only adding to the atmosphere as you travel sideways up walls and leap from platform to platform as Subob, creating a safe path for Bob to get back to his bed.

Challenge The main obstacles in your way are timing puzzles involving rabbit shadow dogs, bottomless pits, or dangerous situations like being hit by a train, or simply falling off the edge of the stage. Surprisingly, if you fall down a pit or off the edge of the stage, you simply respawn Bob, while Subob can keep setting up the rest of the path. In a slight smidge of annoyance, if anything actually comes into contact with Bob, you’ll need to sit through a small cutscene showing Bob waking up, which then brings you to a screen that gives you the option to either access the Main Menu or Retry. Confusingly, the option for Retry is on the far right, and with the options colored similarly, it’s rather hard to tell which one is highlighted—with white being the selected choice. By default, Retry is already the highlighted option, but I found myself clicking right and then confirm, which only took me to the main menu, causing needless loading times to continue from where I left off. A clearer way to see which option is currently highlighted would be greatly appreciated in a future update, though this being a port of an older game, it’s unlikely to happen, sadly.

Final Thoughts Despite my concerns, I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge and puzzles thrown my way, and know it’s something I’ll be going back to in months to come to knock out a quick puzzle or two when I have some spare time. Back to Bed is a challenging yet rewarding puzzle game that had me scratching my head on many occasions trying to figure out what needs to be done next, while avoiding the windpipes and demon dogs along the journey. It holds a good atmosphere and brings you tumbling into the world of the game in a way that doesn’t happen often for me, and it is very pick-up-and-play friendly for those gaming sessions when you only have a limited time frame. It’s certainly a game worth having in your collection if you enjoy M.C. Escher-type art along with mind-tingling puzzles.

Score: 7/10

Buy Back to Bed from the Nintendo Switch eShop here.

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*Review Code Provided by 2Awesome Studio