Projected Dreams

Developer: Flawberry Studio | Publisher: Flawberry Studio | Release Date: 2025 | Genre: Puzzle / Casual / Simulation | Website: Official Website | Purchase: Steam

Shadow puppets are usually created with little more than a light, a wall, and a pair of hands twisted into vaguely recognizable shapes. Projected Dreams expands this simple childhood pastime into a full puzzle game where toys, keepsakes, and household objects must be stacked and rotated to recreate silhouettes from old photographs. It is an imaginative premise, but one that occasionally proves that getting a plastic boat and a toy rocket to balance exactly where you want them can be more stressful than it sounds.

Projected Dreams follows Senka as she explores photographs and memories from her mother Lisa’s life. The story is told without conventional dialogue, relying instead on completed pictures, changes to the room, small animations, and the objects that appear as the years pass. It begins as a nostalgic look at childhood imagination but gradually touches on friendship, family, growing up, and bittersweet goodbyes. The narrative is understated, but there is enough emotional context in the photographs and surroundings to make the journey feel more meaningful than a disconnected collection of shadow puzzles.

Each stage begins with a blurred photograph and an outline projected onto the wall. Players must take objects from the shelves or surrounding room, place them on the table, and manipulate them until their combined shadows resemble the target. The finished construction does not necessarily need to look anything like the picture when viewed directly. A toy car balanced on a portable gaming device and held upright by a Rubik’s Cube might somehow cast the perfect shape of a squid, cat, or trophy.

This freedom is where Projected Dreams is at its most creative. The game is generally interested in the outline of the shadow rather than forcing players to discover one predetermined arrangement. A telescope might be used for a long straight section, a ring for a rounded gap, and a figure-eight toy for something completely different from its intended purpose. There are only a handful of recurring objects, including a toy rocket, boat, car, telescope, Rubik’s Cube, handheld game, ring, and figure-eight, but their different shapes allow them to be reused in surprisingly inventive ways. Objects can be moved, rotated, tilted, and stacked to manipulate the shadows they cast.

Completing enough of the target silhouette earns at least one star and allows progression, so players are not required to create a perfect match. However, the real game is earning all three stars on every puzzle. This requires filling as much of the outline as possible without allowing excessive shadows to spill beyond its borders. A solution that looks close enough to the human eye might still fall a fraction short of the highest rating, which can lead to a lot of nudging objects a few millimetres at a time.

The scoring system gives the game more challenge and replay value than simply reaching the end. One-star solutions can often be assembled through rough experimentation, but a three-star result demands better positioning and more efficient use of the available items. The downside is that it is not always obvious which part of the shadow is preventing the final star. A clearer visual breakdown of uncovered or overflowing areas would have reduced some of the trial and error.

The opening puzzles are very straightforward, but new mechanics are introduced regularly. Some levels allow objects to be dragged into a ghost, which makes them invisible to the projector. They still exist physically and can support other toys, but no longer cast a shadow of their own. This is useful when an object has the correct height or position but adds an unwanted shape to the wall.

Other puzzles introduce an octopus that makes objects sticky. Dragging a toy into it allows the item to adhere to another object instead of immediately sliding or toppling off. This opens up much more elaborate arrangements, including constructions that would be impossible under normal physics. The mechanic is clever, although it is not always explained as clearly as it could be, and attaching objects at the intended angle can become fiddly.

The space-themed stages add the ability to enlarge and clone objects. Suddenly, a single small toy can be duplicated or increased to a ridiculous size to cover a large part of the silhouette. These stages feel appropriately playful and demonstrate how much variety can be drawn from the same basic idea. 

Projected Dreams does a good job of adding these twists before the core concept becomes stale. The basic action never changes, objects are still being arranged to cast a shadow, but invisibility, stickiness, cloning, and scaling provide new ways to approach the task. Some ideas are naturally more enjoyable than others, but the steady flow of additions helps maintain momentum.

Unfortunately, the physics are not always cooperative. Most of the time, objects behave predictably enough, but occasionally everything can go ballistic for no apparent reason. One misplaced toy may collide with the stack, launch several objects across the table, and undo minutes of careful positioning. This can be funny when it happens during experimentation but considerably less amusing when it destroys an arrangement that was one small adjustment away from three stars.

The limited selection of objects makes these physics issues more noticeable. Players frequently build precarious towers using the same toy car, rocket, boat, telescope, Rubik’s Cube, portable gaming device, ring, and figure-eight piece. Reusing familiar items encourages creative thinking, but a few more shapes would have increased the number of possibilities and reduced the sense of repeatedly reaching for the same tools.

There is a solution available for anyone completely stuck, but consulting it removes much of the satisfaction. The best part of Projected Dreams is the moment when a bizarre arrangement finally produces the intended silhouette. Since multiple solutions are possible, seeing the official approach can also be surprising, especially when it uses objects in a completely different manner.

Hidden cassette tapes provide another reason to inspect each stage carefully. The album indicates which puzzles contain one, but finding it requires searching the room and interacting with the scenery. The tapes can be played on a portable tape recorder and add to the game’s collection of relaxing music. They are not particularly difficult to locate, but they reward players for looking beyond the immediate puzzle table.

The album acts as the game’s central progression screen. Completed photographs gradually reveal Lisa’s memories, while stars and cassette tapes provide clear completion goals. Watching the pages fill up is satisfying, and the visual storytelling gives every solved shadow a little more purpose. The room also changes as the story moves between different stages of life, with new toys, decorations, and themes reflecting the passing years.

Projected Dreams is relatively short and can be completed in a few hours, although earning three stars everywhere and finding all the cassette tapes extends the playtime considerably. There is also some replay value in revisiting puzzles and trying completely different arrangements. However, once the story has been seen and every level perfected, there is not much structured content left.

The game supports both controller and mouse input, but neither felt ideal on its own during our playthrough. Using only the mouse made certain rotation and camera actions more cumbersome than expected, while the controller felt too imprecise for the tiny adjustments required by three-star solutions. We eventually settled on a combination of keyboard and mouse, which provided the most comfortable balance between camera movement, object manipulation, and precise placement.

Even then, the controls remain somewhat fiddly. Rotating an object along the desired axis can take a few attempts, and picking up the correct item from a crowded stack is not always easy. The game needs to allow complete freedom of movement, so some complexity is inevitable, but a more intuitive manipulation system would have made the later stages less frustrating.

Visually, Projected Dreams has a soft and inviting style that matches its nostalgic themes. The room is filled with pastel colors, warm lighting, and toys inspired by the 1990s. Objects have a slightly tactile appearance, making them look like things that could have been pulled from an old toy box. The shadows remain crisp enough to judge while still feeling like projections rather than flat puzzle pieces.

The changing room is one of the strongest aspects of the presentation. New decorations and objects quietly indicate the passage of time, while small interactive details make the environment feel more personal. The story could easily have been presented as a sequence of abstract puzzle boards, but placing everything in a lived-in room gives it warmth and context.

The completed photographs are also charming. After spending several minutes looking at nothing but a dotted outline and a chaotic pile of toys, seeing the original memory appear creates a satisfying little payoff. The wordless storytelling leaves some details open to interpretation, but the emotions are usually clear enough.

The soundtrack by Floris Demandt complements the experience with gentle, dreamy music. It stays unobtrusive while players experiment but adds considerably to the reflective atmosphere. The collectible cassette tapes offer additional tracks, making them a worthwhile reward rather than merely another icon to tick off.

Sound effects are suitably understated. Toys clatter when dropped, objects scrape across the table, and when the physics decide to scatter an entire construction, the resulting cascade of impacts at least gives the disaster some comedic value.

Projected Dreams invites comparisons to Unpacking due to the way both games use ordinary possessions to tell a largely wordless story about a person’s life. However, while Unpacking is about deciding where objects belong, Projected Dreams is about ignoring their intended purpose entirely. A toy is not important because of what it is, but because of the shadow it can produce when balanced sideways on three other toys.

The game also shares some ideas with shadow-based puzzlers, but its focus on physical object arrangement gives it a distinct identity. It is less concerned with navigating a character through shadows and more interested in the childhood act of turning random objects into whatever the imagination needs them to be.

Overall, Projected Dreams is a charming and inventive puzzle game with a strong central mechanic. Creating recognizable silhouettes from unlikely combinations of toys is satisfying, and the gradual introduction of ghost objects, sticky pieces, cloning, and scaling prevents the concept from running out of ideas too quickly. The quiet story and nostalgic presentation give the puzzles an emotional context without overwhelming them with exposition.

The physics and controls are the main sources of frustration. Carefully stacked constructions can collapse or scatter unexpectedly, while earning the final star sometimes requires more fiddling than genuine problem-solving. The limited object selection also means players will become very familiar with the same handful of toys by the end.

Despite these shortcomings, Projected Dreams remains easy to recommend to puzzle fans looking for something original and relaxing. Simply completing the story is accessible enough for casual players, while earning three stars on every level provides a much tougher challenge. It might occasionally make players want to throw the toy rocket across the room themselves, but it also delivers plenty of satisfying moments when an absurd pile of objects finally casts the perfect shadow.