Storytelling in games continues to evolve and diverge as more creatives try out new, experimental ideas. The walking simulator genre is perfect for this type of experimentation, as it lets games like A Dream About Parking Lots exist. This is a walking simulator through and through since the only “gameplay” you’ll have is to walk through mazes of parked cars. That would undersell and misrepresent what the game is trying to do, as it’s more akin to a therapy session.
A Dream About Parking Lots takes place at two times at once. The game hops from dream to dream, where you are always struggling to find your car. You’ll be equipped with your car keys, and when you press their button near your car, the headlights will flash and the horn will beep. If you are nowhere near it, you’ll hear silence. As you wander around these parking lots, you’ll use the analogue sticks to walk and move the camera, but the D-Pad to navigate the current day therapy session narrative. As you recount your dream to your therapist, you’ll be asked various questions about what it could all possibly mean. Most questions have three choices, and whilst the overarching story isn’t a multi-ending plot, what you select will reveal a fair bit about you, the player.
It turns out, this game is semi-biographical. The developers wanted to explore how creative people can sometimes get inside their own heads. With my personal choices, the therapist started to cajole me to start the thing I’ve been putting off, as the car was seen as a must-do goal, and pressure I put upon myself. Had I chosen differently, the therapist would have highlighted a slightly different take on things. Whilst you’ll ultimately always find your car and escape into the next dream, the narrative wants to shake you and tell you to get out of your own way. I quite liked it, even if the narrative jarred at times.
Where I’ll be less kind is with the actual car park mazes themselves. Whilst I can totally get behind the indie lo-poly rustic polygon feel of the whole experience, the actual maze was always so easily signalled, they became simple car-flanked corridors. There is no puzzling to be had. Instead, you just walk forward. I’d have liked a little more interaction of deciphering to take place, but perhaps that would have taken the focus away from the therapy session.
Rough around the edges, but with an unusual charm to it, A Dream About Parking Lots is the kind of odd gem that niche creative avant-garde gamers will enjoy. I’m not sure many others will, but then they wouldn’t want a purposely unpolished experimental game anyway. Crucially, it made me think about my own creative choices, and for that alone, I view this game as a success.
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