Dream Detective. Must confess I have never played such a beautiful game in my life. Lovely hand-drawn art style, hundreds of hidden object puzzles and lots of challenges. The attention-to-detail given to each puzzle is truly mind-blowing.
Just by looking at each puzzle “scene” one would imagine the efforts that went into creating one. And there are hundreds of such scenes, each more impressive than the other.
Here’s one screenshot of a puzzle scene titled “Superstar”. It’s a cinema-themed puzzle, so you may find lots of endearing references to movies, directors and actors.
For example, in the Comic World level, you will have to find letters. Each letter of the English Alphabet belongs to a different font, so solving this level won’t be easy. There are several such unique levels that unlock only when you complete the previous level.
A classic and time-limited puzzle has three difficulty modes – Beginner (Easy), Detective (Normal) and Expert (Hard). The harder the difficulty, the more rewards you will earn on completion.
Before you start solving a Classic puzzle scene, tap the gear icon on the top-right corner of the screen to know how many objects you will have to find to unlock rewards and a new level. Once you complete the first objective, you continue finding the remaining objects to get more rewards. If you find all objects, you will gain extra rewards.
You will earn stars, crowns and coins when you finish a level. Crowns are used to level up and coins are used to purchase energy.
You will also be using coins to restore the “Castle”. Yes, the game lets you rebuild a dilapidated castle by repairing furniture in a room.
Tap each object in your castle to repair it. You will be given three new choices. Choose the one you feel will match the room’s decor. You can change the decor any time. Just tap and hold to change a furniture’s type.
You will unlock new rooms when you reach new levels. Keep solving puzzles to earn crowns for leveling up.
Dream Detective is easy to play, but you should also know how to find objects, earn coins and obtain energy to solve puzzles. Check out these useful tips and tricks:
Get Hints About an Object’s Whereabouts
Each meticulously hand-drawn puzzle scene is crammed with plenty of objects, and so it’s very difficult to find them, especially if they are tiny. Thankfully, the game provides hints about their whereabouts. Tap an object’s icon on the bottom of the screen to get hints about its location.
Some hints are very direct. For example, In the “Superstar” puzzle level, you can easily find the Tin Man as the hint suggests that it is “stuck on the Ferris Wheel”. You just have to find the big Ferris wheel and you will spot the Tin Man there.
In the “Detective’s Home” level, I could easily find the key in the study room only because of the hint.
Not all hints are as straight as the above examples and you may have snoop around to find some objects. I had a hard time finding the scared turtle in the Superstar level. The hint was very vague – “the scared tortoise pulled its heads and limbs back into its shell”. I finally found it lying just under a large dinosaur on the bottom of the scene.
Zoom in to Find Tiny Objects
A “Classic” puzzle level is a giant poster with plenty of objects scattered all over the place. Classic puzzles are so expansive, that you will to move your finger downward or upward on a scene to find objects.
Because a classic scene contains lots of objects, it will be quite tough to locate them, especially the tinier ones. You can pinch out to zoom in to find objects.
Get Help if You Can’t Find an Object
Tiny objects can be very difficult to find, especially when the hint given is obscure. If you are having a hard time finding such objects, get help from the magnifying glass.
Tap the magnifying glass on the top-left corner of the screen. Watch a video first to get help. After watching the video, tap the magnifying glass. It will show an object with an arrow and a big circle around it.
Usually, objects found by the magnifying glass are in sequence, I.e. from the first to last. It will find the first, then second and so on. If you have already found the third object, it will skip to the fourth one.
Not All Objects Can be Found in Once Scene
If you thought finding objects in a dream scene was tough, wait until you stumble upon a secret room or scene within a particular scene. There are no points in guessing that the hidden scene will be equally challenging than the previous one.
You may find another scene within a scene quite accidently, but chances of finding them are pretty high if you pay closer attention to the hints given by each object icons on the bottom of the screen.
In the very first chapter “The Detective’s Home”, I found a secret study room when playing a scene in normal difficulty mode, aka “Detective” mode. The fingerprint icon on the bottom of the screen gave away the secret. In the study room, I found a few more objects and also a rare elf.
Don’t expect each puzzle to be child’s play. It’s known as “challenge” for a reason. The harder the difficulty level of a scene, the tougher it would be to find objects unless you get the answer by tapping the magnifying glass icon on the top-left corner of the screen.
How to Get Energy
To begin solving a puzzle scene, you will need energy. In classic levels, you will need 2 energy to solve a beginner-level difficulty scene, 4 energy is needed to solve a “detective” difficulty scene and 4-6 energy is required to solve expert difficulty level scene.
The total energy is 30 and it takes around 25 minutes to recharge a single unit of energy. With so many interesting puzzles to solve, this 20-minute wait will seem like hours. Thankfully, there are various ways to get instant energy in Dream Detective:
The Store has some cool offers to get energy. You can get 1 energy under the “Free to Get” section. Buy energy using coins. Spend 2000 coins to get x10 energy.
There’s also a lucky draw where you might win energy, although chances of winning coins are more. To play the wheel of fortune lucky draw, go to the Store. You will get five chances to spin the wheel. Watch videos to get chances.
On the level selection screen, tap the present box to get a package. The present box may contain coins and energy. You can collect 5 present boxes in a day. However, there’s a cooldown time of 30 minutes to open each box.
You might receive energy from the Magic Dragon Tower game mode. It’s open on certain times, so check back often to see when it opens. The tower has 100 floors or puzzles and is available for a limited time only. Keep solving puzzles to reach newer floors and get bigger rewards.
Besides the Magic Dragon Tower mode, there are several game modes that grant coins and energy as rewards. The Summer Exclusive game mode grants a lot of coins if you manage to find 16 objects. It’s temporarily available. Use the coins to purchase energy at the store.
How to Earn Coins
In Dream Detective, you will need to a lot of coins to purchase energy. The good news is that there are plenty of ways to get them for free:
Double your rewards. Once you complete a level, the game offers you to double you rewards by watching a video. Grab this opportunity to get more coins from a single level.
Play the wheel of fortune mini-game at the store.
Tap the present icon on the top-right corner of the screen and watch videos of get 5 present boxes. You will receive a lot of coins from each box.
Play new games under “Activity” to get abundant coins. There are eight game modes and every game mode offers a very unique puzzle solving experience.
Get coins from rare elves. For example, the “Financially Free” elf drops a lot of coins every 12 hours. You can meet him in the “Castle” on the throne room.
You might find rare elves on certain Dream Detective levels. To know a list of elves that grant rewards, go to your castle and tap the book under “collection list” on the upper left corner of the screen. Those with crowns on them are rare elves that you need to find to get recurring coin rewards from them.
You will also obtain coins from “XP Rewards”. It’s available in the store. Under the free to collect “Dream Pass” you will have reach new levels to earn bags of coins. Collect crowns (XP) by completing each level and reach new levels to collect rewards.
