Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream Review

I was diagnosed with ADHD in my mid-thirties; it comes with a side salad of autism and a garnish of dyspraxia. This means that I assumed that my awkwardness, clumsiness, short attention span, and lack of patience didn’t have a specific reason, and that’s just how I was. Most of those things haven’t completely changed, if I’m honest, but the attention span and patience have both gotten a lot better since my diagnosis and subsequent medication. The example I’ve often cited is how I had never been able to stick with any stealth games prior to my diagnosis, despite loving them. In contrast, I’ve now managed to complete the entire Hitman: World of Assassination trilogy.

So whilst I’m not necessarily the go-to reviewer for stealth-based titles, I’ve come to appreciate them so much more in my middle age, and this is how I ended up reviewing Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream (although the fact that I’m doing so quite a while after the game’s release will tell you that I’m still not completely in control of my symptoms!)

I’m calling this a stealth title, but this isn’t in the same way that Tenchu, Hitman, or Metal Gear Solid are. I suppose the best description would be that it’s a story-heavy stealth puzzler. You play as Hanna, a young girl who’s closer in look and feel to Fagin’s orphans in Oliver Twist than someone you would expect to find in rural Sweden. Much like those aforementioned rapscallions, Hanna has gotten herself involved with a bad crowd, and so has her brother. Unlike Hanna, though, sibling Herman isn’t quite as good at avoiding detection, and the poor lad has got himself kidnapped by local ne’er-do-wells. Thus starts an intricate journey to find and rescue him.

It might not be the most original setup, but a lot of work has clearly gone into the story of Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream, with a highly fleshed-out world of characters cropping up as we progress. There’s political intrigue, the seedy underbelly of smuggling and petty thieves, and a mysterious illness that’s disproportionately harming the poorer folks of the town of Eriksholm. I won’t give any spoilers, but the writing is far better than it has any right to be in a small indie title such as this!

The action is played out in large stages with fairly linear progression. They’re designed in such a way as to appear sprawling and free-roamable, but in reality, they’re quite confined. This is intentional, however, as the stealth mechanics are based on getting through small areas at a time undetected. Hanna gets some tranquiliser blow darts early on in the game, which she can use to knock out guards, but the game is wholly non-violent, and you can only use them if nobody will see one of their colleagues suddenly fall unconscious.

Guards tend to follow set patrol patterns, so you’ll also need to plan ahead, lest they stumble upon the sleeping frame of someone you just sent to noddyland. You can drag bodies to safe hiding spots (I quite enjoyed dragging them all to the same spot so they could spoon), and you can use the environment to distract the other guards in many spots, too. They react to sound as well as sight, so you’ll need to be careful that your footsteps aren’t heard. As you progress, there are two additional characters you will meet. These are armed with other defensive skills, and you’ll need to juggle between them to ensure everyone makes it to the next scene.

Whilst everything is quite dark and moody, in keeping with the game’s somewhat dark tone, there’s still a real sense of vibrancy here insofar as the world feels like much more than a static backdrop. Background characters have idle conversations, advertising posters are everywhere, and there are small fragments of the lives of ordinary people you come across along the way. It’s all made with a charming art style that reminds me a little of games like Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons or A Plague Tale. 

Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream is a relatively short game, with about 15 hours of gameplay to be found if you take it slowly, perhaps a little less if you’re not exploring every corner like I did. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, given that it’s quite an intense period, but it’s worth factoring in, as this isn’t a game with much in the way of replay value. Once you’ve solved a puzzle once, there is only so much in the way of variance that can be had. It’s not like Hitman, where you can find hundreds of different ways to resolve a situation; there are usually just one or two correct methods that can be put into practice.

This lack of freedom can lead to occasional frustrations where a particular method seems to be so obvious, only for the game to deny the option of what you thought was the right solution. Even when the action does get a little frustrating, however, the solutions still feel intuitive and sensible when they finally click. I never felt like there was much moon logic at play, and so I’m quite happy to forgive an occasional difference of opinion on what the “best” way is between the developers and me. I would have liked the option to set up over-the-top traps or use more tools to achieve the objectives than the single one that each character has, but the lack of such options is a minor negative rather than a dealbreaker.

If you are a fan of tactical stealth games like Commandos or Invisible Inc., then there’s a good chance you’ll find that Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream scratches the same itch. It’s not a perfect example of the genre, but for a debut title, it’s an exceptional achievement. I really enjoyed it, and I hope to see more from River End Games in the future.