For 99 years, Disney has been in the entertainment business and has constantly reinvented itself and expanded its offerings. The trademark symbol of the company, Mickey Mouse, has been a staple for most childhoods and has been in the limelight through every generation since the 1930s through cartoons, movies, tv shows, theme parks, and more recently, video games. Thanks to Gameloft, we had a chance to dive into the early access title, Dreamlight Valley, a life sim-type game that will let us create our own slice of the Disney Kingdom.

The beauty of a Disney-themed game is you will immediately be able to appeal to a broad range of players who either drifted away from their childhood nostalgia, those who never left it, or the ones who are set to experience it for the first time. The opening cinematics reflects just that, as the overarching theme comes in the form of the previous Ruler mysteriously abandoning the Valley, leaving the inhabitants to scatter in a forgotten haze of existence. In a not-so-subtle manner, it seemed to be referencing the once rich and imagination-filled minds of our childhood moving on as we grew up, and now we have a chance to rebuild those fleeting memories as we reconnect with the old and new characters of the Disney universe.

With a soft and jolly geometry animation style, your fully customisable character blends in surprisingly well with the many different art styles of the extended universe of characters. Details of the surrounding level designs are simple enough to unify the world, as well as detailed enough to offer the feeling you would get by walking through a theme park. The orchestral renditions of the classic Disney themes were as charming as they were relaxing and were tailored to the characters you would interact with. The centre of the village has a prominent well in a courtyard of pavement that is trimmed with gold highlights and a backdrop of a castle reminiscent of the Walt Disney Pictures logo to frame the scene. The surrounding environments were a little less detailed in the trees, rocks, foliage, and ponds, but that was just in the main Valley.

This starting area will be your main base of operations which will begin to flourish as you start to reclaim the land from the forgotten growths that need to be repelled. Merlin, Mickey, and Scrooge McDuck are some of the few remaining characters that are here to help you become the new ruler and can offer you some handy tricks, tips, and tools to help the process. Scavenging the necessary tools in the form of a shovel, pickaxe, fishing rod, and watering canister serves as both an introduction to the game and what will be needed in your journey.

Keeping in line with the approachable nature of the game, the tool wheel makes each tool easily accessible and each tool only required the A button to function. It may be as simple as using the pickaxe to mine for minerals or a fishing rod to gather fish with a well-timed mini-game, but the tools are much more than they seem as you will find when Merlin helps you upgrade your watering can from just watering your crops to being able to rid the lands of dangerous mushrooms.

The first portion of the game does a fairly good job of covering everything you will need to slowly optimise the gameplay loop of resource management. As I was clearing out the Night Thorns, I was collecting star coins that I could use to help build or repair residents’ houses, seeds for vegetables that I could grow to make a quick buck at Goofy’s store, and all the while I was slowly ticking off daily tasks that could be redeemed for Dreamlight. The Dreamlight currency is used to progress the main storyline that sees us abolish the larger Night Thorn growths that have overtaken the Dream Castle, which houses portals to lands of famous Disney worlds. They also expand the main Valley to the places such as Dazzle Beach to offer more variety in location and functionality when it came to housing new characters.

My first adventure into another realm was to the hustle and bustle of Remy’s kitchen as I learned the tricks of the trade of the culinary arts. Being able to cook up a hearty meal with the many different forms of fruit, vegetables, meat, and pastry allowed my character to beat the stamina bar that would dwindle away the more activities I took part in. If the stamina bar reached zero, I would either go back to my place to reset or eat a lovely cooked meal, and I would be able to continue for the day. Each character was a set piece to bringing back the magic in my own little Valley, and while not fully voiced, all had a large amount to say with character-appropriate dialogue that was engaging through the endeavour of bringing them back to the Valley.

Venturing into other worlds to bring back characters was more than a general storytelling troupe, as each character provides more quests to complete and offers a friendship level to master. Each day you can give any character a gift with a “Flavour of the Day” option being highlighted, giving much more friendship points to help build up to the maximum level of 10 per character. I could then assign them to help me in certain tasks that could help my crops grow faster or yield more fish when I went fishing. These tasks I would assign then would be more of a passive feature and were able to be changed to what I currently needed.

I personally was looking forward to the design portion of the game that drip-fed me new pieces of furniture and places to build as I worked my way through the main storyline. Once Remy, Wall-E, or Moana, for example, were able to move into the Valley, I could access the Furniture section of the inventory system which allowed me to get an overview of the canvas I had to work with. While not going to the extremes of being able to terraform the landscape, being able to adjust building locations, create locations for crops, and trim the walkways with plants for decoration offered a level of self-worth in my designs. This extended to the furnishing of my own home that would steadily grow as I progressed through the game, being able to click on any item, rotate with the shoulder buttons and place items around my tiny room as it expanded to allow for beds, couches, wall paint, and the all-important coffee machine.

As the game is still in early access, there were a few portions of the game that are either already being addressed in the road map or others that I hope are added to the list. A multiplayer mode is in the pipeline, so in this build, I was running solo, which I don’t think is a bad thing as I tend to enjoy my own space but it is notable to mention. The general list of tasks that I was able to work through wasn’t the most engaging addition but it was still in line with my general everyday activities. The difficulty of the game was tied to how efficiently you could complete your tasks, so there was no real way to scale it up or down to suit your desired challenge. Having to pick 50 apples will eventually happen organically, but when I was running short of Dreamlight and I wanted to jump into the next Disney world, having to resort to repetitive tasks can hamper the experience.

The last noteworthy addition to the game comes in the limited-time events that currently are centred around Pixar and the Incredibles. Being able to unlock these items is basically a form of battle pass system that allows for real-life purchases to speed up the process and unlock the cosmetic rewards. It is a little early to tell how invested the game will be with these cosmetic options, but next year it will become free to play, so the game may very well end up relying on these purchases.

Dreamlight Valley is a one-stop shop for rekindling your childhood imagination and satisfying that creative itch. While still in early access, Gameloft has still delivered a product that feels like a complete package and with a large arsenal of Disney properties to choose from when it comes to new worlds to explore, they are in a prime position to keep the audience coming back time and time again.

Written by: Shane Fletcher