Overdid it a little this week with other engagements, so what better way to wind down on a Friday than with a chill puzzle game about getting forty winks? Back to Bed is one of those small and unassuming games that never rises above its central conceit, nor does it really feel the need to. You have Bob, a narcoleptic somnambulist who frequently finds himself imperilled because of his condition, and a "dream dog" version of Bob able to guide him around obstacles and hazards to his comfy, comfy bed.

Like any good puzzle game, Back to Bed lays all its cards out on the table fairly early. Bob will wander across each of the game's isometric stages in a fixed direction until he meets a barrier, at which point he will turn 90 degrees to his right (moving clockwise) and keep walking. The player can't interact with the stage fixtures but they can pick up and drop large apples in the path of Bob to direct him where they want him to go. The goal is to maneuver Bob around the level so he enters the final area where his bed awaits. The game relatively kind about fail-states: it's very common for Bob to fall off a stage because nothing blocked the edge he was ambling towards, but if this happens he simply respawns back in his original location on his original trajectory. Hazards will cause the stage to reset, including the locations of items, but these are usually easily mitigated: a monstrous manhole is a static peril that can be avoided, and wandering creatures can be shepherded off the map or into a small area that is inconsequential to Bob's journey.

While the game only has 30 levels, which is about an hour of play if you're quick, there is a "nightmare" mode which adds keys to the map that Bob must collect if he is to reach his bed. The levels are otherwise identical; however, Bob might need to find up to three keys which tend to drop in inconvenient parts of the level. If Bob tumbles into the void in these maps, the keys are reset, creating a more challenging set of scenarios. Even so, nothing about the game besides some quick timing presents too much of an insurmountable problem. The levels are invariably short and snappy, and you can simply leave Bob alone to plummet into the abyss over and over while you devise a path to the exit that nets all the necessary keys along the way. In so many words, it's a puzzle game that's more about letting you feel like a determined genius rather than demanding you be one to complete it.

The most striking aspect of the game is its visuals. Each stage is set in a dreamlike environment halfway between the waking world and that of dreams. It riffs on a few popular "dreamlike" sources from pop culture, from the artistic surrealism of Rene Magritte and Salvador Dali to the backwards talking of the various Lodges of David Lynch's Twin Peaks. Though this strong visual style only really has two variants - the game's levels are split between a standard area featuring worlds built from Bob's wardrobe and other bedroom objects, and a more maritime-themed area with deadly "whale-way trains" - both it and the sound design is suitably bizarre for the game's theme. Part of the reason I wanted to check out Back to Bed, which has been in my Steam library for many years, is because the same developers recently put out an action-adventure game called Figment which looks to take that style even further. If it has the same kind of chill low-energy as this, I might have to seek it out.

Rating: 4 out of 5.