The original Deep Sleep Trilogy was first created as flash games. Flash had been completely blocked by Adobe in early 2021, so these game became much less accessible. Since then, the developer Scriptwelder released the trilogy which can now be played on steam. They’re still flash games, but they use a unique player that doesn’t rely on Adobe flash. The original flash games can still be played through other means like BlueMaxima’s Flashpoint though.
The series is known as a point and click horror adventure with a creepy atmosphere. The dark dream world makes you continue imagining what it really is. Through in game dialogue, you’ll find out these shadow people and the dream world have existed for as long as humanity. It really makes you wonder.
Deep Sleep Flash Game
The trilogy begins with it’s first entry, Deep Sleep. You drift off into the unknown dream world after picking up a mysterious cube with a keyhole. It’s never really explained what triggers you to enter the dream world, other than the characters urge to learn more about it. Your surroundings quickly change and you try to find a way back.
– Friedrich Nietzsche
Since its the first game of the series, it’s the least explained. There’s a lot more you’ll understand after playing through later. A phone off the hook eerily whispers to you “Wake Up.” Newspaper clippings tell stories of people waking up and drastically changing personalities, even becoming violent.
Making your way through the dream world, you finally come across a lighthouse. Walking back down, you have your first confrontation with the shadow people! Rushing back up, you destroy the one that chases you with the shining light at the top of the lighthouse. You’ve escaped for now, but it’s impossible to shake the urge to go back in an attempt to understand it all.
Deeper Sleep
After the events of the first game, in Deeper Sleep, we go to a local library to see if there are any records of something similar happening to others. Obsessed with what happened, you can’t stop thinking about the shadow people and the mysterious world you saw. Arriving at the library, it’s a dark and cold night outside. Cars fly by while you look around for books. You can’t find anything interesting in particular. While reaching around the top of a book shelf, you find a strand of a note:
As long as you don’t know you are dreaming, you are safe…
Once again, you find yourself back in the Deep Sleep. After a bit of exploring, you find a fellow visitor hiding in an alleyway. It turns out to be the person who gave you a warning in the first game. He was the one calling the phone to say “wake up”. He gives you some more tips about how to survive, and says you have to go to the very bottom of this world. The shadow people are closing in and it’s your only option.
To get to the next world you have to make quite a trip through more puzzles, and even encounter another deranged visitor that the other guy told you about. Felicity is in the attic, having been lost in this massive realm for so long. You can make your way past her, and going back to the ground floor, you can open a secret door. There’s 6 beds here… one for Cody. If you were paying attention in the first game, you can earn a special ending here! He said he needs his tiger to wake up, so if you place the tiger you found there, then he will wake up at the end!
Eventually, you’ll find a well deep in the forest. Taking a rope down, you’re finally at the passage to the very bottom. Looking back up to the well, you’ll get an especially creepy sight. The shadow people are peering down, but even they are too afraid of the world below.
The Deepest Sleep Both Endings
The Deepest Sleep takes place at the very bottom of the realm of dreams. There’s no shadow people around, they’re too afraid of what else lurks at the final depth. The thing they fear the most are The Bottom Feeders, giant worms who can’t see but can feel and hear you. You’ll eventually have to sneak your way past them.
As expected, the bottom is the darkest part of any of the games. It’s your last chance to escape though, so we have to keep moving. At one point, we come across a music box. Turning it with the key seems to transition us to another dream world. Weren’t we already in it? Or is this something different? The rooms change, and one even becomes a terrifying meat grinder.
After finding the tile keys you need, you make your way up a ladder and into the next room. You look into a mirror and have a massive realization. You are one of the shadow people, and always have been. They got you long ago. Depending on which ending you choose, you’ll understand your fate better.
In ending A, the more common ending, you chase down another traveler and steal his body. He was a traveler just like you were. Having such an urge to live, you take over his body, and you wake up. In ending B, you decide to let him go. You don’t chase him, and decide it’s better to break this vicious cycle. You will remain here forever.
The Deep Sleep Trilogy Closing Thoughts
The helpful stranger from Deeper Sleep explains the world better than anything else. He says your personal dreams are more like a personal “pocket”, but only to a certain level. There is a deeper dream world that is more like a reality for everyone who finds it. That’s just the tip of the surface too, he describes the part we’re in now as a lake. The entirety of this world is like the ocean that all of the lakes lead to, it’s massive.
I’d highly recommend playing through there series. The game is based on point and click puzzles, but most of them are at a very fair difficulty. It doesn’t take long to figure out how to move forward. I really liked the retro style graphics, and the dark, creepy atmosphere.
