The Dream Machine's final chapter finally out next week

The first chapter of The Dream Machine came out way back in, wow, December 2010, but the sixth and final episode of this claymation/cardboard/built-from-real-sets adventure game finally has a release date: May 11. May 11 2017. That's next week, or around two-and-a-half years since the last chapter released.

Not that I'm annoyed at the increasingly long gaps, because a) I've only played the first chapter, and b) just look at how much effort goes into each and every scene.

I'm not entirely sure what The Dream Machine is all about, other than it stars a man named Victor, who moves into a distinctly creepy apartment in the first chapter, before travelling to far more fanciful, dreamlike worlds made from real-world materials including cardboard, broccoli and, er, condoms. "In the concluding chapter," the Steam page for Chapter 6 explains, "Victor must journey to the heart of dreams in order to rescue his loved ones from the dream machine". That sounds suitably climactic.

From what I've heard, each chapter has been gradually getting bigger and more ambitious, with a slight increase to the price tags to match. If you're looking to get onboard, know that a sale is planned for the previous chapters on Steam, presumably at the same time that Chapter 6 releases.

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.