Mr. Sleepy Man Review (PC)

Believe me when I say that I know the feeling of being a parent with toddlers who won’t take no for an answer. It’s traumatic, even, to even play through a game like Mr. Sleepy Man when I know all too well how exhausting it can be to see the transformation from seemingly drowsy eyes to energetic rag dolls. I’ve seen it—no, lived through it long enough to know that you don’t just tell someone to sleep, but you do have to wait and watch the world crumble before you in the hopes that, after the fire goes out and there’s nothing left to burn, they will eventually fall asleep. Sadly, Mr. Sleepy Man is of an entirely different species—the kind that puts a horde of rebellious toddlers to shame and makes you think of Goat Simulator as a well-behaved farm animal. But for ‘ol Sleepy Man, nothing is off limits, other than that ever-elusive bed, apparently.

Think Goat Simulator, as well as all of the nonsensical  shenanigans that come with it—the mindless violence, the unwarranted head-butting, and the town that just happens to put up with the chaos—and add a restless individual who doesn’t know the meaning of beauty sleep to the equation. If you can do that, then you should have a vague image of what Mr. Sleepy Man looks like beneath the surface. It isn’t all that different from your goat-centric sandbox massacre, either. In fact, it’s surprisingly on brand and about as close to Goat Simulator as you could get. The key difference here, though, is that you don’t control a rampaging farm animal, but a man who bathes in high-octane theatrics and relishes the idea of being awake way past their bedtime. It’s a silly idea, but stick with us.

There isn’t much of a point to Mr. Sleepy Man. Well, there is, but it isn’t something that you would spend a lot of time thinking about. Frankly, the game is about as self-explanatory as you might imagine: a man with a god complex and a hatred of a good night’s rest decides to venture beyond the bedposts and into a world where everything can be seen as fodder for dream-like behavior. And as for you—the harbinger of chaos— the objective is simple: wreak havoc across a wide spectrum of areas and transform them into fever dreams for the sleep deprived. There are things for you to collect, characters for you to meet, and places for you to ransack and annihilate. Hundreds of things, actually.

The idea is simple, albeit bizarre and about as wacky as one might expect. As the titular protagonist in the aptly titled Bedtime Town, it falls to you to wax poetic with the world and all of its eccentric civilians—a job that requires you to disable your bedtime reminder and, well, stay awake for as long as possible. With the power to weave ordinary realities into destructive sandboxes, you have the opportunity to run rampant, meet oddball characters, complete unusual challenges and collect all sorts of items within an interconnected universe. Like Goat Simulator, then, complete with the massive to-do list and the janky physics.

When it comes to touring the PSX-inspired vibrant utopia that is Bedtime Town, you have hundreds of landmarks and NPCs to unearth here, with each of the in-game locations and citizens having their own routine, reactions, and reason to loathe your mere presence. For instance, there’s a donut shop where you can cause a bit of mischief by dashing sprinkle-topped dough balls. Like the other folks of Bedtime Town, if you make such a mess or do anything that might annoy the locals, you also have to deal with the consequences. But that’s sort of the point: to topple the world and to make pain and suffering a common theme in an otherwise peaceful society. It isn’t a deep story by any means. It’s just unorganized chaos.

While I wouldn’t pin Mr. Sleepy Man as a perfect game, much less a classically good-looking one, for that matter, I will acknowledge the resemblance to old-school PSX platforming chapters and give credit where it’s due. And by old-school chapters I mean, the sort of intellectual properties that would give you a screaming headache due to the absurdly abstract, almost in-your-face effects, but would also hit you like an ultraviolet fever dream that you just wouldn’t want to wake up from. It’s the same thing here, complete with all of the weird and wacky color schemes, unruly set pieces and nonsensical malarkey. Like a dream, then — if said dream was induced by a synthetic drug.

As far as gameplay goes, what you see is what you get: an open-ended sandbox in which you can explore by foot or by air via a glider. It’s basic platforming meets unhinged physics, basically. It isn’t smooth, and it definitely isn’t clean. But again, that’s mere fuel for its fire, and the icing on the cake, believe it or not. It’s also an easy game to jump into, too, with simple mechanics and an easy-to-navigate interface to help you glide through the various stages of sleep deprivation. And even when you aren’t able to wreak havoc or complete an objective, you can always hit the snooze prompt and give in to counting sheep.

Verdict

Mr. Sleepy Man is what catnip is to feral cats—a chance to wreak havoc on a silver platter. It’s a slither of Goat Simulator, a hint of Totally Reliable Delivery Service, and a lot of unlawful chaos, thus making it a well-rounded, restless platforming fever dream with all of the hallucinatory elements and bizarre wizardry of an annoyingly enjoyable experience.

If you’re a die-hard fan of old-school platforming and unorganized chaos, then you’re sure to find a good spot to rest your head in Bedtime Town. It’ll make you laugh, and it’ll definitely make you wish you were parenting toddlers rather than the unruly patron that is Mr. Sleepy Man. And yet, you might just find that there’s enough to do here to keep you awake and learn to love the act of defiance. A strange feeling, really.