Day Dreamin' Davey

Day Dreamin' Davey is an action video game developed by Sculptured Software and published by HAL Laboratory for the Nintendo Entertainment System that uses a third-person overhead perspective.

Day Dreamin' Davey
Cover art
Developer(s)Sculptured Software
Publisher(s)HAL Laboratory 
Designer(s)Michael Mendheim
Hal Rushton
Programmer(s)Ken Moore
Artist(s)Les Pardew
Composer(s)Paul Webb
Platform(s)NES
Release
Genre(s)Action
Mode(s)Single-player

Gameplay
Davey battles thieves in the medieval themed level.

Day Dreamin' Davey is a role-playing action-adventure game with elements of puzzle-solving.[2][3] The player controls Davey on a top-down perspective, moving up, down, left, and right on the screen.[4]

It takes place on one day of Davey at school, which involves him going through seven daydreams[5] of himself being in three historic locations:[4] ancient Greece, Medieval times, and the Old West,[6] with stopovers in "Outer Worlds" such as Winterland, a quicksand area, and a "Cloud City" filled with strong titans along the way.[7]

The levels contain mazes and dead-ends.[4]

Throughout the game, Davey collects items garnered from roaming the level and defeating bosses, with the more powerful ones, including those that increase or drain Davey's life energy, more hidden or guarded by evil protectors.[4] Among items that can decrease the life energy include peppermint found in the Old West and green apples in Greece.[4]

He carries a main weapon triggered with the A button and secondary weapons and shields activated by pressing the B button;[4] due to this, the player has to press A and B at the same time to jump,[6] which is required for jumping over fences and rocks and attacking foes above ground.[4] Some enemies can only be defeated with certain "special weapons," and it's up to the player to find clues about which weapons kill what enemies.[4] Multiple weapons can be carried at a time, and the player can change them during level gameplay through a menu screen accessed by pressing select; the menu also shows items and special items that have been collected.[8] The game can be continued with passwords.[8]

Plot and levels

Davey starts out his day with a bully named Lumpy stealing his pencil,[9][10][11][12] turning into a knight in the process[13] and bringing him into his first dream in the Medieval location of an emerald forest.[14] The mission is to find the Golden Lance, which involves collecting a sword required for defeating Lumper the Dark Knight, who guards the Lance.[14] Davey collects the Lance, only for him to wake up and for the collected item in his hand to be replaced by the pencil stolen by the Bully.[15] Davey arrives late to his first class,[16] which the teacher requiring her students to draw as part of "artwork time."[17] During this time, Davey is in his second daydream, where he finds himself in the Old West as a Deputy[18] in a showdown with an unnamed gunslinger.[19] Before the fight, the player collects items like root beer, gold, snake skin, and Indian relics to trade for money at the Trading Post;[20][19] the money is used to purchase the required weapons and items for the boss, including a shotgun or Winchester rifle as well as extra bullets.[19] In the gun-show, the player has only a few seconds to point the cursor at the gunslinger's gun and fire.[19] After the showdown, Davey wakes up back in class to find a squirt gun in his hand, which he gives to his teacher as instructed.[21]

The teacher switches the subject of her lessons to ancient Greece,[22] of which Mount Olympus is the setting of Davey's next daydream where he fights enemies such as eagles, satyrs, and other Greek fighters, as well as the stage boss Cyclops; before the player can fight him, a magical shield from the Golden Man and a bow and arrow provided by twin gods Artemis and Apollo must be collected.[23] After beating the Cyclops, Davey becomes conscious again and finds he accidentally hit a female classmate in the eye.[24] The teacher punishes Davey by forcing him to stand in a corner,[25] and then gets back to the Medieval forest for his next daydream, where, in order to prove himself King, he searches for a special sword named Excalibur; getting to the sword requires passing through Merlin's mirror, and in order to do so, he must obtain a Ring of Gold protected by a Blue Knight.[5] After Davey gets the sword that's located in the middle of a ring of stones,[5] he is taken back to reality in the classroom with the sword replaced by a ruler. For violating the teacher's directions, she sends him to the principal's office.[26]

The meeting, where the principal talks about his inability to pay attention when he was a kid to relate to Davey, bores the kid so much that he has his fifth daydream[27][28][29] back in ancient Greece.[5] The goal of the dream is to defeat the three-headed god Cerberus, located in the fire-y Hades Greek underworld;[5] to get there, Davey needs a coin to give to Charon, who will ride him through the Styx river into the underworld,[30] and to beat the Cerberus, Davey needs to collect the Spear of Mars, the Golden Bow, and the Cap of Hades.[5] Davey wakes up at the end of the conversation.[31][32][33] Since it's lunchtime, the principal sends Davey to the cafeteria,[34] but Davey's travel is not without another encounter with Lumpy.[35][36][37][38]

In the midst of this altercation, Davey has a sixth daydream in another Medieval location, Winterland, which is filled with more dangerous enemies such as wizards and fireball-throwing gnomes; in the dream, Davey is commanded by Lumper to defeat a Dark Knight encountered in the first daydream, Lumpus, with the Excalibur sword acquired in the fourth.[5][7][39] The fight with Lumpus ends with the knight begging for mercy;[40] Davey follows Lumpus' demand,[41] just before being sucked back into reality and noticing he punched the school bully in the face.[42] His lunchbox and milk money then gets stolen by other students,[43][44][45] and he is taken into his seventh daydream where he is back in the Old West, this time with more gunslinger showdowns as well as stopping a gang of bank robbers named the Angus Gang.[5] When he wakes up again, Davey successfully retrieves his stolen goods,[46] but not without unconsciously shooting the principal with a sprinkle gun at the cafeteria,[47] although he only gives Davey a warning.[48]

Reception

Day Dreamin' Davey was released to little press coverage, with only a Nintendo Power guide for the first seven levels[52] and a mixed review published in Game Players; in it, Patrick Baggatta wrote that it had strategy-solving elements that made it interesting enough for young kids but also was too limited in locations used and was overly long to the point of turning an "original concept" "tiresome."[50]

Mixed opinions continued in retrospective coverage of the game. In a review for Hardcore Gaming 101, Adrian Sandoval opined that despite "an imaginative high concept that allows for a variety of level settings and game mechanics," the "slapdash and sloppy" programming and design choices ruined it; these include the weapons not being cancelled if both A and B are pressed to jump, an awkward method of obtaining items from non-player characters, re-used stage layouts, and combat involving poor hit detection and unclear feedback.[53] Andy Slaven, in his book the Video Game Bible, 1985–2002, opined the game consisted of "varied, yet boring levels,"[54] and Skyler Miller of AllGame wrote the game benefitted from a "cute" story with a like-able protagonist but suffered from "bland" gameplay consisting of "boring mazes," "generic enemies" and "poor controls."[49]

In 2015, Paste ranked it the 16th best NES game to use the Zapper, where Garrett Martin labeled it a "decent little adventure."[55] Something Awful's review of the game, which ranked it -39/-50, was a parody involving a fake conversation between the writer and Davey, ending with Davey dying a bloody death.[56]

Notes
  1. Nintendo Power gave Day Dreamin' Davey two 3.2/5 scores for graphics/sound and challenge, a 2.9/5 rating for play control, and a 3.7/5 for theme/fun.[51]

References
  1. "NES Games" (PDF). Nintendo. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 21, 2010. Retrieved December 30, 2011.
  2. "Day Dreamin' Davey". Nintendo Power. Vol. 24. May 1991. p. 95.
  3. Consumer Guide: The Winner's Guide to Nintendo. Consumer Guide. 1991. pp. 48–50.
  4. Nintendo Power 1991, p. 71.
  5. Nintendo Power 1991, p. 75.
  6. Instruction manuel 1992, p. 4.
  7. Instruction manuel 1992, p. 9.
  8. Instruction manuel 1992, p. 5.
  9. Day Dreamin' Davey. Davey: Another fun filled day at school.....
  10. Day Dreamin' Davey. Davey: Hey, leggo ya big bully!
  11. Day Dreamin' Davey. Lumpy: Thanks for the pencil, chump!
  12. Day Dreamin' Davey. Davey: Come back here with that!
  13. Day Dreamin' Davey. Davey: I'll find you Lumpy, you can't hide from me.
  14. Nintendo Power 1991, p. 72.
  15. Day Dreamin' Davey. Lumpy: Laugh now, sissy, I'll be back!
  16. Day Dreamin' Davey. Teacher: Breaking in late again, Davey?
  17. Day Dreamin' Davey. Teacher: Never mind. Pay attention, it's artwork time, get ready to draw.
  18. Instruction manuel 1992, p. 13.
  19. Nintendo Power 1991, p. 73.
  20. Instruction manuel 1992, p. 14.
  21. Day Dreamin' Davey. Teacher: Bring me that squirt gun this instant!
  22. Day Dreamin' Davey. Teacher: Now back to our discussion of Greek civilization...
  23. Nintendo Power 1991, p. 74.
  24. Day Dreamin' Davey. Girl: Teacher, teacher! Davey tried to hit me in the eye...
  25. Day Dreamin' Davey. Teacher: Davey!... Go stand in the corner.
  26. Day Dreamin' Davey. Teacher: You are going to see the principal for this...
  27. Day Dreamin' Davey. Principal: Now Davey, I know it can be hard to pay attention...
  28. Day Dreamin' Davey. Davey: Oh.. brother!
  29. Day Dreamin' Davey. Principal: Back in the old days, when I was your age...
  30. Day Dreamin' Davey. Charon: I am Charon, Ferryman of the river Styx. No coin do I see. You shall not cross to Hades without one.
  31. Day Dreamin' Davey. Principal: Now what do you think of that?..
  32. Day Dreamin' Davey. Principal: Just try, try, try! to pay attention! [sic']
  33. Day Dreamin' Davey. Davey: Yes sir!
  34. Day Dreamin' Davey. Principal: Now off you go, it's lunchtime.
  35. Day Dreamin' Davey. Davey: Uh oh......
  36. Day Dreamin' Davey. Lumpy: Let's have it right now, wimp!
  37. Day Dreamin' Davey. Davey: I'm outta here!...
  38. Day Dreamin' Davey. Lumpy: You won't get away this time!
  39. Day Dreamin' Davey. Lumper: Excalibur is the only hope to defeat the Darkest Knight!
  40. Day Dreamin' Davey. Lumpus: I, Sir Lumpus, plead for mercy. What say you, Sir Davey?
  41. Day Dreamin' Davey. Merlin: You have chosen wisely, Davey.
  42. Day Dreamin' Davey. Lumpy: Gosh, ya didn't hafta punch me, Davey.
  43. Day Dreamin' Davey. Davey: I've gotta get my milk money and my lunch box...
  44. Day Dreamin' Davey. Girl: Too late, Davey, I saw someone in your locker.
  45. Day Dreamin' Davey. Davey: Robbers, oh no, I've got to stop them!
  46. Day Dreamin' Davey. Davey: Take that! Steal my lunch money, will you?
  47. Day Dreamin' Davey. Principal: Davey, where do you come up with these things?
  48. Day Dreamin' Davey. Principal: Behave yourself, and eat your lunch, Davey.
  49. Miller, Skyler. "Day Dreamin' Davey". AllGame. Archived from the original on November 16, 2014. Retrieved September 13, 2020.
  50. Baggatta, Patrick (March 1992). "Daydreamin' Davey". Game Players Nintendo Guide. Vol. 5 no. 3. p. 66.
  51. Nintendo Power 1991, p. 70.
  52. Nintendo Power 1991, p. 70–75.
  53. Sandoval, Adrian (January 9, 2014). "Day Dreamin' Davey". Hardcore Gaming 101. Retrieved September 13, 2020.
  54. Slaven, Andy (2002). Video Game Bible, 1985-2002. Trafford. p. 101. Retrieved September 13, 2020.
  55. Martin, Garrett (August 24, 2015). "Ranking Every NES Zapper Game". Paste. Retrieved September 13, 2020.
  56. Wilson, Kevin (March 4, 2006). "Day Dreamin' Davey". Something Awful. Retrieved September 13, 2020.

Bibliography
  • Day Dreamin' Davey. Hal America. 1992. pp. 1–16.
  • "Day Dreamin' Davey". Nintendo Power. Vol. 25. June 1991. pp. 70–75.
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