How Disney’s Dreamlight Valley Made Me Feel Like A Kid Again
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Every time I play a new video game I find myself trying to capture the feeling I had playing them when I was younger. That feeling where you find yourself staring at the screen and nothing else around you matters.
After years of trying to recapture that magic, I finally found it when I picked up Disney’s Dreamlight Valley (opens in new tab).
Growing up being an only child and living with a single parent who worked full time, I became very familiar with feeling lonely. I often found myself looking to the media around me for some sort of solace and since it was the 1990s, that media had something to do with Disney. Disney was everywhere then, from the Saturday morning cartoons I watched, the clothes I wore, the movies I went to see at the theater, and the video games I played.
Calling on the Packard Bell
One of my earliest gaming memories is playing Capcom’s Aladdin on the SNES (opens in new tab). The movie the game was adapted from was the first movie I ever saw in a movie theater. I was obsessed, right down to the Genie backpack that I would proudly bring to school every day.
This obsession led to the video game becoming my favorite at the time, in addition to my main source of solace. I would spend hours hurling apples at enemies and swinging from platform to platform like Aladdin while listening to the beautiful 16-bit renditions of the movie’s catchy musical numbers.
During the summer, while my college friends visited Mickey Mouse and friends in person at Disneyland, I spent my vacations visiting my favorite characters through the video games I played.
I would stay with my grandparents every summer and be fixated on my grandpa’s Packard Bell PC and play games like Disney’s magical artist (opens in new tab) And Disney’s Storybook: 101 Dalmatians (opens in new tab). Again, I could sit there for hours, staring at the PC monitor, taking comfort in the characters I knew so well.
Disney and gaming are almost synonymous with each other
Eventually I lost the ability to fully immerse myself in video games. I still played them, but the older I got, the more responsibilities and realities of the world around me the way I experienced the media I once admired. I also started noticing that I was no longer the target demographic for a lot of Disney content.
Sometimes you just have to accept that Disney Princess: Enchanted Journey (opens in new tab) because the Nintendo Wii isn’t for you, and that’s okay. There were games like kingdom hearts (opens in new tab)which I was and still am a huge fan of, but the feeling I had interacting with my favorite characters wasn’t the same as the reality of being an adult started to sink in.
Then, years later, Disney’s Dreamlight Valley happened.
“..jearn for a break from life’s responsibilities, you come to a familiar place”, says the opening narrator as you start a new game. It’s almost as if the developers at Gameloft knew exactly what gaming experience I was looking for.
Disney’s Dreamlight Valley is a mix of a life and farming simulator, think Animal Crossing but with a Disney paint job. When you start playing you’ll have your own little house, which you can decorate with Disney themed items, allowing me to create a space that isn’t too similar to my own bedroom when I was younger.
The main goal is to help the Disney characters regain their memories as they have been given a curse. The more I helped remember the characters, the more I remembered that great feeling of playing Disney games on my grandpa’s PC. While the PC I was using now was a lot more advanced, the feeling of staring up at the monitor was all too similar.
What sets Dreamlight Valley apart from the Disney games I played when I was younger is that I can now play as myself. Instead of playing as my favorite Disney hero or villain, I interact with them as myself. I can strike up conversations with Mickey Mouse, go fishing with Goofy, or just hang out with my favorite Scotsman, Scrooge McDuck.
As I mastered the game’s version of myself, the immersion I lacked returned with every step I took into the valley. Dreamlight Valley also allowed me to embrace my childhood in other ways. Since I first played the game, I’ve started repurchasing many of the Disney toys I owned when I was younger. From a Snow White bubble bath figure to Pride Rock playsets, to the exact Aladdin backpack I brought to elementary school all those years ago. There is now a shelf in my home office where all my Disney memorabilia goes.
Where once I was afraid to still like the things I did when I was little, Dreamlight Valley has empowered me to embrace the things that make me happy. My relationship with Disney media has certainly changed. Since I’ve grown up I’ve become more aware of their past, and since I like to view media critically, I can’t consume their media with the ignorant bliss I had when I was younger.
However, playing Disney’s Dreamlight Valley has brought back a feeling that was missing from my life. That feeling where nothing else matters but you and the game you play. Whenever I visit the Valley, I am reminded of all the days spent staring at my grandfather’s PC, and during those hours I can feel like a kid again.