A Dream About Parking Lots from Interactive Dreams is a unique short first-person narrative experience where you wander through surreal parking lots in search of your car. Check our A Dream About Parking Lots review!
Look for your car in a series of mazes and parking lots while you talk to your therapist about feeling lost. An interactive short story about trying to make sense out of the unreal. Based on real dreams!
A Dream About Parking Lots from Interactive Dreams invites you into a surreal first-person journey where you wander endless parking lots searching for your car. It doesn’t even open with the usual “New Game” option — here, it’s “Short Story.” When it begins, a text line appears with perfect self-awareness: “I had a dream about parking lots.” Moments later, you’re in control, key fob in hand, pressing the Square button to make your car honk — that is, if you’re close enough. The goal is simple: find the one with its lights flashing and get in.
As you work your way through these dreamscapes—each one a different parking lot—the narrative unfolds through conversations with your therapist. You’ll often get to choose your responses, which adds a nice layer of immersion and lets you shape the tone of your retelling. Something unexpected hit me while playing: genuine anxiety. Wandering through massive, dimly lit or underground parking lots, spamming the honk button, hoping for that distant muffled reply, only to hear it yet find no path to reach it, perfectly recreated the real-world panic of “Where did I park again?” The game nails that feeling, and in this case, that’s high praise.
The concept is undeniably unique, and I loved the whole therapist premise. Spending five to ten minutes slowly weaving through massive parking lots—full of cars that are never yours—creates a strong sense of isolation, with only the rows of vehicles and limited paths to guide you. It’s a deliberate, slower-paced experience that won’t click with everyone, but for those who appreciate its quiet tension, it’s an oddly captivating mood piece. The level design helps keep the experience fresh throughout its 30- to 45-minute runtime. Each dream has a distinct setting, so even though the objective never changes—find your car—it doesn’t feel entirely repetitive. And with only five levels, the game ends before the premise wears thin.
As for trophies, the game offers an easy Platinum trophy for you to work on, with a short list of only 11 Gold trophies for you to collect. The list is straightforward, since you’ll be unlocking most of them just by progressing through the different dreams, with a couple of trophies popping for things such as taking too long to find your car or locating it before the therapy session ends. Trophy hunters can earn the Platinum trophy in under 45 minutes, without the need for a guide.
A Dream About Parking Lots is a short, strange, and oddly relatable experience that turns the mundane act of finding your car into a surreal anxiety dream. The varied settings, paired with the therapist sessions, give it a unique narrative touch. It won’t be for everyone, but this one is easy to recommend to trophy hunters. A Dream About Parking Lots is out on PlayStation 5 with a $4.99 price tag.
Disclaimer
This A Dream About Parking Lots review is based on a PlayStation 5 copy provided by Interactive Dreams.
