Dream Shards are the currency in Ravenswatch, the newest roguelike coming from Passtech Games, the devs of Curse of the Dead Gods.
In Ravenswatch, players use Dream Shards for all sorts of things, from activating events to buying Upgrades for their abilities. All that said, each run is timed with not a lot of wiggle room before they're forced into fighting the Final Nightmare, so how are players supposed to farm all the Dream Shards they need in that short period of time?
Where To Use Dream Shards
First off, people who play Ravenswatch need to know where Dream Shards are even used in-game. Currently, players can:
- Spend them at Sandman the Dream Dealer to buy both Upgrades and Consumables.
- Give 100 Dream Shards to a Wishing Well to get a Magical Object in exchange.
- Collect them to buff certain Magical Objects like the Golden Egg.
- On Aladdin specifically, players can turn 150 Dream Shards into another Trait Charge using the Dream Wish ability.
Other than these places, there's nowhere else to really spend them. Still, just because there aren't many ways to use them doesn't mean that they're easy to collect. Even in a good run, players will often still find themselves lacking the Shards they need while roaming around the dark and apocalyptic fairytale world of Reverie.
Where To Find Dream Shards
Now, Dream Shards can be found at a variety of places in Ravenswatch, but there aren't actually that many 'objectives' that reward this currency. In most games similar to Ravenswatch, players will often get a few bits of whatever currency the game uses when killing enemies, but not in this game. Currently, the game is getting a lot of the same feedback from players mentioning this issue, as the lack of any sort of Dream Shard reward from enemies means that avoiding all enemies that aren't realted to a Map Event is the most 'efficient' playstyle.
Dream Crystals
Most commonly, Heroes in Ravenswatch will get their Dream Shards from Dream Crystals, found all over the map as these bright yellowish-white breakable objects. These can appear as either smaller breakable Cystals or larger ones.
The largest of the Dream Crystals (more like a cluster of them, actually) show up as Map Events, represented by a Dream Crystal icon, and are commonly surrounded by a horde of enemies to protect them. Funnily enough, players don't even need to fight these enemies either, they can just walk up, break the Crystals, pick them all up, and be on their way.
Grimoire Event
Grimoire Events are one of the many Map Events in this game that players can either stumble upon or reveal using a Vision Tower. After the player reaches the Grimoire icon on the map and interacts with the book, they'll be locked into an arena and forced to kill a large wave of random monsters before a timer runs out.
If they manage to achieve this, they'll be able to interact with the (now open) Grimoire which will give them 3 choices for their reward based the on 'chapter' of the book they read:
- Mastery Chapter: Improve a random Upgrade 2 times.
- Knowledge Chapter: Gain 300 Experience.
- Dream Chapter: Gain 150 Dream Shards.
And just to put it into perspective, 150 Dream Shards is exactly enough to buy two Consumables at Sandman, so it's no 'paltry' amount.
Best Ways To Farm Dream Shards
Now, since there are only a few ways to actually 'farm' Dream Shards, wouldn't farming them and the methods to do so be common sense? Well, yes and no. It's easy to understand how to do it, but knowing the best strategies and tricks makes a huge difference:
Avoid Enemies & Hunt Down Crystals
The first and most commonly used method by players is just to simply avoid any enemies not related to Events they're currently completing and hunting down Dream Crystals. Unlike most other interactables in Ravenswatch, players don't need to kill all nearby enemies to pick up Dream Shards or break Crystals. Therefore, simply exploring the map and stopping only to break these Crystals is a pretty easy and effective stategy.
Grab Vision Towers & Explore the Map
Right after loading into a run, the game will highlight three easy events (outlined in green) on the map. If one of these happens to be a Vision Tower, Large Dream Crystal, or Grimoire, head to it immediately. If not, run along the edges of each portion of the map looking for Events. Whenever players run into a Vision Tower, use it, and then go to the new Icons on the map if they're Events that give Shards.
Keep in mind, however, that the color of the icon makes a difference, so it might be best to save the red icons until the last couple minutes of the run when player characters are at their strongest.
Move Around With Abilities
Using a character's movement abilities: Not every playable character in Ravenswatch has an ability that lets them move around the map quickly, but a few do.
- Scarlet has her Cloak to get around and Rush Strike to cover some extra ground every now and again.
- Beowulf with the Shield Charge upgrade can cover more ground quicker than by default.
- Snow Queen has her Ice Skating Trait and is probably the fastest because of this.
- Aladdin really only has his Somersault, and it's not a huge help.
Getting used to moving around the map with these abilities can do a lot to help a player get more Dream Shards in less time. Basically this is a method that both utilizes Exploring the Map and Ignoring Enemies, but does so at a faster pace.
Abusing Aladdin's Wishes
And lastly, players can literally just use Aladdin or have an ally play him if they want more Dream Shards, by using all three Wishes at the start, players can spawn between 75 and 150 Dream Shards for everyone, and that's not even including using his Dream Wish ability to trigger this even more times. Not a method that feels all that 'rewarding', but one that's incredibly effective in the current Early Access version of Ravenswatch that's a bit low on playtime and content overall.
Ravenswatch is now available in Early Access on PC only. PS4 & PS5 releases are confirmed by devs to be coming sometime in 2024.