> A surreal dream sim with a mystery objective! :star2: > Select your traits before you enter a dream, and watch as the world changes. Unlock new scenarios and find the perfect avatar to reach the true ending of your adventure.
Playing the game
* It has the form of interactive visual novel. * You only need a mouse. * If you can, play it with sound! It is meant to be part of the experience. :) * "Skip >>" button speeds through the dialogue you already saw. "< Back" allows you to make a different choice, or replay dialogue. * Watch out for clues to find the true ending (there are 3 clues, and there is a pop-up when you find them). * You can see what you unlocked in Extra screen. * If you just want to see all content, here is a guide for all unlockable extras. (At minimum, it'd probably take 2-3 avatars to get there.) * You cannot access all options (and hidden scenarios) through only one playthrough. *Options will be un/locked and scenarios will change based on your avatar's characteristics*, which is why you are encouraged to make a few!
Web version
At the moment it seems to be *very* slow to load and the music kind of comes and goes. You can let it load and see if it will run smoothly for you, but if it doesn't, please, use the download links instead! If you make the text as fast as possible (in settings), it might make it a little smoother.
Behind the scenes
* Time: 2–2.5 days * Tools: Ren'Py, Notepad++, Photoshop * Wordcount: around 2.500w (without code) / 3.200w (with code) * Credits music and photos are on the itch.io page! * Changelog is here.
Me and my better half brainstormed, planned and wrote the game together. Then I coded it (and learnt a whole lot about variables, conditions and loops!), edited the photos, created GUI elements, combined the music and sounds and inserted & timed all assets. One feature I regret not having time for is adding sprites for NPCs, but as I wanted to focus on making the dream avatar maker work & on the complex variables/conditions system, art assets had to be sacrificed.
It is my second game (I'm a newbie not only to LD, but also to game dev and coding in general) and I am be very interested in feedback! ♥
Things I loved: - The peaceful, dreamlike music - Crisp and intentional visual style - The unlockables and the impact of your avatar on your choices - Seeing how many things were left to unlock in the Extras menu
Things that might be improved: - Story felt a little bit random. It wasn't entirely clear what the point of the story is. - Story is a bit short.
Very nice, and well polished experience for a jam game!
@silas-reinagel Thanks so much! I really appreciate you taking the time to try the game and the pros/cons list is extremely helpful. c: Did you manage to unlock all the extras? We weren't sure how difficult/easy it would be, there are only so many combinations to try, but it is still rather specific.
I played around with it, but couldn't seem to progress past the bus, I am not sure what I am missing, but it's a cute, strange little visual novel and a fun little experience.
Cute! Played the HTML5 version, it ran reasonably well, though whenever I got on the bus, there was a picture of the bus still out of the window? Not sure if that was part of the surrealism or a weird bug. Only got two of the hidden states, I think (cat, didn't want to get on the bus), and it did get pretty repetitive, but on theme and nice ambiance.
@silas-reinagel Thank you for coming back to answer it. I'm surprised at the combination you got, the last extra (I thought, anyways!) should be the easiest to get. It's fun to see that the plan doesn't always match the experience. :)
@brokenmirrormedia Thank you for giving it a try & leaving feedback! ♥ It sounds like you didn't unlock the first "extra" option (or didn't get all 3 clues to be able to get the cat scene), but besides that, there are only the bus stop and inside bus interactions. :) So you probably got to a big part of the content, or at least some variant of it! All interactions/scenes have 2+ (or 5+, sometimes) versions so there are only a few of them.
@ninjacatz Your message matches your name! Thanks so much for the positive feedback. :)
@ladypossum My favorite review so far. I'm really glad you got to that part! ♥
@kurrik Thank you for bringing that bug to my atention! I think I know why the new background didn't show up (not sure why the old one didn't hide, though), it's a shame because it's actually animated, but I guess I'll have to sacrifice it for the web version (~~not like anyone downloads it, anyways~~) to work properly. And thank you for the rest of your feedback, too! The last extra is just one specific trait+attribute combination that adds one new scene. :)
i am legitimately still thinking about this game a day later.
can you post a spoiler to help my dumb ass find the other extras? i am now also getting the bug kurrik mentioned, but it honestly adds to the surrealism and i liked it.
@ladypossum I think that's one of the nicest things a creator can hear. Thank you! That's genuinely so encouraging. ♥ I'll be uploading a new version without the bug in just a few minutes, but as for the extras: you aren't dumb at all, they are just really specific!
Vague spoilers: for 1st one, you need to have seen all 3 clues (one happens at the bus stop, one when entering the bus, one in the bus) and select the traits that were hinted at. What do they say about the driver? Combine that with newly unlocked "Fastidious". To see if you got it right, enter the dream; the very first sentence will be different!
For 2nd one, it's a person that loves coffee, they have to talk to the stranger at the bus stop, and their alternative scene happens after they sit down in the bus. Specific trait combination is necessary.
Interesting take on a visual novel genre :slight_smile: Had fun figuring out all the different ways of going through this dream sequence. It's nice that you've added background music, it really helps to build a dreamy atmosphere.
@kevin-mooney Could you tell me more about the bug, please? Was it the web version? And could you have clicked on "skip" or "auto" or are you sure it happened on its own? Thank you for playing it and leaving a feedback, though!!
@ynneblack I’ve had to cheat to become a cat, but damn it was worth it! :smile: The atmosphere of this game reminded me of Alice in wonderland a lot. Just like Alice you had to figure out all the rules of this absurd dream world.
This is wonderfully surreal! I loved the way I slowly had to figure out the perfect traits to be a cat. It was a nice little puzzle that felt rewarding to figure out! :)
I wish I could have seen a list of the "clues" I had unlocked. If such a list did exist, I wasn't able to find it. :( Still I love the personality of this one, nice job!
This was a fun narrative exploration, having to remake dream avatars is an interesting take. I liked the music choice a lot, together with dreamy turquoise it set the surreal mood really well.
Some quality of life features would be nice, like having a list of clues available, but it doesn't detract from the game as it's quite short.
I always find that it's very hard to make a story game for Ludum Dare. You managed to execute it pretty well. It's always hard to make sure the story makes sense and gets increasingly difficult the longer it is. I think you did a good job at this and it made it into a great LD submission. Nice job :)
Great game, i really enjoyed being a cat! usually don't enjoy surrealism but this game felt really nice and comforting to play, and spot on for a weird dream. The browser version worked fine for me btw.
It was kind of difficult to figure out what the objective/s of the game are, but it was worth it to see the cute cat ending. The game looks really polished and has a nice mood to it. It would be nice to see the story/interaction fleshed out further and with some more variety. It does get a bit repetitive going through the options. But for a jam, it does already have more good writing than expected. Overall a cute little game.
@ljfmx@xephrys@0x01f0@thecritterscove Thank you all for the detailed feedback, I really appreciate you taking the time to try the game & write your impressions. ♥
I really like visual novels and games like this to start, but this one was very polished and looked very nice (: The music was really nice, and it added to the questionable atmosphere of what was going on in the game. The story was, a bitttt random, but I loved it for that haha. The option choosing mechanics were very smooth as well!
Interesting game. I found it a bit weird that sometimes there were two buttons but one of them was disabled. Is this on purpose or a bug of the web version? In a second play (with different character) other buttons were active. If this is intentional I find it a bit weird as I don't really have a choice so it does not make much sense to show buttons.
@sarah Thanks so much! ♥ I also love visual novels (but I suppose my games reveal that much :D), though I still find them a bit underappreciated in "western" culture.
@smbe19 Thank you for playing it even though it was confusing for you! I'm used to choice-based games so I didn't count on this being confusing to others, sorry. But yes, it's intentional! The point is that you make your choice as you create your avatar, and it unlocks/locks some options (therefore needing more playthroughs to see all content). If you are, for example, outgoing (all characteristics are taken to an extreme), and you want to ask a stranger something, you have to ask them. Without the options greyed out, you wouldn't really know what changed. So next time around, you can clearly see that you unlocked a new option!
I got the work option, but kind of by accident by experimenting with the attributes and replaying several times. I then looked at the guide to unlock the other things.
I think the hints in the game were good but perhaps too subtle, maybe if there was some text that talked about how you feel can change a person, or since it's a dream perhaps you could change who you are, etc, to nudge/push a person to see the hints a bit more obviously. I liked how some options were disabled because you selected a certain trait, though it could be explained with more narrative where even if you do select it, you back out because the trait doesn't let you (though that might make it harder to figure out which options you haven't tried yet).
I think you scoped well with the art, though in future projects certain imagery could be fun to see (like a cat driving a bus). Keep up the good work!
Great job for your 2nd game! It seemed like choosing a certain character allowed you to go further. I think it would be good if you could still go just as far with a different personality trait, but end up somewhere else. I would enjoy seeing the story more developed.
I thought this game was pretty engaging actually. I didn't find it too confusing mostly because each playthrough is relatively short, so since the game takes place in essentially 2 scenes that loop over and over it was easier to keep track of everything going on. I think your writing captured the feeling of lucid dreaming pretty well, though the main thing that sucks about lucid dreaming is that once you start thinking too much about stuff it'll kick you out of the dream haha.
I'll admit I could not figure out the true ending because I thought I had tried every combo, but once I came back to the comments section I saw the walkthrough and was able to complete it. Great twist and it made everything else make sense afterwards. Excellent execution and bold to have confidence in your writing ability like that. I actually had some dialogue in my game for an iteration but I didn't think I could pull off good dialogue in time. I now have a bigger appreciation for LD games like yours.
Very interesting game. I liked exploring the different options and there were enough to make this a pretty cool experience. Audio was well done, overall nice game.
@heyycap Thank you! We didn't have time to write any more content, this was already *really* pushing it, but I agree more story to explore would be great!
@aeveis Thanks so much for the detailed feedback! I admit the work option might have felt a bit random/too hidden, but it wasn't crucial to progress so we were hoping that's not an issue, it's more like a fun (hopefully!!) bonus. Still, I'm trying to think of some way to hint at it, for an updated version. :0 And I like all of your ideas for better clues, it would be better if people could figure it all out in-game and not by reading the game description. Thanks again, feedback like this is extremely helpful!
@peachtreeoath First of all, thank you for writing such thoughtful feedback, but also, for appreciating the writing aspect! I know it ends up relatively short to "read" but oh, it almost took more time than all art assets and coding combined, so it's really nice that someone can appreciate the effort that goes into it. ♥ And thank you for sharing your experience, there seems to be an issue with the true ending being too hidden/unclear in-game, when I'm revisiting it, it's definitely something I'll try to improve/hint at better. Thanks again!
Never been a fan of VNs but this one was at least unique in that it wasn't saturated by annoying characters. Also I'm quite interested in lucid dreaming, and you captured the essence of dreamlike states very well. It's understandably short, but I'd like to see more.
Great idea, I believe that a kind of surreal lucid dream sim has an immense potential, and you should really consider to make some post-LD effort when you have more time to plan out some better stories. If you can come up with twists like these, sky is the limit :) To be honest, the riddle was too advanced for me and I wasn't able to notice how you subtly point towards the idea of "If I become a cat instead", nor did I connect the dots when it comes to copying the personal characteristics. Thus I hope that the next time you will make it a little bit more obvious, because nothing is worse than being stuck in the same dialogue, missing out on the clever story just because of some minor misunderstanding :) By the way, I believe that entering a lucid dream is the most efficient way to generate a great story full of novelty and authentic references. Our subconscious has a power beyond practically anyone's imagination, and it is supposed to be the our natural source of inspiration :) I hope you've had more luck than me though, once a person gets used to techniques like a dream log, they no longer function unless one keeps the spark of intention ablaze :)
Things I loved:
- The peaceful, dreamlike music
- Crisp and intentional visual style
- The unlockables and the impact of your avatar on your choices
- Seeing how many things were left to unlock in the Extras menu
Things that might be improved:
- Story felt a little bit random. It wasn't entirely clear what the point of the story is.
- Story is a bit short.
Very nice, and well polished experience for a jam game!