A Game Based On Dreams

I'm in the early planning stages of making a game based around dreams. It will be similar to the dream emulator for the ps1, but instead of just being random it will be goal oriented with pleasant dreams and nightmares.

I need some dream ideas that aren't just my own so that I can make a wide variety of playable stages out of them for the game. If you can remember some of your dreams and don't mind me using them, share them here. You will be included in the credits.

 

Here are some ideas :

- Dream's usually reflect something in your life that recently happened to you or someone related to you.
- A nightmare is usually something that you've seen recently. Could've been something from a horror movie or some creepy character that really scared the sh*t out of you.
- In either a nightmare or a dream, things are far from realistic. You hop from one place to another, the smallest things on earth suddenly become the biggest, you see everything in black and white, or everything's shiny or dark and misty, you can fly, you see your friends at a place where it's impossible for them to be at.
- Everything you ever wanted could become realised in your dreams. Usually, when I dream I dream about something what i recently thought of. ( Could be something to achieve in a video game, or something in real life. )

These are some ideas that should help you out a bit.

And yes, everything i've written here is from my own dreaming experience! ;-)

-Tim

 

Great pointers! That's exactly what I had in mind. un-real experiences, recent events and memories, fantasy, worst fears, and real worlds influence.

These are the basic things the dreams will revolve around:

Good dreams
------------
Flying
Psychedelic/Weird/Unusual
Fantasy
Running really fast
Performing a task
Wide open spaces

Bad Dreams
-----------
Falling
Being chased
Disaster/Bad weather
Insects
Lost in a strange place
Being trapped

 

Look up lucid dreaming guides. They have a lot of good pointers for things that you can use to recognise a dream (plus, lucid dreaming sounds like a lot of fun, too) and recalling your own dreams. Keep a notepad and pen next to your bed and as soon as you wake up from a dream, write down everything you remember.

Keep in mind that the state of a dream can change without warning. I've gone from participating in the events of a dream to suddenly changing to the perspective of viewing the entire previous events through a TV as if I was watching a show, and having the environment change dramatically without seeing it to be strange.

 

I have been working on this game Mindworld a while ago, but it was cancelled now. May you get some ideas there, it was a great concept.

What I like especially are those fades from dreaming to wake up, when the real environment influences your dream. Like the flooding of a room in Inception when he falls into water.

 

my advice to you... and it will help you very much! there is a movie about dreams called inception watch it! and you are gonna get more ideas about your game

 

Totally agree on this one! The gameplay could be based on lucid dreams. Never had one myself though ! I've heard there were some tricks to get into a lucid dream though, guess i should try 'em out!

 

Lucid dreams are truly incredible. They're unlike any other kind of experience, to be conscious within your dreams. I suppose some would say it's similar to using drugs, (from what I've heard of it anyway), except there's no addiction or anything like that. I've had just over 50 myself, except most of them were very short.

If you're interested, here's a guide on it: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Lucid_Dreaming

The most effective method for me, by far, is WBTB.