[VX] Perchance to Dream

Game Progress - 04/02/12
- I'm still on it!

Demo Progress - 04/01/11
Okay, I added just a small bit of story to the demo so check it out.
Another environment to explore, yay! Download it here: http://www.mediafire.com/?dd84wc1cvy3417q

It's a time of memories. Remembering the past is nothing but a luxery now. Many people of today's age have lost the ability to recall memories by themselves, so instead they enlist the work of Dream Doctors, or otherwise known as hypnotists. These doctors perform tasks such as Awakenings, which recall memories of the past. The process is simple: the doctor probes the mind of the individual in search of the most vivid memory. What is recalled is determined by the individual. If they wish to have an Awakening about their childhood for example, then it's specified before the procedure.

Alternatively, one can also opt to remove any unwanted memories. The process is dangerous and risky, however, as memories are much harder to erase off the brain rather than just recalling them.

A distressed woman, Rosaline, finds herself at a breaking point. Her hometown is destroyed--parents lost with it, and the love of her life is chasing her down like a criminal. Frederick, the man she thought to spend the rest of her life with, discovers about a certain truth about Rosaline's past and can't grasp it. He swears to hunt her down and bring her to justice. Of course Rosaline has never had this memory Awakened to her, so she's forced to run and not even know why. Reaching a safe location, she seeks the aid of one of the most powerful Dream Doctors she knows: her close friend Jasmine. Her plan is to erase the criminal past she might have, and prove to Frederick she's innocent. However, when messing with the mind, it never goes as planned.
Rose's "white blood-cells" come to her aid, thinking Jasmine is a threat to the system. When the cells, in the form of creations, interfere with Jasmine's work, more time is lost in the fight to save Rosaline's life.

Something goes wrong, and she awakes inside her own head right in the middle of being erased. Her physical body disappears from the real world, and Jasmine must fight to save her friend and restore everyone's ability to dream.

This is the story of her escape, her past, her friendship, and more imporantly the inside of her mind.

Spoiler for "Screenshots":

A hidden forest outpost, safe from the ever-marching Foundation army


The constant fear of being caught and the knowing of an approaching army


Confronting Eva, Denmother of Destonia, but also a creation of the mind


Blacksmiths are the means of travel in the mind of Rosaline


Explore lush environments, including the underground home of the Risen mutants


Unique only to the Foundation, they can track the source of any illegal dreams

Spoiler for "Features":

• Explore a deep storyline that's twisted with paranormals and unexplained, the inside of a human's thoughts.
• Various lush environments from the dark cave of the mutants to the green lively forest of Eva.
• Realistic and mature characters with tuned backgrounds.
• No world map, instead you have a traveling system to go from one "nerve" to the next.
• No battles. Level up through unique systems such as compounding and Awakening.
• Much more!

Spoiler for "Characters":

Rosaline:
   A loyal member and servant of the Foundation. She is second in command and lover of the notorious gunslinger Frederick for over 3 years. As long as she's been in the Foundation, she has followed every order that her officer has given her, until recently. A surprising discovery about her past led Frederick to pursue her with deadly intentions. Her scattered past is somewhat hidden to others and even herself.  Growing up, she endured the traumatic event of her parents being murdered and hometown pillaged.  This has caused her to form a barrier over most of her childhood memories. The earliest moment she can remember is being recruited by the Foundation and meeting Frederick.

Jasmine:
   Rosaline's closest friend, and closest enemy. Jasmine is a highly praised Dream Doctor, unfortunately this makes her Rose's worst enemy being from different factions. That never stopped the two, however, as they grew up together from a child. Jasmine tries to tell stories of Rose's childhood to her many times, but the memories can only be recalled by an Awakening. Jasmine grew up spoiled under the wing of the Embassy. Even though she comes off as obsessed to fashion, she's actually very smart and can recite any Awakening chant from memory.
Unfortunately, Jasmine is confronted with a difficult decision to perform an Awakening on Rose. With the amount of barriers that cover Rose's past, the procedure gets more difficult and more risky. She can deny Rose of her childhood, or show her the past but possibly kill her in the process.

Frederick:
   The general of the Foundation troops. He's been disciplined since the day he could walk. Rosaline fell in love with him after she was saved from her burning home. After personally training Rosaline to become a fierce soldier, he couldn't help but love her back. Unfortunately, after ordering an unknown Dream Doctor to recall memories while she slept (otherwise known as Sleep Probing), he discovers a highly disturbing truth to Rose's memory. He goes mad, and chases her down to bring her to justice.

Indigo:
   Rosaline's imaginary clone of herself. Indigo is Jasmine's first obstacle that she comes across when probing Rosaline's mind. From what Jasmine can tell, Indigo is much like a "white cell" to Rose's brain. She appears whenever Jasmine can't control things. Of course, it's both good and bad, as Indigo does not appreciate her home being sifted through and deleted. She has a bodyguard as well, named Wally, who does most of the dirty work getting rid of intruders.

Wally:
   Indigo's bodyguard, and muscles. However, unlike Indigo, Wally is a real person. In the real world, Wally is Rose's "guardian" who has housed her since the destruction of her town. In Rose's mind, Wally is portrayed as a Risen giant. Jasmine tries to piece together why Wally was transformed according to Rose, but maybe Indigo is what Rose thinks of herself?

Spoiler for "Groups":

The Foundation:
   A group of elites that are trained to their highest potential. Almost all of the recruits are accepted by invite only, making them virtually invisible except to those who encounter them.  Led by Frederick Donnaley, the Foundation can be considered the "lawless knights." The Foundation is against Awakenings, and will prosecute any doctors or individuals found guilty of "unnatural recall." 

The Risen:
   A Risen, as described by the story, is a creature who has unsuccessfully passed through the Shade. The Shade is a place where all things go when their spirit leaves the host, either in death or dream. Sometime along the path in the Shade, the spirit is ripped off the predestined road. This causes the spirit to be forced back into the host, who will awaken as Risen. Only malicious spirits have the capability to rip the Shade, so all Risen can be categorized as malicious creatures who only cause havoc. They're an organized group, however, unlike mutations, and have set treaties with the Embassy due to their attraction with Dream Doctors.

The Purgers:
   The gang of insane religious enforcers. Purgers, or rather they call themselves the "voices of God," have a nasty reputation of judging anyone who's not enlisted in their movement. When found guilty, they will stop at nothing to rid you of the world. They've been known to even make fake WANTED posters for all bounty hunters to see. Purgers despise Dream Doctors, and they usually target them first.

The Embassy:
   The Foundations biggest enemy. The war against the Embassy and the Foundation has been going on since the establishment of both groups. They are considered the mirror image of the Foundation, but their goal is to stop the Foundation's evil tactics and ways of taking care of things. The Embassy does endorse Awakenings, and provides refuge for doctors.

The Mutations:
   The beasts of Destonia. Mostly found in the cast-away locations such as the underground and dark, sun-deprived forests. These beasts have no control, and will attack on sight for food or when threatened. Mutations can consist of anything from wolves to humans.

Userbar if you wanna support this project: (Thanks!)

God...Those maps are amazing...This game is very interesting

This looks extremely awesome.

The mapping looks great and the story is intriguing. Good luck with this!

Thanks for the comments guys! :3 It's motivated me to work more on this project's thread, cause it was a little rushed.
Added a new screenshot, and got a list of features that'll (hopefully) be in the final product.

Wow. This looks awesome.

AWWWEESSOME maps. Seriously. I wish I could map like that.

This reminds me so much of Inception
Nice work tho

It reminds me more of Eternal Sunshine for the Spotless Mind; or maybe a mix of the two. Anyway, I think it will be good.

It reminds me more of Eternal Sunshine for the Spotless Mind

My favorite movie of all time, so I guess a little bit of it was used as inspiration. ;P

Reminds me of an RPG version of Psychonauts, albeit a lot more serious.

Definitely looks good. Mapping's epic, as people've been saying.

Oh yeah movin out of new topics cause guidelines met

Moved to the correct place now that i'm a retard

It's ok darling, I forgive you.

On other news, getting a demo together. Excited?! Well.. more like a 'preview' than a demo. But still, something concrete to show.

I usually make posts much longer than this but, I don't have that many comments except: AMAZING. Amazing storyline, amazing screenshots. AMAZING.

omg this looks awesome i can't wait till the demo comes out

Hey peeps, just to update everyone that a short gameplay demo is finished! It's quick, but showcases a lot of the storyline and idea that I'm trying to convey.
Here's the link (also on the first post): http://www.mediafire.com/?dd84wc1cvy3417q

I seem to have hit a snag in trying the demo. The Read Me mentions a font but there are not font files, unless I'm just missing it. I'd be more than willing to hunt it down myself if I knew the name of the font. =/

The screens look fantastic and the story sounds interesting though.

Ooo, I indeed forgot to include the font! Thanks!

Re-uploaded the demo. You should be able to play now without installing the font first.

This is going to be my first post on the forums, and the only reason I registered was that I saw the screens for this game.

I am totally going to download the "demo" when I get home!

Just finished the demo. That was fascinating, I can't wait to play more. =)

Also, not sure if this was intended but you can open the menu at the title screen.

Oh dear, you can... I love bug reports, thanks!
And sorry it's short, I wanted to demo the 'storyline' rather than the game itself.

I think this is very interesting. There seems to be a lot of polish in the game and the environments you've mapped are creative and detailed.

I wasn't a fan of the torch puzzle in the demo. In my opinion, a good puzzle is usually solved by the player thinking and coming up with a solution. Even simple puzzles where you have to light a torch with another torch, like in The Legend of Zelda, requires you to think and come up with the solution. The solution doesn't always have to be revealed by initially looking at the puzzle and can even require the player to do some trial and error before they "get" how to solve it. Maybe it's just me, but there was never a point where I understood how to solve your puzzle or even knew the results of my actions. I wasn't satisfied when I finally solved it because it wasn't my logic that caused me to find a solution, it was me messing around for a while that caused the solution.

Aside from that, I really look forward to the completion of this game. It shows a lot of promise!

although the demo was short, the story seems pretty strong, and your lighting fits the mood perfectly. Also, good luck with the Project of the Season dealio.

Congratulations! This project has won Project of the Season for Spring 2011! This means that your project will be sticked and featured on RMRK's homepage for the duration of the season. Naturally, you may also mention the award when publicizing the project. Great work and again, congratulations; you deserved it!