The Dreamers' Game
Dreamers' Game? Dreamer's Game? I never actually got a chance to see it, like, written down, so I'm just guessing whether the Dreamer(s) should be pluralized. (I mean, I'm the dreamer and I'm already pluralized, but shh you know what I mean.)
Anyway so this was a weird dream I had last night and it's long and very weird.
Okay. So.
We were in some sort of family reunion situation with my immediate and extended families, and we all decided to play The Dreamers' Game, a first-person exploration.... something? Even though were all playing, we were all also the selectable playable characters, which ended up being scrambled. (I tried to play as myself, but I ended up being one of my aunts.)
The Dreamers' Game was like a VR or even real-life real-time MacVenture, a first person adventure about going from room to room, collecting items and so forth, only the whole thing was some sort of deliberately weird dadaist Moonside experience. If there was an actual goal or win condition, I woke up before we could find it. It was loosely based in reality (the player characters, the setting started in my grandparents' house even if going from room to room quickly turned into Treasure Quest, etc.)
I proceeded to the basement and found myself sitting at a table with three other people who offered me food--two biscuits and (something? Fries and ketchup? I forget.) They offered the mystery food item first; the biscuits were just sitting there and no one actually mentioned them at all, but one was left to infer that they too were part of the offer. They mentioned as part of the offer on the first item that "Hey do you want these? You'll get the virus, though."
The virus, they explained, was akin to the "computer virus" sense of the word. It was a singular yes-or-no state where the players start out un-virused but once they get it, that's that--there was no going back or curing one's self. "Every hour something FUN will happen," they explained, by which they meant that being in a virus state just generally fucked with the world (as if this particular world needed any more fucking with.)
So, I declined. Then I just stared at the biscuits for a while... or more accurately, they popped up and appeared directly in front of my field of vision waiting for me to do the equivalent of clicking on them, which I didn't do, so they just waited. I was wise to their game, you see; I suspected the biscuits would give me the virus too. The NPCs confirmed exactly that, giving a short "you are of course aware that the biscuits will give you the virus as well" speech that came after that deliberately long pause, as if they counted on the player eating the biscuits first before getting the belated warning. Joke's on them, though; I saw that trick coming and I resisted.
Instead, I asked to leave, because now I was kind of boxed in (think being the one against the wall in a booth at a restaurant.) The three of them all got up, shuffled around, then sat back down such that they were in a different arrangement/order but there were still exactly as many people blocking me as there were before I'd asked. "Jail!" one of them cheerfully declared. Then, I just kind of muscled past them instead of asking again, and I headed back upstairs. (I was unsure if touching them or, you know, some stealthy unseen part of the interaction like that had secretly given me the virus, even if I'd avoided the obvious traps. I never got a chance to find out, though.)
Upstairs, the family was gathered, singing a song about the Dreamers' Game.
Dreamers' Game
Dreamers' Game
(something I forget)
(something)
Scream and shout
What the fuck is this game about?
I decided at that moment that this was unwinnable bullshit and that I didn't want to play the Dreamers' Game anymore, at which point I was whisked back home and I basically woke up (or so I thought.) I asked
xyzzysqrl if a game that happened in a dream counts for ABANDONED entry credit, and then I sat down to write that entry (or perhaps the one you're reading now;) something on Dreamwidth explaining and recounting the whole adventure. To illustrate it further, I linked to....
Okay, so, there was a site where someone, amazingly, somehow, God knows how or why, actually made an online playable multiplayer version of the Dreamers' Game. (The multiplayer aspect was that everyone was wandering around the house at once and that you could like, see each other's avatars walking by. They also had a voice chat.) I had zero interest in playing again, but they had a spectator mode, so I watched someone else try their luck at it.
They started out in a room with a plastic bin full of what looked like either large computer parts (motherboards and the like) or Lego recreations thereof. Being new to the Dreamers' Game, they were under the impression that this was a "take anything that isn't nailed down since you'll need it later" adventure game and not a "you can take literally any object you see but there's no goal and you're just carrying around armfuls of useless junk JUST LIKE IN REAL LIFE" game. Thus, they quickly overburdened himself for no actual gain. Then, some fries and ketchup just appeared in their field of vision out of nowhere, and they clicked on them and got the virus.
Then I ACTUALLY woke up, for real this time. I'm disappointed that this site doesn't exist so I can't actually show you the Dreamers' Game after all. But I did still ask Xyzzy if we could get ABANDONED credit for it again, because I'd asked in the dream and it felt real and I dunno. This is a cross-posted entry that originated from https://kjorteo.dreamwidth.org/476894.html. Please leave all comments there; I am no longer actively maintaining my LiveJournal blogs.
Anyway so this was a weird dream I had last night and it's long and very weird.
Okay. So.
We were in some sort of family reunion situation with my immediate and extended families, and we all decided to play The Dreamers' Game, a first-person exploration.... something? Even though were all playing, we were all also the selectable playable characters, which ended up being scrambled. (I tried to play as myself, but I ended up being one of my aunts.)
The Dreamers' Game was like a VR or even real-life real-time MacVenture, a first person adventure about going from room to room, collecting items and so forth, only the whole thing was some sort of deliberately weird dadaist Moonside experience. If there was an actual goal or win condition, I woke up before we could find it. It was loosely based in reality (the player characters, the setting started in my grandparents' house even if going from room to room quickly turned into Treasure Quest, etc.)
I proceeded to the basement and found myself sitting at a table with three other people who offered me food--two biscuits and (something? Fries and ketchup? I forget.) They offered the mystery food item first; the biscuits were just sitting there and no one actually mentioned them at all, but one was left to infer that they too were part of the offer. They mentioned as part of the offer on the first item that "Hey do you want these? You'll get the virus, though."
The virus, they explained, was akin to the "computer virus" sense of the word. It was a singular yes-or-no state where the players start out un-virused but once they get it, that's that--there was no going back or curing one's self. "Every hour something FUN will happen," they explained, by which they meant that being in a virus state just generally fucked with the world (as if this particular world needed any more fucking with.)
So, I declined. Then I just stared at the biscuits for a while... or more accurately, they popped up and appeared directly in front of my field of vision waiting for me to do the equivalent of clicking on them, which I didn't do, so they just waited. I was wise to their game, you see; I suspected the biscuits would give me the virus too. The NPCs confirmed exactly that, giving a short "you are of course aware that the biscuits will give you the virus as well" speech that came after that deliberately long pause, as if they counted on the player eating the biscuits first before getting the belated warning. Joke's on them, though; I saw that trick coming and I resisted.
Instead, I asked to leave, because now I was kind of boxed in (think being the one against the wall in a booth at a restaurant.) The three of them all got up, shuffled around, then sat back down such that they were in a different arrangement/order but there were still exactly as many people blocking me as there were before I'd asked. "Jail!" one of them cheerfully declared. Then, I just kind of muscled past them instead of asking again, and I headed back upstairs. (I was unsure if touching them or, you know, some stealthy unseen part of the interaction like that had secretly given me the virus, even if I'd avoided the obvious traps. I never got a chance to find out, though.)
Upstairs, the family was gathered, singing a song about the Dreamers' Game.
Dreamers' Game
Dreamers' Game
(something I forget)
(something)
Scream and shout
What the fuck is this game about?
I decided at that moment that this was unwinnable bullshit and that I didn't want to play the Dreamers' Game anymore, at which point I was whisked back home and I basically woke up (or so I thought.) I asked
xyzzysqrl if a game that happened in a dream counts for ABANDONED entry credit, and then I sat down to write that entry (or perhaps the one you're reading now;) something on Dreamwidth explaining and recounting the whole adventure. To illustrate it further, I linked to....
Okay, so, there was a site where someone, amazingly, somehow, God knows how or why, actually made an online playable multiplayer version of the Dreamers' Game. (The multiplayer aspect was that everyone was wandering around the house at once and that you could like, see each other's avatars walking by. They also had a voice chat.) I had zero interest in playing again, but they had a spectator mode, so I watched someone else try their luck at it.
They started out in a room with a plastic bin full of what looked like either large computer parts (motherboards and the like) or Lego recreations thereof. Being new to the Dreamers' Game, they were under the impression that this was a "take anything that isn't nailed down since you'll need it later" adventure game and not a "you can take literally any object you see but there's no goal and you're just carrying around armfuls of useless junk JUST LIKE IN REAL LIFE" game. Thus, they quickly overburdened himself for no actual gain. Then, some fries and ketchup just appeared in their field of vision out of nowhere, and they clicked on them and got the virus.
Then I ACTUALLY woke up, for real this time. I'm disappointed that this site doesn't exist so I can't actually show you the Dreamers' Game after all. But I did still ask Xyzzy if we could get ABANDONED credit for it again, because I'd asked in the dream and it felt real and I dunno. This is a cross-posted entry that originated from https://kjorteo.dreamwidth.org/476894.html. Please leave all comments there; I am no longer actively maintaining my LiveJournal blogs.