I was reading an article about dreaming in the counselor's office yesterday and it said something I thought was pretty interesting. It said the ancient Greeks who were sick would sleep in the temple of the medicine god so he would reveal their ailments and treatments. This got me wondering: How could you use this in games? My first thought was that you would have a character you play as when you sleep. You could then go from temple to temple, building up your character on the different monsters in each god's "dream world." In different worlds, you'd get different weapons and abilities. When you're ready, you'd go to the dark god's temple and kill him in his own world. Thoughts?

Well, I think the game should focus on more about the dreams than real life, but the real life portion should be as realistic as possible. While in the dream, the character may not have to eat or rest or anything like that, but in real life, the character gets hungry, thirsty, and has to use the restroom. You can't sleep as long as you like. You're on a time limit every time you sleep. How long you sleep depends on how long you stay up, how long you slept last time, how much you ate and drank, and if you have to go to the bathroom or not. If you drink alcohol in the real world, your dream character will be weakened and everything will be distorted for you until you awake and sober up. Later in the game, you'll receive access to medicine that can increase your sleep time.

This is everything that comes to mind. Having major sleep problems myself, this is mostly what I'd say affects my sleep the most. (Well, except the alcohol, mind you.)

Well, It's an interesting idea. You could make it so the only time your users know about the real life is at the next level and you could add a real life story where the main character recieved the ailments and got better but then something else befalls him or anothe person say in a specific town in Greece or something. The real life scenes would all be done either animation or video so it would be like a teaser such as those in many popular games. "Age of Mythology" "Warcraft III" something like that.

Another thing you might want to look at is how you design the two worlds. For an interesting effect, you could make it that the dream world is a dark/holy/twisted/whatever mirror image of the real world. If You've ever played Zelda: A Link to the Past, there were two worlds that were parallel, one light and one dark that you traveled between with a certain relic. In real life, you can do things that end up having implications on the dream world.

ie: Unlocking the storage shack in the back of one of the temples may not be of any consequence in the real world, but in the dream world, that shack could be a mosuleum in a large graveyard, and unlocking gives you access to a secret passage into the heart of the temple.

This could also be a great opportunity for a whole slew of side quests. Or if you wanted to add a magical element on top of that, you could have a mirror of the above theory have have it work both ways. So if you needed to open a door or unlock a puzzle (etc) maybe you only have the resources to open or unlock a door in the dream world.

ie: In the real world, there is a gate with a huge padlock you do not posses the key too, but in the dream world, it's flimsey and rusted so you are able to break it with a rock. Yay!

Just a few thoughts. I really think you have something going here. You should write some of it up somewhere.

-TJ

make the events of real life a bit less redundant, otherwise you will find an angry player who doesn't feel like potty training his game-self.

if anything, maybe the periods where the player is awake are just the separations that divide "chapters" in your game.


I would say that by having these dreams take place in such a distant past might put off a few players.. I mean, who wants to play a game where they help some dude from ages past deal with his sleeping disorders?

Maybe throw in some generic thing like 'The dreams reveal that someone is planning to take over the country' or something to that effect.

All in all, I do see a lot of potential for a game based around dreams.
~Chokki