Dreamweb was a 1992 cyberpunk adventure game that gained notoriety for its adult subject matter and an uncensored sex scene. That said, the sex was top-down, poorly drawn and took place over a space of 30×30 pixels, which i think counts as mosaic censorship anyway, so big whoop to that. It got an absolute buttload of press for its violence, which was graphic, frequent and over the top, and landed a fair response with reviewers. Over time, it has become less remembered for its sex and gore, and more so for its poor puzzle design, awkward interface and aimless storytelling.
But i love Dreamweb to death. Because i infer.
In 1992 i was 10 years old, and despite trying hard, completely incapable of understanding what Dreamweb was all about. It was a Blade Runner-esque dark sci-fi trip into a perpetually rainy city where the protagonist, Ryan, is suffering through a psychotic break. Ryan, through his dreams, receives messages from a mystical council of hooded monks, who assure him the world is going to end unless 7 powers are stopped. These 7 powers conspire to tear apart the Dreamweb, which i assume is akin to Stephen King’s “beams”; the fabric of reality. These 7 powers are contained by 7 people. Ryan must murder these seemingly completely unrelated 7, or the world will end. As such, the game boils down to 7 murders. The puzzles are essentially murder scenarios to be played out.
In waking life, Ryan is miserable, working as a bartender in a dive bar. His frequent nightmares and messages from the dream world are beginning to distort his perception of reality, drives him into a deep depression, skewing his priorities to the point of open neglect. His girlfriend, Eden, a receptionist at Sartain corporation, is at the point of the game’s start weary of Ryan’s constant nightmares and turn towards the dark. She loves him, but he is drifting away from her, and she’s realizing that at this point she can do nothing but watch.
The game begins as Ryan wakes up from yet another apocalyptic nightmare. He’s been given the name of the first power, and has reached a point where the dreamworld seems more real than reality. He is convinced, and sets out to perform his divine duty. It’s the middle of the night, at Eden’s apartment. Eden sleepily tries to console her boyfriend, but drifts off, as Ryan gets dressed and exits into the perpetually rainy neon-lit metropolis, knowing only his target’s last name.
Granularity
The heart of Dreamweb’s appeal is atmosphere. Almost every element of the game is fanatically detailed. A common criticism of the game was the ability to pick up nearly every item that wasn’t bolted down, which resulted in a whole heap of confusing puzzles. Why, for instance, would you need a screwdriver to bend open a locked cabinet when you were already holding a full set of cutlery? It’s telling that the game’s UI contained a separate zoomed-in per-pixel view of the cursor’s surroundings;
This was a game that knew it was firmly embedded in a hardcore pixel-hunt and gave players a sniper scope to carry out the grim task. It was also not above putting players in situations where, if they failed to pick up a key item, they could leave without it and never be given the chance to get it back. Knowing what a key item was was hard enough to begin with.
Rather awesomely, the game models a sort of 1980s conception of the internet, being console command driven. Ryan can access a terminal to check his mail and the daily news, as well as check the contents of the game world’s common storage unit, the Cartridge. Some cartridges hold information vital to advancement, but the world is literally strewn with red herring cartridges, and the process of digging out the gold could be absolutely maddening.
The murders themselves, the payoff if you will, were loud and graphic. Ryan’s first kill involves breaking into a penthouse hotel room, burying an axe in the chest of an unsuspecting man, taking the head off another with a gun, and coldly executing his target as he begs for his life. The red flows free and often, and morality is never a question. Everyone is rotten, and anyone can die.
All this is framed in a wonderfully moody synth-based soundtrack by Matthew Seldon, which elevates the game from oddity to something quite special. If anything is fondly remembered about the game these days, it’s the music.
Dreamweb flounders a bit in terms of storytelling. It paints a broad picture of a man who thinks he’s saving the world, but is wildly out of control, and bombards us with hints that he might not be mad at all. Taken at face value, Dreamweb is a basic story of a Jesus figure who suffers for our sins and saves us all from chaos and oblivion, and for me this was both its largest strength and weakness. It begins with enough hint that Ryan is simply going bananas, but spends the last two thirds of the game reassuring us that he is in fact right. We are never forced to question our motive for murdering these people, and characters close to Ryan vanish as soon as they appear. The game can’t see the forest for the trees, and struggles to draw emotional investment. The mystery dies quickly, and leaves us with atmosphere and gore. A concept this good deserves so much more.
A Unity3D remake
I’ve been scrambling for a Unity3D project to devote my time to, and I’ve always gravitated towards the adventure game. Dreamweb is a wonderful place to visit but a tough place to stay, and every time i boot it up i recognize more things that could be bettered. A dark cyberpunk murder-scenario psychological adventure game? Why not give it a go!
I’ve been working on a Dreamweb re-imagining for the past month. I’m doing basic engine work at the moment, putting the mechanics into place for puzzle mechanics, item use, inventory management and, yes, combat. The game will be a first person adventure game in the vein of Penumbra, with a large emphasis on atmosphere, physical interaction, item-on-item puzzles, social engineering, computer interfacing and short, sharp combat. This is not a first person shooter. Bullets are important and big events, and a single one will do.
Besides this, i am writing a new script. The outline and characters are the same as the original game, but dialogue, puzzles, locations and core elements of Ryan’s character are thoroughly altered. So much so i am considering hiding Ryan and his name, as well as making his gender ambiguous.
I’ll keep posting news here as i go on. For now, as a teaser, here are the first 3 pages of the script for your perusal. Enjoy, and do post feedback! Dreamweb! Yeah!