* The Sandman's Dream Journal o/***

A story suggestion, the main character would carry a dream journal of another person. While finding new "abilities" or just in need to learn about your enemies, you would simply check the notebook for entries. In the journal maybe pictures, ripped pages, which could be found during the game , to make the story deeper. Maybe little twist to make it a crazy persons dream journal, or ones who was going mad cause of the events in the dream.. maybe ?
Yeah and it would magicly be filled by someone elses dreams at certain parts of the game and by reading it you get more powers.Make it like Prototype.

I like that idea a lot but what if they get confused havin two dream journals, one for themselves and one for someone else. What if they had the internet and could get knew ideas from a website like dream views. The only problem would be how would they access it while they are dreaming and what role would the dream guide play.

I'm liking a lot of these ideas. ^_^

One thing that I was wondering was, would we be able to have the character customizable (even if it's only gender you can choose)? I think it would be easier to visualize the character as your self if you could choose their appearance. Also, at the start of the game you could choose a few of the characters strengths, such as if they have better control or lucidity, and maybe their fear level (maybe it could be like life level) as well. The stats would determine how easily they learn new abilities, how easily they become lucid, and how much fear they could handle without making their powers less effective or have them wake up. For example, if the the character was struck by an enemy their fear level may go up and they could become closer to waking up or lose some of their control, but if they have very high lucidity then they may be less affected because they are more sure that they can't be harmed.

I find this awesomely interesting and this summer could possibly help out with writing, animation (to an extent, I use to animate with Flash so perhaps I could do the animated comic book style cut scenes if people choose to go down that route), and maybe even coding as I have taken some C++ though I am very, very rusty now. But anyways.. I could DEFINITELY be an alpha tester and I'd give some great feedback.

Alright, so first I think a Platformer / RPG feel similar to Zelda, Kingdom of Hearts and/or Ratchet and Clank should be used -- a healthy number of puzzles mixed with 'baddies' and 'mini-bosses' would be ideal where you would gain new powers and items from each 'mini-boss' you defeat.

Storyline:
I think it might interesting if after gaining a healthy set of powers the antagonist would block waking-reality access from the protagonist. These would be dungeon-type experiences (think Zelda temples) where the protagonist would have to defeat the antagonists minions to be able to return to waking reality. I personally think that waking-reality should be blocked for significant portions of the game (chapters if you will) and then after you complete a certain amount of tasks and are moving to the next chapter you will wake up and go about activities in waking reality (perhaps meeting people who you eventually "dreamlink" with). Waking reality "quests" could give you bonus stats in your lucid dreams or new party members for lucid quests. Perhaps one of your waking-state friends just learned how to lucid dream but is trapped in an area and you have to save him -- then you'd gain a party member. (Something along those lines.)

You could make the waking reality experience more open-ended where you could just wander and as you unlock new abilities in your lucid dream you'd be able to unlock new areas in the waking reality and vice versa. Maybe as the main character progresses he gains new powers in waking reality as well (minor powers as first).

Anyways.. I think it would be super interesting to start the main character off in The Void for the very beginning of the game. The main character would, at this point, be about halfway or so through the game and you'd have access to good portion of your abilities but basically couldn't do much because you would be floating in a The Void, currently trapped by the Antagonist. Like I said you'd be able to use some of your powers, perhaps you could conjure up items or environments for brief periods of time but everything you do is almost immediately revoked by the antagonist who will talk to you with an ominous voice from the background of The Void. Eventually, perhaps after a certain amount of time or perhaps if you complete some task you get shot into a Flashback where you are just learning how to lucid dream, the dream is terribly unstable and dangerous. Your eyes would open and close and the typical "dream shattering" effects would occur and you'd see your Dream Guide who looks at you with worried eyes and reaches out his hand, "We have to GO! Now! I'll explain later!" He pulls you up and bolts through the door. The mini-cutscene ends and you gain player control. You then follow him through the door as the dream shatters and cracks. You enter the next room you see him stabilizing certain parts of the dream for you creating an exit for an escape. Perhaps you'd have to tap A to stabilize the dream yourself as well. I'd get more into details if you like the idea but it's already too long and you have a pretty good idea about what I am getting at.

Essentially, I think flashbacks, flashforwards, and general time manipulation could be really awesome for a game like this. I think it would be cool to, say, beat a temple and then suddenly be cast into The Void (where you were in the beginning of the game) but as you progressed you now know that if you use ability A in combination with ability B (in the right external environment that you conjure) you can then successful hide yourself from the antagonist. (Maybe you conjure this forest and then shapeshift into a tree or something haha) But it would have to be something you couldn't ever figure out in the beginning of the game. Ahh, I'm having so much fun thinking about this game that I don't care whether you like my ideas or not.

And finally, this game could take on so many different, equally-awesome styles -- perhaps emphasizing the fun of lucid experiences over the action/adventure with an evil character or whatnot. I'd be willing to help any way that I can. I hope this doesn't just fade away.

how about this - it could be a game on 2 fronts
what I mean is that the main character must have a real life and problems in it. You could make the real world "playable", but only by talking with other characters and that would affect the dream world, although I'm not sure about the depth the real world should be presented in, you can't go overboard. They could manifest as villains in the dream world (the final boss could be a copy of the character with all his negative sides). It's also good to have character development, not only him overcoming a problem after a problem - it all has to lead somewhere. Have any of you played magicka? You could have a free-form way of combining dream powers, and the powers you have available would depend on the type of dream you're in. Just throwing ideas.

I think you guys should make it like a "choose your own adventure game" like how the Mass Effect game works. Each choice you make in the game could affect the games story in a bad way or a good way or if someones talking to you, You could have the choice to be nice or be a total ass just for laughs... a good example of this is in the game "Mass Effect 2"