Reality Reversal - An Original Dream-themed Game in Development.

Hey all, first post in over a year. I'm back on DV (was Lunatide before).

Now onto the point of the post. I've been writing the plot for my upcoming game named Reality Reversal. It's a 2D, psychological horror game with a heavy story and puzzle focus.

You take control of a girl name Komi, with a foggy past, consisting of various disturbing events. These past events aren't easy for her to remember and only appear subtlety in her lucid dreams/nightmares. Komi explores her disturbing, surreal dreamscapes and meets a woman named Lunette, who she becomes close comrades with. The reason the game is called Reality Reversal is because Komi dreams for most of her time, whereas a normal human sleeps for only a fraction of their time. I believe this is called hypersomnia, but that's not an official name I don't think. This is almost like a completely reversed lifestyle for her - a different reality - as her life focuses mainly on dreams. Not much will be known about Lunette when Komi is awake, but her story will hit hard nearer the end of the game, which I don't want to spoil.

I am, however, in need of some basic ideas for the theme of each chapter. Feel free to give any ideas that I can adapt to suit the genre of the game. I'll be able to do that with most things, so don't limit yourselves.

I currently have:

Dream 1: *Torture chamber*
Dream 2: *Graveyard/mansion*
Dream 3: *Dark forest*
Dream 4: *Underwater/sunken ship*
Dream 5: *Art museum of memories*
Dream 6: *Institute for spirits*
Dream 7: *Abandoned hospital*
Dream 8: *Oil refinery*
Dream 9: *Village of spirits*
Dream 10: *Icey Wonderland*
Dream 11: *Phobias*
Dream 12: *Fetus lab*
Dream 13: *Spirit school*
Dream 14: *Church*
Dream 15: *Fairground*

Thanks for reading. I have the soundtrack done, I just need to finish plot and art/graphics before I can begin making the game. Text will be improvised based on the plot. The plot notes I have worked on currently will be remade into the final plot, which I use to create the game.

That sounds awesome! What are you making it in? Flash? Unity? Something else?

As for themes, maybe do a city street in the rain, kind of with a noir feel to it.

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Originally Posted by spellbee2

That sounds awesome! What are you making it in? Flash? Unity? Something else?

As for themes, maybe do a city street in the rain, kind of with a noir feel to it.

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Thank you! I'm making it in RPGMaker2003, for various reasons. No programming, I'm too rusty on that. My main inspiration (Yume Nikki) was made in RPG2K3. Finally, there's a very large RPGMaker community, which I plan on getting into when I release this game.

As for the the city in the rain, I'm going to add that into chapter 8. An old, dull and rainy city leading to an abandoned factory that produces many things in old machines. I may mix this chapter with the Fetus Lab, some machines could be keeping various lifeforms alive inside.

I'll be finishing the potential plot notes soon, I'm over half way. Once I finish those, I'll pick 10 final dreams/chapters and piece them together. Will post updates, and some pixel art when I get around to doing it.

Oh, ha ha, yeah RPGMaker's cool too. No shame in not programming it. Less frustration that way, I've found.

Definitely keep us updated. Sounds like a pretty cool project.

I LOVE RPGMaker games, and one themed on LDing is even better. I am looking forward to hearing more about this.

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Originally Posted by LolaTheLoner

I LOVE RPGMaker games, and one themed on LDing is even better. I am looking forward to hearing more about this.

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The plotline is coming along well, but a little slow. I need to work a little harder.

Keep checking back from time to time, I'll update as much as I can.

Edit 1: I have removed chapter 12 (Fetus Lab) as the main elements of this dream will feature in chapter 8 (Oil Refinery). I also replaced chapter 15, the Fairground, (now 14, since 12 was removed) with a Farmhouse, so I can create puzzles that involve crops. I've always wanted to do this, and I've made a lot of progress in making farming elements within test games.

I've made a lot pf progress on the potential plot too. I'm at chapter 10 out of 14, soon to be starting the 11th chapter. Will hopefully get this done at the rate I'm going.

Edit 2: I have named the chapters, but I may not keep them all upon making the final plot.

Dream 1: "Tied Up by Fate" - *Torture chamber*
Dream 2: "The Memories Live On" - *Graveyard/mansion*
Dream 3: "Lost Pages, Broken Chapters" - *Dark forest*
Dream 4: *Underwater/sunken ship*
Dream 5: "Familiar Faces" - *Art museum of memories*
Dream 6: "Mourning" - *Institute for spirits*
Dream 7: "To Where Things Begun" - *Abandoned hospital*
Dream 8: "Lifeforms of Lucidity" - *Oil refinery*
Dream 9: "Spirited for Nothingness" - *Village of spirits*
Dream 10: "We Can Escape Somehow" - *Icey Wonderland*
Dream 11: "Reflections of Fear" - *Phobias*
Dream 12: "Mourning Once More" - *Spirit school*
Dream 13: "Holy Secrets" - *Church*
Dream 14: "Reap and Sow" - *Spirit Farmhouse"

Edit 3: I've removed 3 total chapter ideas and made some minor changes to the names. I'm also going to start working on the final plot now, which means having to retype each chapter idea in high detail and add some extra stuff, which I will figure out as I go along.

I'm going to have to remove another 2 to make the chapter list a perfect 10, but I'll do that another time, perhaps when I've picked 10.

That being said, here is the finalized chapter list:

Dream 1: "Tied Up by Fate" - *Torture chamber*
Dream 2: "The Memories Live On" - *Graveyard/mansion*
Dream 3: "Lost Pages, Broken Chapters" - *Dark forest*
Dream 4: *Underwater/sunken ship*
Dream 5: "Familiar Faces" - *Art museum of memories*
Dream 6: "Mourning" - *Institute for spirits*
Dream 7: "To Where Things Begun" - *Abandoned hospital*
Dream 8: "Lifeforms of Lucidity" - *Oil refinery*
Dream 9: "Spirited for Nothing" - *Village of spirits*
Dream 10: "We Can Escape Somehow" - *Icey Wonderland
Dream 11: "Reflections of Fear" - *Phobias*
Dream 12: "Mourning Once More" - *Spirit school*

Edit 4: Alright, I came up with some brand new names for the chapters and selected a final 10 from the remaining 12. Each chapter name has an alliteration, just like the title of the game; Reality Reversal.

Introduction
Chapter 1: Blood Bound
Chapter 2: Great Grieving
Chapter 3: Mourning Massacre
Chapter 4: Spirited Sunset
Chapter 5: Ethereal Education
Chapter 6: Lucid Lifeforms
Chapter 7: Hospitalized Harmony
Chapter 8: Frozen Flurry
Chapter 9: Deathly Dreams
Chapter 10: Artistically Afflicted
True Ending

Hope to hear some feedback! I'm working very hard as of recently, so I'll be making good progress. I may consider releasing a demo of the introduction and part of chapter 1 when it's made, so it'll give you all something to check out while I create the rest of the game.

Great idea with the alliteration. I like it! Sounds like your planning is coming along quite nicely.

I notice that you have "True Ending" at the end, does this mean you're making other possible endings as well? That might be rather exciting, and it would definitely make people play it more than once. I remember I had to play IB 5 or 6 times before I finally got the good ending.

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Originally Posted by LolaTheLoner

Great idea with the alliteration. I like it! Sounds like your planning is coming along quite nicely.

I notice that you have "True Ending" at the end, does this mean you're making other possible endings as well? That might be rather exciting, and it would definitely make people play it more than once. I remember I had to play IB 5 or 6 times before I finally got the good ending.

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Thank you!

Each chapter will have a bad ending, and I may consider having multiple good endings at the very end of the game, depending on how you played, alongside the true ending. Very much like Ib, as that game is a huge inspiration of mine.

Edit 5: Changed Chapter 4: Spirited Sunset to Spirited Solace, I love that word.

Hey all little update. I'm working on some little, non-detailed maps for the areas, so I have something else to help me build the levels and plan out puzzles easier.

Small update: I completed the map for chapter 1. I should hope it provides enough gameplay to time to last at least 30 minutes, or if I'm lucky, an hour.

Will there be any spoilers? :yddd:

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Originally Posted by MrPriority

Will there be any spoilers? :yddd:

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I'm think I may post a couple of map sketches. You can't really tell what's going on in them though, since they're made personally for me to work from haha.

Here's a version of chapter 1's map which I roughly sketched in MS Pain and then removed the potential spoilers.

Attachment 7399

Not sure if you'll be able to see this very well, but here's all the stuff I have in my project's folder. Helps me keep organized when I make the game.

Attachment 7400

HUGE update of my progress on plot.

10 chapters. 1 character per chapter. Each character has a little side story for you to complete in order to progress through to the main plot. 10 dream fragments/shards are hidden throughout each chapter. If you possess all 10 by the end, you get the good ending, if not, you get the bad. I have this all planned to make sense, but I'm not saying too much.

At the end of chapter 10 is the mirror that reverses your reality from layer 4, back to layer 1. The layers of reality are as followed:

-Layer 1: The Real World - Normal reality
-Layer 2: The Dreamlands - Strange, totally random, although some past memories have effect.
-Layer 3: The Comafields - Reflects partly on dreamer's past memories, some good, most bad.
-Layer 4: Hypersomnia Nightmarius - Reflects mainly on the dreamer's past memories, almost entirely bad.
-The Hidden Layer: Ultrasleeping (The 5th Layer Hypothesis) - Unknown.

The 5th layer will be a secret side story you can follow somewhere in layer 4, which will unlock some information later on.

I've also finished making Komi and Lunette's new sprites, will post those soon.

HUGE update of my progress on plot.

10 chapters. 1 character per chapter. Each character has a little side story for you to complete in order to progress through the main plot. 10 dream fragments/shards are hidden throughout each chapter. If you possess all 10 by the end, you get the good ending, if not, you get the bad. I have this all planned to make sense, but I'm not saying too much.

At the end of chapter 10 is the mirror that reverses your reality from layer 4, back to layer 1. The layers of reality are as followed:

-Layer 1: The Real World - Normal reality
-Layer 2: The Dreamlands - Strange, totally random, although some past memories have effect.
-Layer 3: The Comafields - Reflects partly on dreamer's past memories, some good, most bad.
-Layer 4: Hypersomnia Nightmarius - Reflects mainly on the dreamer's past memories, almost entirely bad.
-The Hidden Layer: Ultrasleeping (The 5th Layer Hypothesis) - Unknown.

The 5th layer will be a secret side story you can follow somewhere in layer 4, which will unlock some information later on.

I've also finished making Komi and Lunette's new sprites, will post those soon.

Long time no post. I've been super occupied learning instruments and whatnot.

First of all, update on the Layers of Reality:

Layer 1 - Reality
Layer 2 - The Dreamlands
Layer 3 - The Comafields
Layer 4 - The Hypersomnia Realm
Layer 5 - The 5th Layer Hypothesis (Only accessible through a secret event. Unlocks a sidestory later on in the game.

Now an update on the chapter names:

Introduction (Layer 2)
Chapter 1: Blood Bound (Layer 3)
Chapter 2: Spirited Solace (Layer 3)
Chapter 3: Ethereal Education (Layer 3)
Chapter 4: Great Grieving (Layer 3)
Chapter 5: Mourning Massacre (Layer 3)
Chapter 6: Flurried Frost (Layer 4)
Chapter 7: Artistically Afflicted (Layer 4)
Chapter 8: Deathly Dreams (Layer 4)
Chapter 9: Lucid Lifeforms (Layer 4)
Chapter 10: Hospitalized Harmony (Layer 4)

Both endings take place in Layer 4 and Layer 1.

Each chapter has it's own supporting character, you must team up with them in order to solve something. I have not yet started planning into this, but I'll start soon enough.

More to come later on.

Pretty cool!

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Originally Posted by PercyLucid

Pretty cool!

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Thank you PercyLucid :). I sure hope you like dark, controversial games heh. Gonna be a lot of undertones and hidden messages that could spark some disagreement :P.

Oh boy

Attachment 7929