Project Lucid - The Lucid Dreaming Bits!

Hi guys! If you haven't already, check out this thread about Project Lucid.

I realized after posting that I didn't explain the lucid dreaming parts of the game at all. That was a bit daft, right?


So here is a quick breakdown of some of the lucid dreaming (and general dreaming) concepts that I'll be entertaining in Project Lucid. I suspect I am forgetting things though, and things will change, so don't expect things to always be exactly as I say below. Just let me know what you think, this is the most important part! It MUST be a good representation of lucid dreaming. Doesn't need to be exact, but it does need to correlate with what we know about dreaming.


1) The Real World
In Project Lucid, the real world will be set solely in the game character's own house. He is apparently living there himself. He is a practicing lucid dreamer, but he has extra help. With a high-tech lucid dreaming mask, he can not only boost lucidity, but also connect with other dreamers through the Dream Realm (that's where the MMO bit comes in, and will likely be the main attraction).

"Death is the veil which those who live call life; They sleep, and it is lifted". I like this quote because it suggests that sleep is like death. In Project Lucid, the Dream Realm is like a place on a higher plane of existence. In the universe's lore, heaven is in fact a similar place, but on an even higher plane. To be more precise, they exist on higher dimensions. In the lore, they are "real" places, just not physical like we know it, as it's all made of a great consciousness.

The mask which the guy uses sort of helps his brain make sense of all the noise so that his subconscious can make out other people. It is however only an aid and you must still train your character to get better and better in the Dream Realm. When you think about it, it's like practicing for going to heaven!


2) Lucidity Level
Lucidity Level is the rank of a player. It shows how experienced the player is in the game. A player of high Lucidity Level will have gained more control over the Dream Realm and better stats (as explained below).
I know a few people from DV who have a really high Lucidity Level in real life!


3) Stats
Clarity stat will affect how distorted things appear. High clarity will make things look clear and normal. Low clarity will make things look weird/wavy/distorted.

Stability stat will affect how "weird" things are. Low stability will cause things to get very random. Buildings growing or srinking, or just disappearing, or random stories starting and stopping.

But clarity and stability will be easily gained by standing still and looking around, or even by doing:


4) Reality Checks
Yes! There will be reality checks. How could I not put RCs in there. I want to make RCs both part of the game AND potentially help people get into the habit of reality checking, should they wish to use it that way. I don't want it to just be a button you press and the guy does a RC and your stats go up, it needs to genuinely engage you and cause you to think deeply about it.

I can imagine pressing a button to start the RC process, and the character holds his hand in front of his face (and it's a first person game, don't know if I said that already), and you maybe have to click when something weird happens to the hand, as if you're saying "whoa that's weird. that's weird. that's weirder!". Each correct click given causes an increase in clarity and stability and every time you reach full, you gain some points towards your Lucidity Level.

Definitely let me know what you think of this one. I really do not want to do RCs wrong.

I was also thinking, since Reality Checks irl can be pretty much anything, and since RCs can be very personalized things; I'd like the scripting (and possibly the normal crafting) side of Project Lucid to involve RC creation.


5) Dream Guides
The universe involves Dream Guides! These are characters which act like your guardian angels. They are part of you, part of your soul. However, you must find your Dream Guide. Your Dream Guide could take the form of a person, or an animal. That form could change too depending on your game character's personality. Personality is determined from a bunch of things, like how many people you kill, the amount you build, the amount you fly, and all sorts of other data I can easily grab from the game.


6) Dream Stories
I did mention dream stories in my previous thread, but my idea has changed a little bit since then. I am creating an algorithm which will generate randomized stories in Project Lucid. This will take a long time to get right and it probably won't even be ready for pre-alpha release. I do however want it to be included in the alpha release.

But I was thinking recently, "how can I possibly create an algorithm that will create true dream-like stories? I could use AI... but I'd have to write an insane amount of dream story examples for it to work, it's just impossible!"
Now where the heck could I possibly get thousands of dream story examples? Duh! Dreamviews Dream Journals! What if I write my AI algorithm specifically designed to take in data from DV DJs? Do I need permission for this? I don't know, but I'll sure find out.

If I can do it right, I could not only build an AI bot capable of writing a basically unlimited number of unique dream stories, it would also leave me with the ability to add another feature: dream journal importing. It would literally just be a copy-paste of text into the game, and it would tell the AI to create a story based on it. It wouldn't be exactly right, it might not even seem anything like the dream you had, but it would create quality game content, and I think that's a really cool idea. Also if I get permission, I could perhaps add a feature that allows DV members to import their entire DJ into the game.

All stories that are created within Project Lucid will remain in the Dream Realm forever. People will stumble upon these stories randomly as they can appear at any time. I may also let people see all the stories they've discovered, and allow them to replay them.

I really need opinions on this one too! It's going to be really tough to develop so I need to know it's wanted!


7) Dream Signs
It was Heavy Sleeper who came up with this, and even helped develop the idea into a plan. He is my Angel of Dream Signs :)

Dream Signs, like RCs should be part of the game as a way of gaining clarity and stability, but also give a nice Lucidity Level points bonus. It should also help us lucid dreamers train our minds should we want it to.

Dream Signs will appear by nature of the universe (nature programmed by myself). But basically, every moment that passes in the game has a random chance of a random event happening. There are many many different actions that could happen, but if the same thing happens twice, the game picks up on that and basically tells the system "give me more of that later" by increasing the odds of that thing happening.

There's a bit more to it on the technical side, but in the end, you get events that can recurr. If you notice that something has happened before in your dream, observe that event for as long as the event is happening, and the universe rewards you.

Compare this to real life, when you notice a dream sign, you must pay attention to it to get any real benefit. Also question reality, but having this integral feature in Project Lucid could potentially help train yourself to question things more. Dunno, what do you guys think?

Oh and to update you all:

Development is still slowly progressing. It's looking like I'll have a pre-alpha release within 2-3 months. I'm not sure yet how widely I'll distribute that release for testing, but it will not be open to everyone.
It will not be fully featured, but it will be a genuine game client for Project Lucid which will allow the play-testers to roam around the same virtual space and to mess about with all the features and stuff. It will also allow me to see how people use their creativity with the tools I give them. That will then allow me to move towards alpha by adding/changing/improving tools and features as necessary.

I think that it's an awesome idea. The dream stories section is definitely the coolest part because it would allow users to create their own play style, game path, etc, as well as always be changing the game. I do think that the RC section needs work, it just doesn't really seem like how a genuine RC would work. Other than that a lot of the ideas are really interesting. I also think that this game could help with getting people lucid in their actual dreams. As a gamer, I've noticed the biggest problem with gaming and lucid dreaming is that while playing we're completely unaware of lucid dreaming, but with this game our minds would always be immersed in a dream world, almost like visualization for a lucid dream. I also do have a few questions. Are there going to be separate servers or just one big one that's ever changing? What platforms will this be available on? Overall I think this game could really change lucid dreaming and video games in general.

I agree with everything you said there, thanks muchly though!

And yea the more I think on it, the way I suggested to do RCs just sucks. I'm going to put my brain to work on that one, but I reckon the answer will just come to me for the perfect way to incorporate RCs into it all. Until then, I invite you all to try come up with something!

And your questions: it will be one universe, no servers and all that. Well, it will appear that way anyways. Behind the scenes it won't necessarily be that way, as I'll use certain techniques to improve efficiency.
I have been planning to release on PC and PS4. However after hearing that Xbox One will support basically any VR headset through their big Windows 10 plans, I have decided to involve Xbox in my plans.


Also, I just remembered something I forgot, Dream Signs! Heavy Sleeper is the one who thought of it. I couldn't believe how I forgot such an obvious thing.

I'll go ahead and pop the details about that into the original post now.

Cool. I'm happy it will be on pc because that's what I game on. I'll try to think about ways to do RCs, but it's such a tricky subject to incorporate well. The dream signs are also really cool. I think things like that open up a lot of character customization if you take that route.

Yeah, PC will be first no matter what. I've still not registered a company, so I can't even get started with PS4 dev.

And yea, character customization with be a big thing. But yes it does indeed open up other doors.



Also, I remembered more: OBEs (Out of Body Experiences) will be a part of it. This will happen at different times. During times of low stability, the camera will change perspective randomly. With high stability, you have control over the perspective. This pretty much the same as any game which allows you to switch between first and third person, however I will make sure the transition effects and camera movements make it feel as close as possible to how OBEs actually feel. This feeling will be far more effective in VR.

Also False Awakenings will be a thing. These will trick you into thinking you are in the real world, but you're still actually in the Dream Realm. Doing a reality check during a FA or even noticing things that are out of place will boost your stats and increase Lucidity Level points. FAs will usually only happen when stability is low.

There's something else I forgot which I remembered, but I forgot again!

Those sound like really great ideas. Also for reality checks, I have one suggestion which is to make reality checks ways of increasing stability. This could be done when the dream starts or durring the dream when you bein loosing stability due to thinks like being attacked by hostile mobs or lots of increased activity.

Yeah RCs will increase stability and clarity. And yea, high levels of activity will indeed cause stability to go down (and clarity too probably, what do you think?)

I was just looking through both your threads and this sounds really interesting. I'd definitely be willing to test out the game and give you feedback on it, I have a somewhat decent gaming PC (FX-4350, GTX-760). I don't really have any development experience but I'd love to be able to bug hunt or throw ideas at you after seeing what you already have. It's kind of hard to envision it right now but I think you have a lot of solid (if difficult to execute) ideas for this and I'm curious about how it's all going to be integrated into a "game".

By the way, have you seen / played LSD Dream Emulator for the PS1? Here is a video on it if you haven't, I thought you might find that interesting.

Stability and clarity kind of go hand in hand so hey it would make sense.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by duke396

I was just looking through both your threads and this sounds really interesting. I'd definitely be willing to test out the game and give you feedback on it, I have a somewhat decent gaming PC (FX-4350, GTX-760). I don't really have any development experience but I'd love to be able to bug hunt or throw ideas at you after seeing what you already have. It's kind of hard to envision it right now but I think you have a lot of solid (if difficult to execute) ideas for this and I'm curious about how it's all going to be integrated into a "game".

By the way, have you seen / played LSD Dream Emulator for the PS1? Here is a video on it if you haven't, I thought you might find that interesting.

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Awesome man, thanks!

And I have never seen LSD Dream Emulator before, but yes that was very interesting to see. Love the randomness of it and the way it makes you think "what the fuck is going on here... lemme try and figure this one out...". It's actually particularly interesting because when I try to think about how my random story generator will actually feel like to play, I worry that it will just leave you thinking "what the fuck, this makes no sense". But maybe that's just the point. But I dunno, because the one thing about that PS1 game that put me off was the fact that you never really do find out what the fuck is going on (or do you? I have only seen that one video). I don't like the way it leaves you hanging completely. I do want to leave players with cliff hangers and such, but this is just beyond cliff hangers...


Yeah what I just said there probably made no sense either. It's just that it's giving me some great food for thought.

About LSD, I honestly don't know lol. I played around with it a little at one point, it's just so odd and random. I don't think there's any real conclusion or goal to it.

I was thinking about the story generator you mentioned also and I get what you mean about its coherence... I wonder if there's a way you could assign unique key words or codes to the story's plot fragments (if this works how I'm imagining it will), and based on the level of the dreamer + a dice roll of random plot divergence, related key words or similar codes would be more likely (but not exclusively bound) to show up together, making it more of a coherent story for the player of higher level and still preserving some of the randomness of it all. I imagine you could code up an algorithm to do something like that for you, once you determined exactly how crazy a story should be likely to get. Like in a more coherent story arc, you may get clues or have a DC to egg you on and encourage you to take certain actions that follow a plot (although whether or not you follow the story is a different algorithm :P) and although the plot fragments could be interchangeable, they'd still form a new story that makes a bit of sense. For example if your dream starts in a forest, you're 85% likely to stay in the forest in a high coherence dream, future plot fragments must be forest related, and you must actually "exit" the forest if you don't stay. And for less coherent story arcs it may start simple enough but devolve into utter confusion and nonsense as you transition to the next plot fragment, like LSD (or some real dreams, to be fair). Story lines could intermingle and characters could glitch. That forest you started in now has an apartment complex in the top of a big tree, and when you stare at it for too long you're suddenly in the city. This then brings up the point of, how much control does the player actually have over the story and the environment? But I feel like you addressed that at some point and I'm just not thinking clearly.

I hope that made sense to you in the way it did in my head, because I feel like I'm being absolutely terrible at explaining it.

You explained it pretty well actually. Well, I understood anyways, because what you're talking about is a good description of what I have in my head too. What you described is pretty much the basic principle behind procedural generation.

However I will take it a bit further than procedural, eventually. I'd love to use AI to generate stories instead. Not just the AIPCs (which will make stories too, just like players will), but make an AI story generator a part of the universe itself. This AI would have to build things on-the-fly too to support the actual stories, so I may as well make that AI create and alter the world too, to replace the basic procedural generation the game will possibly start off with. When these updates arrive in the future, the only way it will affect players is that the quality of content will begin to increase faster over time.


Loving it! You're definitely on the same page as me here!

Haha, that's just like me to go in depth of describing something and it's already got a name I should know :P
I never put a lot of thought into how procedural generation works, but it makes perfect sense once you said the word. I think having the AI actually create the story will be a pretty big task though. Most conversation oriented AIs can barely stay coherent for more than a couple sentences... But in a game about dreams, a little confusion could be part of the charm.

How would the AI's / story's building process integrate into the rest of the world? In my vision of what you're going for, the world itself (with no story) would be fairly dynamic at least as far as the player is concerned. At one point you mentioned that the player could build in the world as well, and I really like that idea although the interface for doing it could get complicated pretty quickly I'd imagine. But what I meant was, will the changing builds of the AI or story / world at "rest" / player all mesh together, interfere with each other, or remain separate? I think the easiest way would be to keep them all separate -- the player would have his own relatively static area to build in (like Sensei's persistent dreamworld), the outside world can change however it needs to, and playing a storyline would take you seamlessly-as-possible to a world where only that story is taking place. But separating it all isn't really the vibe I'm getting from you.

Sorry if that's a weird question, I'm just really interested in this and curious how you plan to tackle certain things.

Yeah AIs are limited that way without a serious amount of computational power, so that was an issue on my mind. But like you say, perhaps the confusion will create extra charm for the purpose. Don't get me wrong though, my goal will always be to create something perfect, but fuck it I can make another game to do AI perfectly, Project Lucid doesn't need perfection...


To answer your question there (a very good one by the way): Everything will talk to everything. I know this much. However, the area you build in will appear static if you visit your own space often enough. The more you observe something, the stronger it gets "locked in" to the dream realm. The longer something in the dream realm goes unobserved, the more the "memory" fades, so the more random it becomes or the more prone it becomes to altering from another player. So your own space might appear static to you, but it's not really. The reason I want to do it this way is because memories fade in real life and these consequences occur in real dreams, yet our memory still seems static to our own perspective. Make sense?

That makes a lot of sense actually. I like where your head is.