Dreamtruder

DREAMTRUDER: 93%

SHOULD I READ THIS?
Yes, absolutely. The story is largely linear, but this in no way detracts from the enjoyment as the puzzles and narrative are both engaging and well-constructed.
Preview: You accidentally intrude on a stranger’s dream, and now must complete a series of trials to keep your right to dream, otherwise you will lose the ability to dream. At the same time, you deal with a dangerous situation with a friend in the real world, and delve deeper into what this dreamworld really is.

=SPOILERS BELOW=

RATINGS:

Basic Plot & Coherence: 5/5
The plot is logical, and one event follows another. The author did an excellent job gradually increasing the stakes and the tension. I only read through one of the three plotlines (the Rick one), but I found that both the dream and real life sequences were entertaining and complimented each other. Each successive trial brought something new, but consistent, to the narrative. The various subplots and mini-plots for each trial were well tied in. The only part I didn’t understand was why the main character is so afraid of his inner evil. He doesn’t show any inclination towards evil action (until the final choice you can make in the “e” stage), and although he experiences temptation from his evil self, he doesn’t ever seem realistlcally likely to give in to it. Still, that subplot was also very well done, and foreshadowed well the aforementioned “e” stage ending. Excellent plot.

Characters & Development: 5/5
Every character, even the ones that only had a scene or two, seemed well rounded and developed. None of them seemed flat or two-dimensional. The main character had a consistent personality, which is tougher to do in an interactive format, but was done very well. Rosaline’s personality was equally well-developed, and I found it believeable that the two characters could get along as well as they did, particularly while cooperating in a difficult situation. Rick was also well-developed. Admittedly, having a twin is a pretty common plot twist, but it was pulled off very well. The subplot with rick maintained both humor and tension, the character dynamics between rick and the main character were done well. Importantly, the characters and their attitudes changed realisically over time as the relationship developed.

Grammar: 4/5
There were mistakes in places, but nothing too horrible.
Mastery of Language: 2/3
The language was excellently used and contributed well to the overall tone and feel of the story.

Mechanics & Coding: 5/5
Excellently coded. The story maintains the constant “jungle” plotline, while weaving in details for three seperate subplots. Each of the challanges was cleverly built, and logically solved. I was especially impressed by how you worked the puzzles.
There was only one glitch I noticed, if you take the correct underwater path at a certain time in the “u” stage, you still end up failing the challenge.

Branching: 1/1 (usually 3)
I’m giving this a 1/1 not because the branching is very good (it’s a very linear story), but because there is a surprisingly large and well-done amount of branching for such a linear story. You have the choice of multiple subplots, numerous endings, and numerous places to stop off along the way. The story is honest about its linearity, and works well within those bounds.

Player Options/Fair choice: 2/3
Generally pretty good. You’re given a lot of freedom in how to solve the various puzzles, although there are a few places where the player doesn’t have much choice about things.
Nothing to complain about for “fair choice”. Consequences are adequately foreshadowed, and there are no “gotcha!” moments that the player doesn’t deserve.

Nitpicks: I think the underwater puzzle in the “u” section has a glitch that makes you fail even if you take the correct path.

Endings: The best endings (in my opinion) are the two you can get by completing the “jungle”. Of the other endings, the dark path ending was foreshadowed well with the evil subplot, though it’s a little unclear what exactly the main character is doing. Each of the endings you can take along the way by taking a job in the dream world are well fleshed out and present a complete picture. Even the “you fail” endings seemed to give a complete picture of what happened to the main character after the events of the story.

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE:
I played this through using the Rick subplot, so I can’t accurately represent the other two. For me, the most challenging stage was the “l” stage (especially the patience part), I repeatedly made horrible choices and failed here. Overall, I really enjoyed the game. This was one of the few interactive fiction games during which I never felt bored or wanted to quit.

CONCLUSION: 25/27 = 92.59%
A truly excellent work.

This is a great concept aimed in an interesting direction. While we have minimal control of the direction of the story, players are given several approaches and valid ways to engage with challenges. The satisfaction of navigating and resolving encounters with player agency is obvious. I enjoyed some segments of the jungle. There were flaws. The diving portion of “U” was the most apparent. The first choice is coded incorrectly. The correct choice, according to the rules as written, is the middle passage because of rule 3, as rules 1 and 2 do not apply. Instead of going to the right of the Diver, the game requires you to follow the diver. That damaged my trust in the puzzles to come.

Still the Jungle was the clear centerpiece of the story and was reasonably entertaining. The distractions from it in the “Real World” were, for me, unwelcome. Characters were defined such that they were distinct from one another, which is more difficult for writers to do than one would expect. Even so, the characters do not seem to act in proportion to their environments. At the end of “Understanding” we are given this line, “The portal opened and our lives were destroyed.”

Slow down, you’ve known each other for a day. Your lives are not destroyed.

Descriptive language is employed intermittently and readers will likely enjoy some colorful passages. While the writer is somewhat inventive in word choice, language fluency is not a strength. As the story progressed, passages, especially when read aloud, became increasingly awkward and often unclear. Dialogue was the real victim here, as conversations rarely approximated an exchange between two native speakers, except in very short instances.

Here is a sample, "You're seem to happy to be true. Did you get asked out by the girl of your dreams or something? You look like you swallowed a rainbow of smiles."

Now, really imagine saying this out loud to someone…

All said, practice approaches perfection and the writer put forward a lot of hard work; it's noticeable and it’s admirable. Thank you for putting your work out here.

Loved it, loved it, loved it, loved it, absolutely LOVED IT! That game is easily one of the best I've played in ages. Definitely understand why Miz had to take your game out of the contest. You completely obliterated the competition!

Now for the mean bit. The game is very clearly rushed. It's completely littered with spelling and grammar mistakes and needs a good two or three proofread to get rid of them all. Also, while the first couple of stages of the jungle are fantastic and the last couple of stages are an emotional rollercoaster, a lot of the middle stages felt kind of bland and I was disappointed by how little I actually used my dreampowers after the first couple of rounds (but then I guessed you were rushed for time by the competition's deadline, so I'll give you a pass for that.)

Now for the good stuff. Fully fleshed out and interesting characters, great puzzles to solve, some incredibly beautiful scenery and experiences as well as some very moving emotional scenes. To top it off, the plot was absolutely gorgeous! A game set in a dream world is just super, super imaginative and I really think you did a great job of exploring all the weird and wonderful things you can do with such a unique setting.

Got to say that the actual ending of the game was kind of disappointingly anticlimactic, but to be honest, I'm not even sure if I got the real ending. It didn't say "Epilogue" like some of the others. Going to have to play through the game again and see if there's a "true ending" I'm missing out on.

In the end, I rated this an 8/8. While there are a lot of flaws with the game that made me feel I should've rated it a 7, in the end I decided to rate the game based on how much I enjoyed it, and I enjoyed it a LOT. ^_^

love it

nice

Just amazing.

Hehe, I reached the last stage; I became a dreamventurer!! Great read overall andI love the puns. Dreaminal and all. I did the Rick sub plot, fun stuff.

Dreamtruder is an exceptional storygame with few flaws. I highly recommend you take the time to read it. It's somewhat childish in the tone and characters, but this isn't a bad thing it simply means that it's appropriate for all ages (in fact, this should be made required reading for all the children wandering the website and publishing 1k garbage stories). The plot is even split into easy-to-swallow chapters!

Also, while the writing is childish in tone, it's still good. It's descriptive and interesting, with few typos.

The inclusion of items is relatively good, but I didn't find any situations in which the consciousness point power was useful or even could be used. Otherwise, the dreampowers I picked felt useful, but in later stages there were no opportunities to use them. It would be cool to see more options.

Each stage feels unique, and it feels like each one also has a different impact and overall progression. There's a wide variety of puzzles (or puzzle-like problems) throughout the story, at least one in each stage, and they were entertaining, cool, and didn't get boring. I feel like they added a fun aspect to a number of the stages that kept them from getting stale. In addition, the aspect of choice is still present in the stages, because most challenges have a number of ways to go about them, and this even unlocks new epilogues. Unfortunately, these epilogues feel like improper conclusions to the story, so I just moved past them. It would be cooler if they unlocked additional epilogues when you finished the main story.

The side path I went down was good, and I feel like alternating between a stage of the Jungle and a real-life plot segment was a very good way to pace the plot and also build suspense.

The story also built on itself, with a lot of references to previous stages and rewarding you with little things if you remember well. You also see a lot of character development as Dramer applies knowledge he learns from the Jungle in future problems. For example, the lion from Justice is referenced in Growth. Spoiler: Roland unintentionally revealing himself as an imposter was a good inclusion and another cool example of this.

There's only a few issues that I have with this story (spoilers): Introducing all three side characters on what is basically one page is confusing, and especially so because of their similar names. Loss also felt like a largely irrelevant stage, because it's obvious (or at least it felt like this to me) that none of the losses would persist in the real world, or have any impact. This makes the stage feel largely pointless, because you don't actually have to consider your choices or get immersed in this stage. The emotions that Dramer has at this point feel forced for this reason. Is he really so stupid that he can't tell that the Jungle won't influence reality? I also dislike the introduction of shadow creation in what is basically the last 15% of the story. It just feels random and tangential to both the main plot and the side plot.

Overall, this is a very good story, combining both game and story elements in a smooth way, and is worth a read for everyone!

great story and fun idea. I cant wait to do more.

I really think this is one of the best games on the entire site.

I'd play a whole game just about being a dream director even without all the rest of it.