Waking up in a Dream / Nightmare

[carbonpencil]

Finally you're warm and safe. You close your eyes for a few vital hours of sleep. Then you wake up in some dreamscape but you can't tell the difference until it's too late. If the dream wolf kills you while you sleep you wake up exhausted.

[odizzido]

It's an interesting idea but I am not sure how it could be done without either it being obvious it's a dream or players having to repeat large amounts of gameplay.

[carbonpencil]

Thanks. How about if the abilty to save game is disabled if the character is exhausted. Serves you right if you don't let the character sleep when they get so tired. That way they might enter a dream without even initiating sleep.  The goal then becomes to meditate back to a conscious awakening or push on to test their limits (in the dream) and then risk a random negative condition when awakening. And maybe with some Shamanic preparation you might stay in the dream for a long time.

Sorry for too much Inceptioning there but I feel that as a player you don't get a good sense of the limits of endurance until it's too late in the game. A dream could be a way to let players know what they should and shouldn't worry about.

Edited July 21, 2020 by carbonpencil

[oplli]

This is THE BEST idea ive ever heard of in like 3 years of following the wishlist. But what dreams are for? some scientist think it is to prepare yourself to somes dangers. it is a fact that 3/4 of our dreams contains a threat and it is to be able to react better if this threat happens in real life. it can be as obvious as a bear attacking you or less obvious as you girlfirend/boyfriend breaking with you. another effect that dreams have on us is that if something unrealistic happens in the dream for example walking on water,flying or sprinting fast (for example) our brain will not see the diference between reality and dreams beacause when we dream we have no critical mind. with that said in the long dark dreams, a threat should always happen, for example a wolf attack a bear attack, extremely cold temperatures etc (to be shure that we dont play too much in a dream without knowing it) and the second point is that some details of the dreams should always be unrealistic compared to the long dark mechanics for example: fires can burn even in blizzard, running do not consumes calories, aiming with a weapon is easy, fauna is not scared of you etc. (this would be to know at some point that you are in a dream and exploit it). another thing is that the dream would not have to last too long so for example a virual timer could start at the beginning of you dream and if you did not died at the end of the timer by the multiples threat that were in the dream, something really random could happen for example breaking your ankle and then suddently waking up.

 

adding a new and rare plant that can multiply your chances of dreaming if consumed before sleep could be nice.

[sonics01]

Good idea. Reminds me of Sunless Sea.

[Megaloceros]

This is an interesting idea! I think what would work best is during sleep a short Dream segment has a chance of starting, in which you "wake up" somewhere on Great Bear with some sort of immediate danger. The Dream map could be an illogical mishmash of different regions you've been to (i.e the Riken right next to Mystery Lake) and you have to dispell the threat (wolf, bear?) or, as you said, wake up exhausted. However it would not have to be a nightmare; I think dreams of just landscapes or animals walking would be nice even as cut scenes instead of the screen fading to black while you slumber. Nightmares might only happen if you'd experienced trauma recently.

My issue with the idea of Dreams in game is that players will be doing additional gameplay that would not contribute to survival in reality. In a survival situation, people might point out, the outcome of a dream won't affect your survival in real life, and thus it shouldn't in the long dark. But frankly not being able to sleep well is a real issue, and would likely occur to the player after so many harrowing experiences. 

 

[ManicManiac]

I think this would be a serious case of tonal whiplash.  Jumping back and fourth between The Long Dark and some surrealist approximation of the same game but in a "mini-game" type of interlude (I think) would be a mistake.

Edited August 31, 2020 by ManicManiac

[oplli]

On 8/31/2020 at 6:46 PM, ManicManiac said:

I think this would be a serious case of tonal whiplash.  Jumping back and fourth between The Long Dark and some surrealist approximation of the same game but in a "mini-game" type of interlude (I think) would be a mistake.

How i see this idea is not as a major game changer. it is more as an experience that you can have during the long dark ( a wonderful experience by the way) imagine waking up (in your dreams) and every game "rules" changes for the next couples of minutes and lets you play with it and experience it. lets say you are in pleasant valley walking near the farmhouse and then you see a hundreds of deers running towards you without noticing you and they just pass by you and then disapear slowly as they get further and futher away. it whould be that little minute that lets you back up a little bit on the reality of your survival and lets you enjoy the beauty of the long dark... before waking up and being eaten by a bear an hour later. and it is juste one example... it could be developped way more to a bigger thing who knows. we can do anything we want with dreams and thats the beaty of it.

 

now of course when i explain this it looks big and complex that is part of the problem. if dreams would be added in the future they would take a lot of space and gameplay time as i explain it wich is not the point. dreams would have to be something extremely rare (the type of dream that im talking about is lucid dreams wich make sense) you could only dream during long nights of sleep ad if you are in a good condition so the higher the difficulty is the less often you will experience dreams. i would not go for dreams that are longer than 5 minutes so it would not take that much space in your gameplay time .these are just idea and are not really a problem uif devs like the dream idea they will find good ways to make em not too long and not too often.

On 8/31/2020 at 6:35 PM, Megaloceros said:

This is an interesting idea! I think what would work best is during sleep a short Dream segment has a chance of starting, in which you "wake up" somewhere on Great Bear with some sort of immediate danger. The Dream map could be an illogical mishmash of different regions you've been to (i.e the Riken right next to Mystery Lake) and you have to dispell the threat (wolf, bear?) or, as you said, wake up exhausted. However it would not have to be a nightmare; I think dreams of just landscapes or animals walking would be nice even as cut scenes instead of the screen fading to black while you slumber. Nightmares might only happen if you'd experienced trauma recently.

My issue with the idea of Dreams in game is that players will be doing additional gameplay that would not contribute to survival in reality. In a survival situation, people might point out, the outcome of a dream won't affect your survival in real life, and thus it shouldn't in the long dark. But frankly not being able to sleep well is a real issue, and would likely occur to the player after so many harrowing experiences. 

 

unfortunately mixing maps could be a dangerous idea if it is random there could be so many map bugs and problems and if it is manually made it would take too much effort to the devs for a thing as little as the dreams even if i love this idea i dont think it would be doable.

I dont agree with the fact that dreams should not affect the real survival gameplay of course it would be illogical to make it affect major things but here my ideas :

you could wake up in three diferent dreams type

REALISTIC: looks almost like reality and you have to be attentive to realise your in a dream there are only some minor changes to the game rules...

UNREALISTIC : every game rules or almost have changed you can wake up in a blizzard and be a ble to run though it fast and then instantly the blizzards end leading to a day that last 20 seconds and then two nights one after another. this is a little bit crazy but definitely and experience i would like to have xD

SHORT : can be from 5 seconds to 1 min, anything can happen (a wolf/bear charging at you and winning the fight instantly (nightmare) or the dear example ive mentionned in the fist quote(could be a dream))

 

all of em can be nightmares or dreams (i made an example for the short dream) depending if you had trauma or not in the short past or if you have an injury while you are sleeping. first, dreams should'nt make you wake up exausted this is a terrible idea because it could literally lead you to death it is too much of a gameplay changer. so it should only decrease the effectiveness of sleep during nightmares and increase em during good dreams. i thaught about some bonus/malus efffects that you could get depending on how you got out of you dream and these could particulary work with the realistic type of dream. 

a bonus effect when you survive a wolf attack in your dreams could be that you effectiveness when fighting wolves could be increased during some time for example 24 hours and on the contrary if you lose your fight your effectiveness will decrease during 24 hours it takes me back to the fist time i wrote on this subject  when i explained what are the dreams for ( they are to prepare us in real life if a danger comes)

another idea is that if you kill a passive animal during a dream you will not be able to kill one during you gameplay for some time example 6 hours beacause it wasnt useful to kill this animal in the dream

 

This post looks more like a instruction manual to the devs than a brainstorming of ideas so i just wanna make that clear feel free to add your ideas or modify mines it is only my vision of the dreams.