DQ Dream Quest

This page is the basis for the design doc of Dream Quest. All sub-pages will use the prefix DQ.

Dream Quest is a procedurally-generated adventure survival game based on a novel by H.P. Lovecraft: The Dream Quest for Kadeth.

Outline

The player will go on a lengthy adventure through dreamland, searching for "Unknown Kadeth in the Cold Wastes". The game is open-ended, the player could instead choose to simply explore dreamland, or find a quiet corner to live in peacefully.

If the player does follow the plot, they will need to travel extensively through dreamland, looking for clues to the location of Kadeth, while surviving and avoiding dangers.

Game Areas

The game has 3 main areas: the waking world, dreamland, and the underworld(will need to re-read the story to find the right name for that last one).

In order to successfully "beat" the game and find your way to Kadath, the player will need to explore both the waking world and dreamland, whilst trying to avoid the underworld(and occasionally having to escape from it).

Waking World

Should look drab and uninteresting(you dream to escape it, after all). The character lives in a well-appointed apartment. The character has some friends and can meet other dreamers in the waking world and obtain information from them. Additionally, where you choose to sleep in the waking world effects where you appear in dreamland, and the waking world has "hard" paths in and out(actual gateways one can walk through).

There are pittfalls, of course: if the player chooses to sleep in public spaces, they risk being awakened by passers by, police, etc. Players who sleep in odd places can end up in prison, hospitals, even in the morgue!

Any time the player "dies" in dreamworld, they are returned immediately to the waking world. There is effectively no "death" in the game, only the loss of progress, since going to sleep will nearly always leave them someplace new in dreamland.

Waking/Dream Correspondence

By and large locations in the waking world do not correspond to those in dreamland. There are fixed portals, but two may be right next to each other in the waking world but go to completely unrelated locations in dreamland. In general, the type of place you choose to sleep has some impact on where you enter dreamland. Sleeping in your bed at home will typically take you back to the same general area after a few attempts. Sleeping in warm, comfortable places takes you to warm, comfortable dreams, while sleeping in alleys and gutters might leave you in less pleasand parts of dreamland.

Much like dreamland, the waking world will be divided into it's own zones.

Technology

The game-world will be procedural generated, using either first or third-person perspective.