LSD: Dream Emulator
Also known as: LSD | LSD:DE | Dream Emulator
In LSD the player navigates through a psychedelic dream world. The idea is simply to walk around and explore things in a dream environment. There are many strange environments in this world, and one way to travel through them is by foot. However, if the player bumps into walls or other objects in the game, they will be transported to another environment instantaneously through a system called "linking". Bumping into people, animals, or special objects usually results in a stranger dream. Each dream can last up to 10 minutes, after which the player will 'wake up', when the screen fades away and the player is sent back to the game's initial menu. However, if the player falls off a cliff or into a hole in the dream, then the player will wake up immediately. There is a graph that appears at the end of each dream that keeps track of the player's state of mind; the states are Upper, Downer, Static and Dynamic, as referring to the environments and the general feel of the dream the player just went through. Past states may have effects on later dreams.
SimulationAdventure
Single Player
Description
LSD: Dream Emulator is an exploration game that has been described as a "playable dream" in which the player explores surrealistic environments without any overarching goals. Gameplay takes place in a first-person perspective in a 3D environment with the player's control limited to moving frontward and backward, turning, strafing, running, and looking behind. The game is played in short sequences or "dreams" lasting up to ten minutes. The player begins each dream in a random area they can begin exploring. By bumping into any object or walking through certain tunnels, the player will be transported to another setting. LSD has a set of several static and defined environments to explore including a Japanese village, a field, a city, a house, and others. While the environments are static, the default textures are sometimes swapped and they may also be populated with random objects, animals, and characters roaming about to add variety. Each dream will end after ten minutes or will end early if the player interacts with certain objects or falls off a cliff.
After each dream, one "day" passes in the game, and the dream the player just experienced is marked on a graph. The graph rates dreams in relation to being an "Upper", "Downer", "Static", or "Dynamic" dream. As a player plays through more and more dreams, the game adds more variety to the dreams by changing textures more often. This results in the environments becoming more surreal and psychedelic. Sometimes when starting a new dream, a surreal video is played instead of a playable dream. After 20 in-game days, a "flashback" option appears on the main menu which allows the player to experience an abbreviated version of the last dream they played. There is a man that wanders the dreams that, if touched by the player, prevents the player from using the flashback option after that dream.