Jess Naous here!
Thanks to the beautiful hands of Reddit users and their millions of brilliant ideas seated in the hands of those who are too lazy to even consider it a good idea, I have come up with something brilliant.
Reddit has a subreddit specifically for those who believe they have a game-worthy idea but are far too lazy to ever put that idea to any kind of use. Then, people like me, use these ideas to absorb the most amount of inspiration we can.
Thanks to Reddit user, -Aone, I have been inspired to want to develop the concept of a game where we bring real life experiences into the game world. Now yes, this has been done a million times with a million different things, however I want to focus on the kind of real life experiences that you’re probably too scared to actually try and experience. And so, I would hope that this game, or games like this will give you an environment in which you can some-what experience these things, without putting yourself into the intimidating/scary and/or dangerous risks of actually doing these things.
At the end of the day, it will just be a game. And that will be important to remember.
I have been thinking about using the experience of lucid dreaming, as -Aonewanted this idea to be about, however Im not 100% sure I want to use this.
What I do know is that I want this game to just be an experience, no winning or losing. In saying that, I do want there to be goals, achievements, things to unlock and maybe even some puzzles/challenges. However I primarily want this to stray from the winning/losing concept. I want the gamer to just be able to experience, to put themselves in a new world.
I know this sounds awfully similar to VR (virtual reality), however I don’t want to produce this on an Oculus or any other VR system. I just want this to be a free, indie, desktop game where any random person can download and experience in minutes. I want this to be accessible.
This unfortunately is as far as I have gotten into the development of this concept, however I will keep you guys posted! By Week 5 I hope to have this game mostly mapped out, including characters, mechanics, goals and achievements sorts and how the game begins and ends.
Stay tuned!
-Jessicca Naous
Game Cultures 
Your idea brought to mind the 2012 game, Dear Esther. Now I would use the term game loosely since it’s more of a Virtual Experience.
If you want to see some gameplay see the link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=–LmQrsD6b0
The basic premise of the game is that you’re an anonymous character on an island which you can choose to explore however you like, and every different route sparks different narrations from the main character. Although the game is essentially just that, I’ll still never forget my first play through.
After exploring the island and some ocean caves, I emerged on another side of the island and it was night time. I could see a red blip in the distance, which I decided to follow. Soon I saw an ocean cliff with a small camp fire on top. Concentrating on the fire, I kept on walking closer… closer… closer… I blink, my stomach drops, chill runs down my spine… is that a ghost? *Hit Screen Shot* Keep walking forward and it disappears.
Still have the screenshot too: https://arevakov.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/untitled.jpg
The reason I bring up that analogy is that the game felt almost like a Lucid Dream, similar to your concept idea. It’s an experience that the player dictates, and an experience that is truly subjective, where every unique person will take away a unique story. If you’ve never played it I recommend trying it out for inspiration.
All the best for your project!
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Hey Jess! I like the sound of this game! I think it will be interesting to see what kinds of experiences you plan to incorporate and have the player experience. The concept of neither winning nor losing is also something that is highly appealing about your game design, it places full pressure on player immersion. I am interested in what the mechanics for this game would be in a desktop gaming setting, as I imagine that VR play would be the ideal way to experience this game. But your wanting to make the game accessible to all is admirable and highly appreciated. It’s great that you’re thinking about player expense. Well done!
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This is a really cool idea, and great resourcefulness thinking of reddit to help inspire you! Using the internet to it’s full capacity, I love it. I find it really admirable that you aren’t going the potentially ‘obvious’ route of VR for this concept, because it sounds to be really heavily focused on immersion and experience, not end goals and winning – like you said. I really look forward to seeing how you draw those sort of themes into a desktop game, perhaps with the imagery and sounds? I think some really ambient sounds with some good quality headphones would really help with a concept like this. Having some easter eggs or finding missions could also help with keeping players driven and as active participants.
You should check out this gameplay- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kKLHx9yuDc – it’s a dream based indie game (http://dreamthegame.co.uk/ ) as well but appears a bit more goal-oriented and ‘everyday’, so I can’t wait to see what potentially risky or dangerous things you slide into the game to shock the player.
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