DreamWeb
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A gritty top-down cyberpunk adventure I never played. Think leather jackets, gore, and madness. Count me in!
I recall big magazine ads and some reviews talking about pixel-hunting for cigarette butts and the entire affair being “nothing for children”. Naturally, I wanted even more to play it back then but, alas, it never was to be.
Fast forward to 2012 when the original creators released the floppy version as freeware. Is there any other version? I do no know. All I know is that it came with a accompanying novella, “The Diary of a (Mad?) Man” and I heard that it’s a) recommended reading for the game and b) actually well written!
To wet your appetite (or the opposite) here are some screenshots I found:
I tried to play this a few years back. It seemed to have a lot of potential, but it’s extremely unforgiving as I recall. You can pick up pretty much every inconsequantial bit of rubbish and put it in your inventory. I think you can even pick up individual peas that have dropped on the floor in one room. I never knew which items mattered and which didn’t. I eventually got into a point of no return where I’d get shot and die as I stepped out of an elevator.
I’d be willing to go back to it. The art was super cool, the cyberpunk vibe was nice, I think the music was pretty good too.
100% talk about this game! I remember playing the demo of this on the Amiga, and then playing the Full game for PC.
Really stuck with me with a great atmosphere. Would love to talk about it too!
PixelProphecy, do you know the music album DreamWeb by Mind In A Box? I discovered it about 10 years ago, and loved it.
I’ve no idea if the DOS game was a souce of inspiration for the album, but it also has these cyberpunk vibes in the story which is told through the 12 tracks.
There’s a CDRom version (I got mine in the early 2000s, the Virgin White Label edition).
It’s not a great adventure game (some mechanics are pretty questionable) BUT it does a lot of things pretty well – the music is great (used to have a rip on my laptop), the story really tries to do something way beyond what most other companies did at the time and by the end you really feel kinda trapped by the situations that brought you there… As you should. It did a lot of things differently, took some risks and at the very least came out with an interesting game.
I was browsing the forum to see if anyone had already recommended Dreamweb…
I think I’ve finished it a couple of times since it was released. I probably used some magazine’s walkthrough the first time when it was published because it’s far from being the classic Lucas/Sierra adventure game and as a kid it was surely too difficult for me. There are dozens of objects to pick up and only a few are really needed, there are several ways to die,… but on the other hand, it’s quite a nice different game. It creates a great atmosphere and the story felt quite “cyberpunky”and cool.
I came across this one via a post on Mastodon recently and thought it looked really fascinating. I’d be interested in giving it a play, it’s so atmospheric and unusual! No idea if it plays well, though.
https://dialup.cafe/@vga256/113400165463171528
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