Ryan, ein Barkeeper in einer dystopischen Zukunft, leidet unter Albträumen und Visionen, bis ihm eines Nachts ein Mönch erscheint und von den sieben Bösen erzählt, die das Traumnetz bedrohen. Der Mönch erklärt, dass Ryan der Befreier ist, der das Netz verteidigen soll. Verzweifelt will er, dass die Träume aufhören, und nimmt die Mission an, erwacht jedoch in kaltem Schweiß neben seiner Freundin und kommt zu spät zur Arbeit. DreamWeb ist ein Top-Down-Abenteuerspiel, das in einer düsteren Stadt spielt, wo der Spieler durch Klicken mit Objekten und Personen interagiert. Ryans begrenzter Inventarplatz zwingt den Spieler, strategisch auszuwählen, was nützlich ist. Der Dialog ist direkt, jedoch wichtig für den Fortschritt. Oft muss Ryan töten, um zu überleben, was zu moralischen Konflikten führt. Die Geschichte wird in einem 40-seitigen Tagebuch von Stephen Marley ergänzt, das Ryans Abstieg in den Wahnsinn beleuchtet.
Ryan, a bartender from a dystopian future can't sleep peacefully for months. His nights are sequences of nightmares and strange dreams, days with frequent black-outs with strange visions, until one night a figure in monk attire appears to him, and tells him the story of the seven evil ones, uniting to destroy to Dreamweb, the only barrier between the world and darkness. The monk makes a proposition: Ryan becomes the deliverer: the one who would keep the Dreamweb safe by killing those who try to destroy it.
Descending into paranoia and just wanting dreams to stop, Ryan accepts the mission, then wakes up in a puddle of cold sweat, next to his beloved girlfriend in her house, and late for work. Again.
DreamWeb is a top-down adventure game set in a gritty futuristic/dystopian city. Each location takes only a small portion of the screen without panning (except an optional small zoom window in the corner that follows the cursor), with the player interacting with objects and people by simply clicking them. Ryan has a limited inventory space, and as a lot of objects can be picked up (many without any use), the player must rationalize what might be useful and just filler. Dialogue is straight forward, with no options, but still required to advance in the game (to find new locations, for instance). In situations where many adventure games often feature an indirect approach to solve a problem, Ryan often faces himself with situations where it's "killed or be killed", which result in deaths (sometimes of innocents).
The story isn't much developed inside the game, but the original release of the game included Diary Of a (Mad?) Man, a 40-page diary telling the descent of Ryan into madness, or his destiny, written by Stephen Marley provides a complete background to the events leading to the start of the game.
Français
DreamWeb est un jeu d'aventure sur Amiga. Vous incarnez Ryan, un barman au sommeil perturbé qui se voit confier une mission par un moine imaginaire : détruire les 7 esprits maléfiques à qui il doit ses étranges visions durant son sommeil. Ces derniers sont en effet unis pour détruire DreamWeb, la seule barrière qui sépare les ténèbres de son monde.