Aja on 17/6/2008 at 03:28
I actually discovered this game because Ken Ishii did some music for REZ, and Wikipedia was kind enough to point out the connection ;)
But yeah I'm scared of the man in the hat too. I don't know how many days in you are, but I believe he does actually serve a purpose (sort of). I'm at Day 165, and still seeing new phenomena. The game encourages you to explore and try different things. If you do the same stuff over and over, eventually your dreams will become stale. If you follow unusual paths, you're more likely to encounter some very strange things. And I still haven't had a single dream anywhere near the far edge of the Static or Dynamic sides; they've all be crowded between Uppers and Downers.
ps - if anyone else wants the game, I'll be glad to send it, but not until next week (I'm out of town till next tuesday, and probably won't have net access)
Neb on 9/7/2008 at 17:11
I still really want to play this, but I'm without a computer right now. :(
It died.
gunsmoke on 9/7/2008 at 18:09
Do you need one? I have a bunch sitting around, and I would be willing to donate one to you.
Aja on 19/7/2008 at 22:10
Day 276 here, and though things are starting to get stale, the game still surprises me now and then. And my graph is still predominently populated in the upper/downer axis, I've only had a few stray static and dynamic dreams. I think it's somehow keeping track, though. Loading takes longer, and I seem to go through periods in which certain things happen repeatedly, and then later stop happening altogether.
demagogue on 19/7/2008 at 23:34
I was browsing some indie games and found that someone made a 2007 remake of this called
Soup: (
http://www.indiegames.com/features/index.php?c=ad&y=2007&gid=13)
It's funny that I only read about LSD from this thread the day before I found it ... otherwise I wouldn't have given it a second look.
It doesn't compare to the original ... but hey it's small and free.
I do think, though, that there's potential in somebody doing a proper spiritual successor to this ... If somebody took the core idea, added a little "apparent direction", and kept things evolving and fresh as the game went on, even the outline of a dreamlike "story" being played out to a kind of "conclusion" (if you're paying attention), sort of Mulholland Drive like, or even a "situation" broken up into dreamy/nightmarish pieces, it could really be something special, even revolutionary, especially if you took advantage of newer technology.
Well, I guess I could try it...
Aja on 20/7/2008 at 05:02
i'm workin on it
demagogue on 20/7/2008 at 06:50
Some of the Japanese writing, just to give an idea (UTF-8 encoding should show these)
"Ground" (地) is the one usually on the ground, "corner" (角) pointing to the corner, and I've seen "bean" (豆) on some walls. Edit: The characters coming out of the mouths include "star" (星) and "capital" (京).
The white puffy guys with the red-heart centers have the character for "womb" (胎).
The walls have sort of phrases ... let's see "赤茶け砂に" = "in the red-brown sand", "服がいい" = "the clothes are good"... "ここはデパ一トの度上" = "Here is the department store's upper-level."
The book with the "Maiko girls" says "京都舞妓ガ−ルズカムカムエブリバディ" "Kyoto Maiko girls. come, come everybody." or more like "grlz. kum kum evryb0dy." Lots of other stuff, but you get the idea.
I'm going to dig around the Japanese forums and see what else I can dig up on the game.
There are a few other Japanese games in this sort of vein, where there isn't a clear MO and you're walking around letting the world be its (unexpected) itself ... Cosmology of Kyoto and Artificial Girl come to mind. It's a great mechanic when you let it sink in, and they've done it well, but still lots of potential there.
Aja on 20/7/2008 at 07:28
Quote Posted by demagogue
The white puffy guys with the red-heart centers have the character for "womb" (胎).
That's very unsettling.
Thanks, though; I was hoping to find someone who could translate. Occasionally I run into a floating head who opens its mouth and spits out a single character. Next time I see it I'll jot it down, but if you come across it I'd love to know what he's trying to tell me. There are also some dreams that consist entirely of a single page of japanese text. I can pick out a few random characters, but nothing that would tell me what it actually reads.
I really wanted some more info on the game as well; specifically, what is required to hit the different sectors on the graph (and what the game does and doesn't keep track of), but I could only find the single thread on selectbutton. No one else is talking about the game. I'd be extremely interested to hear what you find out from the Japanese forums. Someone did mention Cosmology of Kyoto, and I found it on underdogs, but I have yet to install or play it.
(and I am actually trying to create a kind of design doc for a new LSD-type game with a few interested friends -- of course i wouldn't present it or ask for help until we have something more substantial)
demagogue on 20/7/2008 at 08:12
Ok, I'm starting to hit pay-dirt with the Japanese sites.
It'll take me a while to sort through them, but here's a good start ... you can follow the links, and Babelfish has its occasional epiphanies:
Main fan site, apparently: (
http://homepage3.nifty.com/rose_au_monde_club/LSD/index.htm)
Forum discussions: (
http://homepage3.nifty.com/rose_au_monde_club/LSD/2ch_kako.htm)
And here's one in English:
(
http://www.mac.kadath.org/Game.html)
A few things I've picked up ... the dream of the black screen with just white text is definitely entries in the dream diary. They're listed on the Jpnse site.
The main areas you visit are (and there's the familiar world map labeled on the Japanese page):
* 明月荘 - "Shining Moon Inn"
* バイオレンス街 - "Violence Street" (or Violence District)
* 寺院 - "temple"
* 京都 - "Kyoto"
* ハッピータウン - HappyTown
* 自然界 - Natural World
Plus some more special areas (like the black and white area, etc).
There is an "ending" movie (.../etc/ending.str - エンディングのムービー), not necessarily of the game ... I haven't figured out what it is.
More to come.
edit:
Quote:
Occasionally I run into a floating head who opens its mouth and spits out a single character.
I misspoke above about some of these being on the wall and fixed it. There are a few others though.
Aja on 21/7/2008 at 20:14
Thanks again, demagogue. I spent the last several hours trawling through those sites, grasping at Babelfish's obtuse translation. I've seen a few things in my game undocumented in any of the sites (so far as I can tell, at least). I've also spent a while trying to extract the music files; the english site claims 250 "patterns" exist, but for all the weird japanese/english toolsets I've tried, I can't even locate the files, let alone decode them.
There was one instance in the game where my graph covered both the eyes and the mouth of the face, and I was treated to a succession of nearly every video in the game. I've seen them all but the falling leaves (I accessed it using PsxMC), which I think is probably triggered through something I haven't yet found.
Also, I finally earned a spot to the far left of the graph, but it seemed to replace one of my earlier spots, one which was closer to the center (but still pretty far left). I wonder if the squares can expire over time... and since I already triggered one event through the graph, I wonder if others could be activated by filling in different parts -- the red squares, for example.
This game is fascinating, mostly because the programming is so transparent: I never know if my dreams are the result of my actions or not.
