Description
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 what just serves as filler.
Dialogue is straightforward, with no options, but still required to advance in the game (to find new locations, for instance). In situations where many adventure games usually 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 game also contains a few scenes with graphically explicit sexual situations.
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, providing a complete background to the events leading to the start of the game.
User Reviews
The Press Says
| Retrogaming History |
Jun 22, 2010 |
8.5 out of 10 |
85 |
| Computer and Video Games (CVG) |
Dec, 1994 |
  |
83 |
| High Score |
Jan, 1995 |
4 out of 5 |
80 |
| Joystick (French) |
Oct, 1994 |
80 out of 100 |
80 |
| Bordersdown |
Mar, 2006 |
7 out of 10 |
70 |
| MikroBitti |
Dec, 1994 |
68 out of 100 |
68 |
| PC Player (Germany) |
Nov, 1994 |
66 out of 100 |
66 |
| Adventure Classic Gaming |
Dec 11, 2006 |
2 out of 5 |
40 |
| Adventure Gamers |
May 23, 2008 |
 |
30 |
| Quandary |
Apr 14, 1995 |
|
20 |
Forums
Trivia
Censored version
In some countries, a "censored" CD version was released. One of the slight changes made was the assassination of David Crane. In the floppy and uncensored CD versions of the game, he is naked and having sex with a woman. In the censored CD version, however, he is wearing shorts.
Controversy
Make no mistake, this game is violent. It also became the focus of attention in '94 because it contained a single sex scene. It was banned for supposed 'sexualised violence' in Australia.
Manual
Dreamweb came with a manual called
Diary of a Mad? Man including a diary with the thoughts and rantings of Ryan, the character you play. The diary also plays an important role in completion of the game since there are vital hints in it.
References
- The second person you have to kill is called Sterling. Bruce Sterling is one of the most famous cyberpunk novel writers.
- The number of Louis' apartment is 42, taken from Douglas Adams' classic The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
- Eden's personal notepad is made by a company called "HAL", an obvious nod to Kubrick and Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Soundtrack
An audio CD with the soundtrack was released in 95. It contains ten tracks, remixes, based on MODs, which were used in game.
Awards
- Computer Gaming World
- November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) –#12 Worst Back Story of All Time
Information also contributed by
Apogee IV,
Banjo,
Emanuele Ravasi,
Jaromir Krol,
Jeanne and
Virgil
