DreamWeb (DOS)
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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.

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Screenshots

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Promo Images

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Part of the Following Groups

User Reviews

Am I evil?	Stijn Daneels (85)
What went wrong? You really don't know...	Katakis \| カタキス (42913)
A cyberpunk highlight in the history of adventure games	Apogee IV (2317)
Edgy, violent, gritty, confusing, moody... that's Dreamweb for you folks.	Zovni (10623)
One of the best atmospheric cyberpunk games ever released	Emanuele Ravasi (20)	unrated
Everything games are not anymore.	Sonic Terminator2 (3)
Ah, the mixed-bag that is edgy software...	Vance (101)
100 % pure atmosphere	n-n (55)

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Critic Reviews

Pelit	Aug, 1994	91 out of 100	91
Computer and Video Games (CVG)	Dec, 1994		83
Joystick (French)	Oct, 1994	80 out of 100	80
PC Games (Germany)	Dec, 1994	78 out of 100	78
PC Games (Germany)	Oct, 1994	76 out of 100	76
Gameplay (Benelux)	Dec 01, 1994	74 out of 100	74
The Retro Spirit	Nov 11, 2005	4 out of 6	67
Abandoned Times Magazine	May, 2009		60
ASM (Aktueller Software Markt)	Dec, 1994	7 out of 12	58
Adventure Gamers	May 23, 2008		30

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Forums

Topic	# Posts	Last Post
Release in the US	7	Edwin Drost (4391) Jun 17, 2017
Let's Play! Dreamweb	1	Silver Spook Sep 14, 2015
Freeware release	10	Daniel Saner (3423) Mar 11, 2013

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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.

Freeware release

On October 21, 2012 the game was released as freeware. The floppy version and six different CD versions (UK, US, French, German, Italian, Spanish) are available for download on the ScummVM website.

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. As of February 2021, both the game's manual and the diary are available from ScummVM as HTML files (along with the game's free download) and, separately, as low- and high-definition PDF scans.

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.