The Butterfly Dreams by Ave Q Production
Originally made for the SuNoFes 2024, which is a summer-long chill jam where you make Visual Novels. I claimed one of the community copies.
Made in RenâPy.
The Butterfly Dreams is a sci-fi game introducing the next big gaming tech: a virtual reality machine that brings the whole of you inside the game. No more clonky accessories or heavy headsets that give you nausea, just stick some patches to your head, and off you are to Dream Land. And while this invention, appropriately named Fantasia, is not yet available to the masses, you along with six other brilliant individuals from various fields are one of the lucky few to not just test it, but create.
You are introduced to each individual, through a short conversation (where you discover your name, Tom/Thomas), about who they are, their personality, their view on Fantasia, and what they might end up creating during this workshop. Through forced proximity, relationship blossoms and thoughts turn into concrete ideas. Or so your inner thoughts tell you, as the story doesnât linger enough for you [the player] to experience it yourself.
Still, the story must continue, and you âplayâ through everyoneâs creations, each relating pretty closely to their respective identity: the chef creates a virtual restaurant to test out ideas, the childrenâs author bring her characters to life, and the gamer revive old forgotten games.
Of course, nothing goes without a hitch, with one of the characters essentially breaking the machine (hinted at, but it didnât marinate enough to punchâŚ). But things are swiftly swiped under the rug - there are still creations to test after all, including yours!And this is when the âtwistâ appears. I use quotes here, because it really came out of the left field. This whole time you were playing everyone - with your identity and background never revealed, you could have been anyone, it just so happen youâre a conman for some reason. The complete change of tone between your thoughts and the confrontation feels to disjointed, I kept wondering if Iâd missed a whole section.
During my first playthrough, I didnât see any reason for Tom to be inculpated with some crime - you are so bland and boring, and no one ever ask you any question about yourself. So I went and checked out the other options of the few choices (only because others mentioned hints in comments), and still, the vibe felt the same. Maybe once? there was a whiff of you having some sort of plan? idea? but you could easily chalk it off as âwell, heâs just thinking of what to create for Fantasiaâ.
The only thing I can think of is Layna being curt and distant towards you. But thatâs not enough to make a mystery interesting.Itâs a shame, really, because simulations concepts, dream within a dream, and dystopian/cyberpunk-y takes on technologies are really fun, and you can make compelling critiques of society through those. Even conspiracies of nefarious agents using technology for evil is a tried and true trope. But youâre not given enough time to explore the setting here (exploring a whole mansion and being caught touching something you really shouldnât be touching, or finding someone doing just that), to interact with the characters and learn more about them (maybe even pit them against one another?) , to have them interact with you so you learn more about yourself (oh, why are you here, Tom? why are you special?). And in general, give time for the mystery to settle.
Slightly related, about using technology for wrong: there was a book of short stories I read a while back from the 60-70s, where telephone cabins were essentially turned into teleportation devices. Because those cabins were also installed in homes, the rate of burglary went up like crazy. And murder. SO MANY MURDERS. Man, I wish I rembered the name of the series, because I kept thinking of those short stories when the twist happened.
EDIT: actually, I remembered I wanted to note: all the sprites have butterflies in their designs. This was neat.