Post by Totgeburt in re:Dreamer comments

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Beware! This post contains HEAVY spoilers. The warning has been given.(And sorry for my bad english, but it is clearly not my native language)

So, I played all routes now of the 0.16.1 version, so I think I should give some review/conclusion to this work in progress game:

First and foremost: I really enjoyed the game so far and everytime one of the storypaths ended I was sad that there is not more story yet to explore. To be honest, when first starting the game I assumed a lot more porn and a lot less story but I got surprised by it in a very good way.

I played every path with the same c.h.e.a.t.s. which were 455452 and I think I haven't understood their meaning to the gameplay completely till now. I guess I should experiment with this mechanic a lot more in the future.

Every one of the paths has its unique style with its own merrits and flaws and I will get to them in single replys to this post as well as some other parts of this review.

Totgeburt2 years ago(+1)(-1)

The "Pre-Game":

Before you can choose a path you have to navigate through half a day of the main characters daily life. And here we come to one of my main issues I have with the story so far:

The main character Zack is often times annoying as hell. Him constantly zoning out to get lost in his own thoughts thinking about all kinds of stuff an meanwhile lecturing ME THE PLAYER about it is really really boring as well as his life as a college student with all his super boring classes.

This is a constant part of the game so far which I don't think is any kind of fun at all.

I am playing kind of an adult game in an anime style here.

If I want to be lectured about science, engineering, history or whatever topic I would spent my time learning about this stuff instead of playing a Visuell Novel.

But really, I don't care at all about this shit and I got super frustrated about it always interrupting the story I actually were enjoying whilst playing the game. Maybe you can dump it a bit by using other c.h.e.a.t.s. but I highly believe most of this comes no matter how you create your character.

If I hadn't clicket through the first half of the first day to actually see some adult stuff, I swear I had shut down the game the moment the second class had started.

And to be frank: Every other route I tried after the first one I skipped through the first part of the game as well until Icould make the choice wich path I want to choose.

Lucky me being kind of experienced with low starting Visuall Novels.

So please consider this part of the game the get changed because it is really boring and I see a lot of players shutting the game down before it really gets good because of this part.

With all that said I will come to the different paths:

Totgeburt2 years ago

The first path I choose by accident (meaning not knowing which decision so far is important to alter the story) was the "telling no one about the gender bender". I was surprised that the decision to "not make someone my re:Dreamer-buddy right now" will lead to a mind collapsing situation.

I really enjoyed the story, especially the elements of lovecraftian horror and the really nice written BJ scene between Zoey and Haze, which made the feelings of Zack/Zoey as understandable as they feel realistic to me. I felt I could relate to Zack/Zoey in this situation a lot and this comes from a streight male so congrats on achieving that.

As I told in a first post I have written here on this site, the only thing that has bothered me a bit was the implication in one scene that being upright and ready to endure whatever fate has brought on was considered to be male behaviour whilst being frightened and starting to cry was considered female behaviour. To me that felt wrong. It was not the story, but the telling of it in this one scene what has bothered me, but I think it is not a big deal at all.

The story is great and I hope I can continue it as soon as it is written to an end someday in the future.

Totgeburt2 years ago

The second path I choose was the "tell my mom" path.

I really liked it in most of its outcomings, especially the acceptance of Zoey/Zoe being a female born in the wrong body but now owning a perfectly fitting body.

Yes, Samantha is a really complicated and exhausting character to be with most of the time and yes I think the problems I have with the main character and all him/her lecturing me about stuff I really don't care about are kind of doubled in this path but I thought it was fun having Samanthas company and learning so much about Zoey/Zoe and why she is as she is including his/her family background to some extend.

Really well written story so far and again I hope to be able to play it to an end someday because I enjoyed it.

Totgeburt2 years ago

The third path I choose was the Keisuke path.

This one I guess was the most fun path and the one with the most and also most enjoyable sex scenes in it.

I guess this is the kind of storytelling most people expect when running the game for the first time and playing through the whole boring first part before the gender bender.

I really think Keisuke is an enjoyable character who complements Zack/Zoey in a lot of ways.

The weird lovestory between him and Zack/Zoey is fun to watch.

I am a huge fan of kinky romance Anime with a weird story and the Keisuke-path fits perfect for my tastes.

Totgeburt2 years ago

The Britney path was the last I played and to be honest the one I enjoyed the least.

Britney is a character which I feel is exhausting to follow in almost every single way except her good looking. But this is not my biggest concern. My biggest concern whith this path is, that I think it is really boring in a lot of ways especially after playing the other paths.

If I felt often times annoyed by Zacks/Zoeys everyday college routine and his/her inner monologues I think it is the worst or let's say the least I can tolerate at the Britney path.

The story besides the college is kind of boring too, with the church thing and all.

What I mostly enjoyed were the phone calls with Zacks parents and everything else which gave more insight about characters and events mentioned in the other paths of the game.

Also I had the pleasure to enjoy a bug after the arcade hall scene. Everytime since the minigames happened, I got an explanation of the minigames manuals when I loaded a savestate. Yes, it doesn't matter which savestate I loaded since then as long as it was a safestate of the Britney Path after the Arcade Hall and yes it happaned even after shutting down the game or my PC.

Here are two pictures of this bug:

Totgeburt2 years ago

So, what else is to say about the game so far?

One thing I am wondering about is the problem the main character has with just accepting to be a female, even with high stats in Control and Trans.

If I could wish for something in this game than it would be the option to let the main character accept her new body and herself being a woman really fast. Maybe in a way she would try to win re:Dreamer not to become a male again but to stay as a woman without repercussions like having no ID or losing her memory if she tells someone she is female now.

If this will not be part of at least the Britney path and the Keisuke path than it should be at least an sixths path after the upcoming Rich path I don't know anything about so far.

After a lot of critique let me just say this for the last time:

Despite a few things which I consider not to be at my personal tastes I really enjoyed playing the game so far and I really hope the work in progress finishes soon to become a wonderful game I can enjoy alot in the future.

Thanks for all your work and be proud of what it is now and what it can become in the future!

DreamTeamStudioDevs2 years ago(+1)

Hey, thanks for the ton of feedback!

First, can you upload your save files somewhere so I can track down that bug? They should be in your Users/<USERNAME>/AppData/Roaming/RenPy folder, and that would be very helpful to reference to fix this.

The changelog has a lot to say about why Zach doesn't just accept himself as a woman so early on (Ctrl+F from "This is as good of a place as any to state that").

If you want more context to see how Zoey would end up accepting herself as a woman and don't mind spoilers, the entire Britney outline has been made public and is written in very full detail.

Totgeburt2 years ago

To my embarassment I don't have the files from which I took the screenshots from anymore.

But I have 3 other safefiles from the Britney path with the Bug showing up.

Here is a link to download them:

https://www.transfernow.net/dl/20230917r8jhJ6se

I hope these are the correct safefiles. They were hard to find because they don't were in the directory you suggested ^^''

DreamTeamStudioDevs2 years ago(+1)

Neither my producer nor I were able to replicate the glitch, but we think we have tracked down what caused it and fixed it. Thanks for helping out!

itch.io

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