I think my problem with LSD Dream Emulator is that it feels too much like a novel attack on the senses, with a heavy emphasis on psychedelia. That's the impression its music gave me anyway, along with a plentiful array of sound effects and the loudest footsteps imaginable. The irrationality of the subconscious is there and I appreciate that it functions as a dream would; with bumping into objects having a transportive effect and falls ending the cycle. Not to mention the dream chart, which classifies your dream placement, still remains cryptic to this day. But what connection these experiences have to a conscious mind can only be understood by its creator, or the dream diary's I should say. I don't know about you, but when I'm in a dream, it feels real to me in the moment and tends to involve people I know, as well as situations I'm consciously aware of or desire. I don't think there's much to piece together here, it's more of an atmospheric art gallery and a repetitive one at that. In other words, just watch ENA - Temptation Stairway.

Trippy novelty game that is more like an art experience than an actual game.
It somehow manages to evoke emotion out of you sometimes. For example, the dark street section always felt eerie to me and I was expecting to get jumpscared or run into something horrific everytime I found myself there. Another time I got freaked out was when I entered some kind of room with a strange device in the middle that was INCREDIBLY SIMILAR TO SOMETHING I ACTUALLY HAD A DREAM ABOUT.
I think it's a bit silly that the game expects you to play it everyday but eh, it's whatevz.

I would definitely recommend it to anyone just for the novelty of it, it's a neat experience.

We are the music makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;—
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.

insanely ahead of the curve for the time and still surprising and atmospheric years later. The structure is similar to more modern horror walking sims and reminds me of the video game (now trope) of the game itself being the antagonist, of how it feels like the dev is reaching out to scare you alone. I think its a horror game anyway, with sporadic jumpscares and disturbing images coming inbetween a pair of pants singing one note and little sumo men jumping around in the flesh room, which i didn't even know was in the game. its reputation is always set on its intrinsic sporatic imagery and not the time I found a couple dead guys on the side of a highway or came close to a street lamp just to find 4 people hung by their necks on it. Which at first was very creepy and surprising for a 1998 ps1 game, but after about 50 ingame days, the jumpscares start to get annoying. This game also brings you a specific type of loneliness I haven't experienced in games, with nothing in the game coming close to a real human or real environment, I feel more lonely because in other games, they either have the promise of people in the future (always with the happy endings) or the choice to be with people (BOTW) but I got notta. Other than the horror, the game kept me playing to just experience what else the game could serve up on its drug-stained mirror. finding a paper thin version of aura boreas in clown town, horses that spawn infront of you just to run away, a double rainbow forming over a waterfall in a broken plain, even hearing the wacky footstep soundeffects that would happen kept me going. But the game repeats so many rooms and that navigation isn't real, that finding new stuff becomes a chore; you start to out-dream the game, maybe if I get run over my the train in clown town, or follow the car that drove into the ocean I can get to a new area or variation. but 8/10 you dont and smack yourself until you get a new area. which i guess this the logical end point to a game that has no objective.

anyway, really cool to see a trendsetter in more modern video game horror, and tripping out, but leave before you get bored. i emulated it without a translation, but you can find one easy
"why do they call it lsd dream emulator? the d stands for dream"

I went into this like "ok time to do all 365 days!", but after 6 or so hours and ~75 days (plus another 20 I had to play through again because the game hung? So ~95) I feel like to keep going over and over would just ruin the experience. I was starting to tire of it! And what a shame that would be.

It's not a "game" like that; you don't really "complete it", maybe eventually you get to a full year, but I don't think that's the point. It's like a nice bonus if you come back for a whole year of emulated dreams. The ending on day 365 goes through the traditional symbols of a Hatsuyume. That is to say, it's a dream journal. Your dream journal.

It was really fun after the fact to go and see how the procedural generation worked, but in the process of playing through it I found it really easy to just want to sit and look at the scenery. I ended up taking a lot of photos. A single batch of those is here.

I think it's a cool vibey piece of digital art. It's something you can come back to and revisit. It's something I could pull up for an hour or two with friends if I was entertaining and let the ambiance play with people. If you let the menu sit for 10 seconds a video starts anyway — it wants to keep the scenery going, to set and maintain its tone.

Finally I want to point out just how unobtuse it is. The game doesn't want you to get stuck. It doesn't want to be a puzzle. It puts the atmosphere and mystique first and foremost and designed the entire game around the surreal traversal of the dream world. So you can't "lose", you can't have an obstacle in your way; it's all just ways of moving to another image, another set of symbols. Within its constraints over time the maps felt repetitive but the textures didn't. I felt like I would occasionally be given an exceptionally rare symbol in a sea of patterns.

I feel like in a sense it got a lot of mystique in the late 2000s/early 2010s when I was young, and it felt overrated for a moment? But I don't think it's scary or creepy. I think it's cool. Neat. Etc. It runs at like 12 fps at best too but don't think too hard about that.

It's manic and babbling, full of sudden scares, serene vistas, silly little guys, and ominous poetry. It's dream-logic at its finest with an elaborate and cleverly implemented system of hidden values and un-communicated mechanics keeping players from deciphering any patterns unless they dive in full force.

The game does have a rhythm based on what you encounter and what colors flash on screen, if it's on odd or even numbered day...only look into it if you're hunting for something specific or have already gone in quite a bit blind. But this game definitely capitalizes on the unique limitations of the PSX to make an experience that's timeless. There's a reason people fixate on it to such an extent.

One of my Resolutions for 2023 was to play LSD Dream Emulator per day, considering that the game takes place in a span of 365 days.

While I wasn't able to play through the game every day due to being busy, procrastinating, and more; I finally made up for it by reaching the end of the game and exploring the many dreams I was able to experience. This was one of the draining Resolutions of Last Year because I take advantage of logging my games with notes, and LSD is a great example of me going overboard noting the many changes on this chart that change each day you play into the game. Either being highlighted at a new or old spot and describing either an FMV or text-based dialogue. Some of the days would last either within 4-5 minutes, and would often last to the maximum of 10 minutes -- the longest time you can spend via a dream per day.

To describe my experience, it was a strange journey as I kept playing. What's unique about LSD is that it's different for every player due to how we explore many areas but with the slightest tweaks, and the chart being an indicator of the many dreams we'll explore in terms of its balancing. As I kept playing, I found my playthrough of LSD to slowly turn horrific due to how I was curious about the darker aspects of these dreams and why are we experiencing them -- only to be swayed off by disbelief of how it's about a person's Dream Journal adapted into a video game leading so many questions.

Despite not being able to finish it last year, I at least made up for it by finishing LSD Dream Emulator and seeing the end of it (which felt redeeming).

Photo compilation of my journey through LSD Dream Emulator, along with the chart that progressed until Day 365.

I honestly don't remember which taught me about video games as an art form first, LSD: Dream Emulator or Shadow of The Colossus... But anyway, I'll always appreciate this game for that, even if I didn't quite understand it at first (I remember a childhood friend in primary school talking about this game and I thought it was dumb hippie stuff, lol).

Coincidentally, I've just played a few dream logic games before this, and they didn't quite grab me. I think what LSD excels at is creating those dynamic unique moments, be it scary, bizarre, or beautiful. I guess those previous game felt a lot more linear... like there's a trail to follow, but at least to me, that's not really how it works in dreams. I mean, just a few days ago I had a dream where I was in Asgard(?), a golden city full of people, then the dream turned into a horror scene where I was being chased by a dark figure in a tunnel, which that figure turned out to be Orlando Bloom in a monster(?) suit. After, I remember an image of a car getting out of control, and I woke up hysterically laughing from that image. Pure nonsense, just like this game. Perfect.

Every one in a while I boot up this game just for a bit of nostalgia for the early youtube let's play circa 2008-2009 about this game. Played it myself back then and even if there isn't much to do, just running around and finding the cool hidden stuff brings me way back. It's always funny showing this game to friends and they start looking at you weird when you start explaining there is a world map and all the area are interconnected so you can freely explore every zone in the game.

It's fascinating how this silly game can bring so much joy to me for no reasons other than I associates a lot of random events in the game with childhood memories

I’ve held an interest in this game ever since I found out about it. There’s something about surreal artwork that’s always fascinated me and this is no different.

I love that artists like Osamu Sato, the creator of this game, have had the opportunity to realize their unique visions and at one time had the ability to release these niche products in a physical medium. I’d imagine it was as difficult for them to find financial backing for their projects as it was for auteurs like David Lynch or Alejandro Jodorowsky in their burgeoning years.

I suppose I’ve mastered or performed a 100% run since I completed a full year of in-game days, but who's to say what a completist run looks like in this game? Around day 45, I happened to trigger every(?) cutscene in the game. I could have stopped there, but even as the days wore on, I kept finding new things–whether they be textures, models, or music.

Overall, though, I think the game is more interesting conceptually than it is to actually pick up and play. To finish a year feels like an endurance test after a while. Once I triggered those cutscenes, I didn’t know if it was even worth continuing at all. What does the game mean, anyway? I felt like I was able to make some vague, semiconscious connections to certain settings and models, but I didn’t know if I was right or not. Maybe that's the point.

We know that in our dreams, we experience the familiar with the unfamiliar. We also know that dreams have been open to interpretation since the time of the ancient Mesopotamians to the time of Freud. Scientists have worked hard to uncover the neuroscientific secrets of sleep and, while much has been accomplished in the field, very little can explain our dreams.

Maybe Sato wanted to animate those concepts through this game–allow his audience to play a game like one dreams, on an automatic subconscious level.

Either way, I can’t say it was a bad experience. It gave me time to think and that’s always a good thing.

After 50 in-game 'days', I feel like I've run up against my limit with this fascinating thing. There's so much more to it than I was expecting, but ultimately not enough to sustain my interest for the ending that occurs after 365 days.

LSD is great! Abstract, unique, atmospheric, and makes tremendous use of multimedia; Osamu Sato brings his full artistic skillset, utilising filmmaking and compositional skills to craft fascinating short films which are intercut between the regular 'days'. The short film which played on day 2, disquieting and Twin Peaks-esque, was an early indicator that there was more to this game than met the eye.

There's not much to the actual 'game' part, which is a testament to how compelling and surprising LSD's mood and structure are. What feel at first like total nonsense begins to suggest a logic behind where you end up and what you see. The digital artistry is technically dated, but there's a surreal quality to them that feel very specific to the period. LSD is a wonderful thing to pick away at...

...until it isn't! Some people here seem to have managed to stay interested for the entire 365 days, but I feel like I'm not being surprised as often as I'd like. Best to stop here and reflect positively on the time I had rather than wring it dry and become jaded. I definitely recommend giving LSD a try if you're willing to go for something a bit more abstract and less goal oriented than your typical game.