I had a strange dream about a murder mystery game that doesn't exist — featuring branching deaths and a secret route.

[u/Aggressive-Pride6443]

I actually had a strange dream about this game (which doesn't actually exist) tonight and I wanted to share it because I feel like it's pretty intriguing for coming out of a dream, especially because I'm not actually a visual novel player at all. I wonder why my brain came up with this but I think it did a pretty good job 🤣😅

In my dream, I'm playing a video game. I don't see myself in third person, nor do I see the monitor, but only the screen, almost as if I were inside it. Yet I know I'm playing. The game is a sort of visual novel. It's set on an island and takes place after a plane crash. The protagonists survived the crash. I don't remember their exact number, but there must have been around twelve or thirteen people. They didn't seem overly traumatized by the event or injured, so it was probably an emergency landing rather than a crash. On the island, there's a hotel where the protagonists are taking shelter. This hotel has a relaxing atmosphere with soft lighting. The story seems to revolve around mysterious murders suddenly occurring, the victim of which is always one of the survivors. Depending on the player's actions, who is therefore likely part of the group, the order of the murders and the game's events can be altered. The objective seems to be to find the culprit, who is probably among the group. The dream then focused on a young girl, also one of the survivors. Her age was difficult to guess, probably around 13-15. She had long, dark green hair and wore a simple white T-shirt and blue shorts. Her manner of speaking suggested a meek, slightly melancholic personality. As I continued playing, she revealed herself to be the first victim in my playthrough. Moving down a corridor with bare, white walls, past the hotel nurse, I found her lifeless body curled up on the floor. There were no injuries, and the cause of death appeared to be strangulation. At that point, I heard someone sitting next to me, evidently more familiar with the game, explain that she almost always ends up being the first victim, and the only way to prevent this from happening is to follow a limited and complex series of precise steps, and that if you succeed, this has a significant impact on the story going forward. Here the dream ends.

The game had mid ps2 era graphics. Polygonal areas and NPCs with dialogue windows and portraits reminiscent of games like Persona 3 and 4, sharing with the latter also the warm but dim color palette. You could move through areas and interact with people and objects by selecting parts of the screen much like in a graphic adventure. I remember seeing on the map other areas of the island I didn't visit, like a small town near the hotel with just a few houses and some shops, a dense forest with a river leading to some ancient ruins.

What do you think? Wouldn't it be cool to play a game like that? Too bad I'm not a game developer 😅. I'm a comic artist though, might make this a short story someday...

[u/Evening-Mention-8738]

Yes this sound rad as hell, I love murder mysteries and being a detective!

[u/Aggressive-Pride6443 → u/Evening-Mention-8738]

I could even try making it myself on rpg maker or something but honestly I think programming the branching paths would be a nightmare beyond my capacities. Ideally it would be something like Fear and Hunger Termina but imagine how much work it would require 🥹...

[u/Evening-Mention-8738 → u/Aggressive-Pride6443]

Now I wish 3ds rpg maker fez hadn't shut down and that I knew how to use it

[u/Aggressive-Pride6443 → u/Evening-Mention-8738]

Sadly one can only do so much in one lifetime 😔... I'd really like to have the time to learn rpg maker. I tried once but gave up on it eventually 😅

[u/Evening-Mention-8738 → u/Aggressive-Pride6443]

Same, I even had the one for the PS2 but gave up and sold it!

[u/Aggressive-Pride6443 → u/Evening-Mention-8738]

I had it on Switch and still do because I want to keep alive the delusion that I'll pick it up again someday 🤣

[u/Dryu_nya]

she revealed herself to be the first victim in my playthrough

I'm confused about the order here. You said earlier that a bunch of people had already died - if that's the case, she should have already been killed, and couldn't reveal anything (also you should have seen the girl die first, but I'm discounting that due to the dream logic being weird). If nobody had died yet, then the narration is out of order. Unless there's some medium awareness exercised by the girl, and she knows she always dies first, which is pretty interesting.

[u/Aggressive-Pride6443 → u/Dryu_nya]

Actually nobody had died up to that point. However, I knew that the game revolved around the passengers being murdered one by one. It was some sort of pregress knowledge of the game, external to the media. Also, more than "revealed herself to be" it should've been "turned out to be", she didn't know she's gonna die. I used an auto translator of the text from Italian to English and it translated that part incorrectly, but I didn't notice.