This is something I'd like to ask about:
Are there plans to implement some sort of reward or progression system based on dream completion? Because I feel that's the biggest thing the WIP builds are lacking: Any sort of payoff or sense of progress.
For example, when the dream hub is added, maybe you could unlock new features based on puzzle completion. Like completing the manor gets you Jessica's mirror that you can use to customize your appearance. Or the lab gets you a gadget that lets you manipulate pregnancy mechanics (Or even make yourself pregnant lol). Something like that. A carrot at the end of the stick to say "yay you did it".
The problem isn't lost on me. Here's how I envisage this working:
-Lesser puzzle/areas/exploration will yield colored orbs, these will function as currency for visual changes and gallery-like functionality. Though I'm sure I've talked about this already.
(older areas have some of these all over the place, though their location and types were mostly filler and will change)
-Each area will have one intermediate difficulty sequences that will produce a story item and progress the plot. I probably shouldn't talk more about that. (new area already has a filler item for this, you won't need them immediately but it will be helpful to know how to get them with ease, which brings up the next point)
-Difficult, more involved sequences target to simplify existing exploration, allowing the player greater access to the area. (i.e getting Lv4 card would let you check the password, which in future lets you operate the console without any card, allowing to skip several sequences and circumvent a number obstacles. It also lets you view some scp-like logs at the moment, though I don't know how much that qualifies as a carrot.)
In the Looping Woods dream, this is achieved gradually as you learn about the mechanics more. At first you have to get the fragile key from the slime, then you find out where another one is hidden, then you find a use for both of them, then you might decide you no longer need both of them.
Several other considerations:
-Nightmares will be locked initially,and will be unlocked when you (fail to) accomplish certain things throughout the dreams, after which they'd be added to the pool. I don't intend to make these excessively hidden, and just casually progressing should yield results.
-I've restructured how body changes function. Most passive changes revert the shape to normal for both waking version and dream version with 1 highest delta difference being overwritten. However certain encounters, actions or sequences now increase the minimum size threshold. So as an example interacting with the Squidrabbit will increase the minimum hip size limit 1, and won't go lower upon waking up.
Adding an expandable ceiling threshold might also be a valid reason to see through stuff, though I'm not sure how I feel about that.
Hopefully this collect-them-all approach will add some entertainment.
Like the other dream areas it looks pretty, has good animation, but it's such a chore to play through. Everything is so annoying to figure out and it doesn't feel rewarding when you do. This goes for the main game as well, but there's way too much downtime when a dream ends before you're able to try again, especially if you were making progress and now have to redo everything (bonus annoyance if you had to rely on RNG to get there in the first place, like the manor).
If this area was a part of the main game I wouldn't try to get through it again, I'd look up a walkthrough. Even the "tree" you can talking to is invisible, and I only discovered it existed by wandering around mashing Z.
These trees are visible at night. I thought it would be helpful to make them invisible during the day, rather than deactivating them entirely, thus letting players that know skip the day-night shift process. I didn't consider someone would just go around press z everywhere. Other than that I don't know what to tell you. A walkthrough removes gameplay altogether.