VN Ren'Py re:Dreamer [v0.18.1] [Dream Team Studio]

[Balbaar]

This went on for a bit longer than I meant to, so I don't blame anyone for not wanting to read all of this. I probably should've just added it as a review, which I might still do later on, but I wanted to give the dev the option to reply should they wish to do so.

I gotta be honest here... This game is pretty disappointing, and I'll explain why. The way the game starts off was so damn promising, I really thought I found the perfect gender bender game that's not just another generic anime style game where you sit through entire paragraphs of text while watching the same sprites change expressions every once in a while, sadly I was wrong.

How do you go from the very first scene (the transformation scene), which even went as far as to show several stages of the MC's thighs and hips growing, to scenes made up of a single image only to then fill it to the brim with an incredible amount of unnecessary text. During the scene with Keisuke he suddenly starts telling the story of how his father used to beat him and forced him to smoke a pack of cigarettes because he got caught smoking.. That couldn't wait until after the scene? All it accomplishes is diverting attention away from what's happening on screen at that moment. I get that he was trying to make a point in his own weird way, but it completely destroyed any pacing the scene had. It ends up feeling like lazy padding to hide the fact that the scene is only made up of a single image. Now I know that it's mentioned at the start that some of the artwork are placeholder pieces, and that the intention is to have it all uncensored at some point. Maybe eventually all the scenes will be fleshed out in the same way as the transformation scene. If that's the case then I'll gladly come back to this game when it reaches that point in development. Hell, I would even consider supporting a game like that on Patreon. However, I can only comment on what's there right now, so that's what I'm doing.

I'm also genuinely hoping that first lesbian scene is just a placeholder, because you didn't even add any art in that one, it's literally just watching two sprites getting slammed together like a couple of 2D barbie dolls. Yet for some reason you found time to add 2 incredibly high quality pieces of art when the MC decides to imagine what Keisuke would look like as a girl. Why does that take priority over adding art to the actual h-scenes?

The intro got me really excited, I thought this was going to be amazing. Some of the best grammar and writing I've ever seen in this type of game, great looking characters and detailed artwork showing actual scene progression instead of just being a single still image, a transformation that actually holds some weight and isn't just "MC goes to bed, wakes up as girl, is now bimbo" and an MC that actually seems to have a fleshed out personality instead of just being another generic soulless pile of nothing. It shows so much promise and potential, and then you waste all that by turning it into one of those generic anime style games within 15-20 minutes, albeit with better writing.

Look, I know I'm railing the game pretty hard right now. But that's because I don't like seeing potential being wasted like this, and I saw so much potential during my first 15 minutes of playing. If you want to write a book, just go write a book. Because this isn't a game, it's a book disguised as a game even though it could be so much more. There's just way too much unnecessary rambling all the time for it to be enjoyable, it lacks pacing. Instead of dumping pages worth of text on the player at once, try spacing it out more to keep us from getting bored and losing interest. Don't let your characters trail off into entire monologues about the meaning of life during h-scenes when all we have to look at during that, is a single still image. And lastly, try to be consistent. The transformation scene was great, but then you switch to scenes made up of an image or two which look really really good, but it's still just a single image covered in multiple paragraphs of text. It's just not at all engaging as a game, when it's done like that.

It's not that it's all bad. I like the C.H.E.A.T.S mechanic, and the subtle (and oftentimes not so subtle) changes in dialogue it brings. The original premise and character buildup is good, they all have their own unique personalities and it clearly shows in the way they speak and how it's written. The art, when it's there, looks absolutely great and the many sound effects add to the overall feel of what's happening. Sadly all of these good aspects are being overshadowed by everything I've stated above, and it's a real shame because there's a lot of potential here.

 

[Elliyanne]

My game review.

I played the game and I agree with the user who said the start was promising, and I agree.

At the beginning of the game with the transformation, personality details, and especially the appearance of the characters I was very interested, but as the game progresses it starts to get boring.

The character's transformation is treated as a fetish, even if you change the "trans" bar.

Personality is static unless you pay on Patreon. But still that's not cool, because you're stuck forever in the configuration you've made. What would be much more interesting if as the game progresses, the personality changes. The trans bar should stay hidden and increase as you get used to being a girl or not.

Some personalities seem to make no difference except through speech. And decisions always follow the same path.

Now talking about the routes. Unlike the others, I don't care about the number of words, but whether they are interesting or not.

The first route I played was Britney's.

This route appears to have two branches, but one doesn't even have any content, so it would be best not to have a choice for now. Britney's route, unlike Keisuke's, has no adult content, and all it has are two moving sprites. Lots of unfinished content, some unnecessary texts. I liked the Arcade part, but for a game with adult premises, I found it quite complicated. The content expands on the time jump and forgets to finish the ones at the beginning of the game.

Keisuke's route with much more content, has several options that aren't ready, which again shouldn't have. You click on the option, and then the message appears saying it has no content and jumps to the other option.

Keisuke's route has a lot of content. And in the first adult scene, he practically rapes you, and you can't deny it.

the text of the game is monotonous and cliché, a lot of unnecessary information in moments that shouldn't, slurred, dull and that leads nowhere. The sexual moments don't give you any excitement, which even teenage fanfics can do better. The truth is that you already know the sentence that will follow, as you have seen in several games, manga, anime of this type.
Two genre benders that I recommend that are good are (Reborn As My Love Rival's Wife and Boku Girl) none of them are +18.

Anyway, in the most, I liked the characters, their appearance is very interesting, despite finding the protagonist's breasts very exaggeratedly large.

I will play it again when I have more content and then compare it to the current game.

It has the potential to be a great game.

 

[DreamTeamStudio]

Wow, someone who actually read the game here on F95zone!

During the scene with Keisuke he suddenly starts telling the story of how his father used to beat him and forced him to smoke a pack of cigarettes because he got caught smoking.. That couldn't wait until after the scene?

The flowchart explains it and the crossed out choice menu options imply it, but that scene is meant to be harsh a punishment for Zach if he not just withheld that he was masturbating in Keisuke's dorm room, but lied about it when directly confronted about it. Keisuke is one of those people who really, really prioritizes honesty in people, and he brings up that story to drive home the point that Zach is learning a lesson here... unfortunately, those stories of kids being caught smoking cigarettes and forced to go through an entire pack of them as punishment usually just makes them get addicted to it, which is the subtext. Zach isn't getting steered away from sexual pleasure with this harshness, he's getting steered toward getting addicted to it.
Is it a bit awkward? Yes, but this isn't a straight-up nukige, and the sex weaves into the plot.

If you don't like how that mirror sex played out, then there will be two other options for this scene to choose from,

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1.1: Full Honesty
If Zach is completely honest with Keisuke, he'll explain how much of a nervous wreck he's been all day and how things got out of hand when he was looking at himself in the mirror before nearly breaking down into sobs of shame and embarrassment.
"Do you know what it's like living as a walking wet dream?! Every time I look down at myself and see that I have tits, I turn myself on! And the worst part is that I don't have any way to deal with these feelings! Hell, I couldn't even finish before you walked in on me, because unlike you, I have no idea how to please a woman!"
Keisuke is floored by Zach's admission, but a thought appears in Keisuke's meathead brain: I can help my friend.
Keisuke offers to teach Zach a thing or two about how a woman's body works, and Zach is so desperate for the release he was so close to reaching that he doesn't have enough will to tell himself that this could be a bad idea.
At Keisuke's instructions, Zach strips down and looks at his body as Keisuke comfortingly shows him the ropes to it. Keisuke's intentions are to show Zach what he needs to do to get himself off in the future, but he's a bit too forceful with his instructions because Zach is so attractive that he momentarily forgets to restrain himself with his hands-on lesson, and he makes Zach cum.
Zach is mortified, but he's also relieved that the debilitating arousal fogging over his brain has lifted. Feeling a little too good, Zach quickly pulls himself away from his friend, and he then insists that in the future, he'll be able to handle things on his own without Keisuke's help. Despite his stubborn "I'll take care of it myself!" attitude, an unformed idea has already been planted in Zach's mind: re/Dreamer is a game where I am going to need to have a lot of sex to change myself back, and Keisuke sure is good at it…

1.2: Half Honesty
If Zach declines to bring up what he was doing when Keisuke returned to his dorm room, Keisuke will eventually piece together what Zach was doing based on how he's been acting and the most spot on the floor in front of his mirror.
When confronted, Zach can admit that he was masturbating when his friend was away. This will make Keisuke upset, but not furious like if Zach had lied to him instead.
As a blend of the early full admission and full denial scenes, Keisuke will prod Zach in a somewhat invasive way about what it felt like as a woman to play with himself, and not being able to lie further, Zach will explain how nice it feels. The colorful details of what it feels like start to turn them both on, and when Zach tries to explain that he doesn't want to talk about it anymore because of what the conversation is doing to him, Keisuke offers (in a more up-front way than if Zach had fully explained what was happening earlier) to help him.
Zach doesn't think this is a very good idea, but he knows he's in hot water with Keisuke and sees this as the easiest way to bury the issue, so he agrees, but only if Keisuke promises not to turn it into sex. At Keisuke's instructions, Zach strips and sits on his lap in a position reminiscent of reverse cowgirl, and Keisuke starts roughly fondling his friend's voluptuous body.
Zach's alluring womanly form and his adorably feminine response to erotic stimuli soon make Keisuke lose control, and he cuts short his lesson in how to make a woman feel good. He literally has Zach wrapped around his fingers, and he bounces his friend up and down on his index and middle fingers until Zach comes all over his hand and lap.
Having essentially been fucked, Zach is left panting and gasping. As he recovers, a stray thought starts to form in his mind: That felt incredible, and Keisuke was only using his hands. I wonder what full sex with him would feel like?


I actually just got the sketches of that 1.2 scene from the

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this morning, and you're more than free to check out

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I am in fact replacing all of the placeholder CG art, but that takes time as the artists who work on this game are extremely slow. I started with the Keisuke dorm room stuff since that was what patrons voted for, and those replacements are all done. Once the alternatives for the sex scene are done as well, they'll all be put into the game.

I'm also genuinely hoping that first lesbian scene is just a placeholder, because you didn't even add any art in that one, it's literally just watching two sprites getting slammed together like a couple of 2D barbie dolls.

They are placeholders, and I have explicit instructions from my producer to prioritizing replacing the placeholder art for CGs before adding new ones (the alternatives to the Keisuke dorm room sex scene notwithstanding as the tone of dubious consent bothered a lot of readers and warranted getting added sooner rather than later).

Yet for some reason you found time to add 2 incredibly high quality pieces of art when the MC decides to imagine what Keisuke would look like as a girl. Why does that take priority over adding art to the actual h-scenes?

That's borrowed art from another visual novel. I am also under explicit instructions that I can't do that anymore, which is why a lot of times a sprite you think would be there on screen isn't.

If you want to write a book, just go write a book. Because this isn't a game, it's a book disguised as a game even though it could be so much more. There's just way too much unnecessary rambling all the time for it to be enjoyable, it lacks pacing. Instead of dumping pages worth of text on the player at once, try spacing it out more to keep us from getting bored and losing interest. Don't let your characters trail off into entire monologues about the meaning of life during h-scenes when all we have to look at during that, is a single still image. And lastly, try to be consistent. The transformation scene was great, but then you switch to scenes made up of an image or two which look really really good, but it's still just a single image covered in multiple paragraphs of text. It's just not at all engaging as a game, when it's done like that.

re:/Dreamer largely is a book, and I'm expecting the length to be 50 hours at least across 3 routes and miscellaneous bits. I take both parts of "visual novel" very seriously, but even though I have my hands tied with a lot of the visual part with artists who are slow, miss deadlines, or disappear, I have to keep writing.
I've been trying to bolster things with an impressive sound design and attention to detail with the visual assets I do have (did you notice that as Zach turned into a woman, his thicker hair covered his eyebrows?), but this leads to an imbalance in the visual/novel ratio.
I am doing everything in my power to get art out the door faster, such as using more artists and commissioning reference sheets for outfits for our

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(who sometimes has a hard time understanding text-heavy design documents) so he can work faster and make less mistakes:


It's clearly working, as he's had to make only one minor revision so far when I was expecting a lot more (caveat: these are still works in progress):





We have a Rich reference sprite:


And the

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doing Zach's sprites per-transformation will later be doing the sprites for Rich and polishing up the males who appear in CGs since our primary HCG artist isn't the best at that:


His earlier render of Zach was way more twunky than twinky, but at least we know he'd do a great job drawing Rich:


In conclusion... I'm sorry this game didn't live up to what you were expecting from it, but it's still in alpha and I am essentially the only person working on it (outside of commissioned artists). I'm glad that you really liked some of it (the transformation sequence, the C.H.E.A.T.S. system) and I fully acknowledge that the game it too text-heavy at present. Hopefully, we'll be getting more art in faster to make it less imbalanced.

 

[DreamTeamStudio]

Gonna be speedrunning this response a bit as I spent a lot more time on responding to Balbaar than I had expected.

The character's transformation is treated as a fetish, even if you change the "trans" bar.

Ai treats it as a fetish as she has a vested interest in doing so. Zach treats it as a fetish as a well, but with the right C.H.E.A.T.S stats, he'll slowly understand that it wasn't a fetish for him. There's a lot I could say about Zach's gender identity, but let me leave it at the fact that it's intentionally vague and intentionally gets murkier the closer you play with that Trans bar in the center and the AGP therapy answer.

Personality is static unless you pay on Patreon. But still that's not cool, because you're stuck forever in the configuration you've made. What would be much more interesting if as the game progresses, the personality changes. The trans bar should stay hidden and increase as you get used to being a girl or not.

You can still set the sliders however you want if you go to the title screen and skip to where you were (there are multiple ways to do that). While it's too late for you, for this release, I made the Backer password for the route jump menu public as a sort of apology for leaving a known issue in the build with a broken Ren'Py transition (it's kind of like an animation) that could be ignored but was annoying. It was In The Limelight and while I did in fact later just upload a fixed version when I was thwarting MTL efforts in this thread, you can't unring the bell.
As a note, the features the passwords provide are wholly meant for returning players to make their repeat playthroughs more interesting or to give a special thank-you for supporting the game financially. None of them ever lock story content besides the developer commentary, which honestly should not be on for most readers.
C.H.E.A.T.S. in fact used to be dynamic! Things Zach did would change the values and have an affect later, but that dynamic nature proved to be so complex that it was unworkable within a few updates, and as much as I wanted to keep doing that, it had to become the sliders they are now.

Some personalities seem to make no difference except through speech. And decisions always follow the same path.

C.H.E.A.T.S. doesn't affect everything. It simply broadens the story so that more people can enjoy it by changing some details around to their liking. The screen for it explains more, but it's like making a road wider. It gets to the same place, but more people can fit on it.

This route appears to have two branches, but one doesn't even have any content, so it would be best not to have a choice for now. Britney's route, unlike Keisuke's, has no adult content, and all it has are two moving sprites.

That shorter branch is waiting on CGs before it can link back to the other one, and the night 1 sex scene is waiting on CG since I realized how awkward the sex scene was with just the sprites.
Also, are you not counting the measuring stuff as adult content? That's a full-fledged CG made for this game, and Zach is fully topless during it.

Lots of unfinished content, some unnecessary texts. I liked the Arcade part, but for a game with adult premises, I found it quite complicated. The content expands on the time jump and forgets to finish the ones at the beginning of the game.

I need to do more thinking on how to interweave events of the first week of classes for Zach as a woman to make them largely consistent across all the routes, and patrons voted to time skip to the following Friday with the theater club as that's going to get very important to the plot very quick. Basically, the start of the game give a bad impression about how methodical and dense the rest of the plot is going to be, and the story will be jumping ahead in some places.
As the time skip in Britney's route explains in-game:

Honestly though, the college classes aren't going to be the focus of this game's story at all, and from the first day of classes on, the plot is going to be zooming ahead.
re:/Dreamer is going to be taking place over a six-month period, but the meticulously-detailed intro to the start of the game likely gives a false impression of the density and the pace of the story.
Once I've established the tone of each friend's route and the fact that Zach is able to survive in classes while disguising his new sex, the story is going to be skipping to a mix of set events common to each route and unique events for a specific friend's route.
For two examples of the former... Zach is going to be dragged to a Halloween party in a stereotypical costume and then have his body and part of his personality changed by a re:/Dreamer event (i.e., becoming a vampire dominatrix with a penchant for red wine as a substitute for blood, kissing as a substitute for sucking blood, and a dominant bedroom demeanor)...
Zach is also going to be taking a trip to Southern California in the springtime with the route partner for a beach trip.
We already have a design picked out for the outfit for the day (scroll above on this page on F95zone to see it).
For some examples of the unique events for the routes...
Zach is going to be dragged around by Keisuke to some of his swim meets and end up a de-facto manager/mascot for the university's swim team, all while starting to get fitter, happier, and generally more social from swimming for exercise; there's also a trip down memory lane with Keisuke on a home visit on the winter holidays...
Britney is going to have a focus on Zach being forced to help her theater department, but she'll also lure Zach to an anime convention later and finally get him to wear girly magical girl cosplay; and Zach is going to spend Thanksgiving break at Britney's place and touted around to her parents as her nice, wholesome boyfriend...
And Rich will be forcing Zach to partake in "rich people" activities (for lack of a better term) such as horseback riding, golf, a yacht race, and a horse derby, all with the explicit goal of corrupting Zach into Zoey, a high-class woman who can't live without the luxuries that Rich can provide her.
Some of these will advance the story by days or even weeks, making this game completable in a human lifetime.

Keisuke's route with much more content, has several options that aren't ready, which again shouldn't have. You click on the option, and then the message appears saying it has no content and jumps to the other option.
Keisuke's route has a lot of content. And in the first adult scene, he practically rapes you, and you can't deny it.

Again, waiting on art for those. Check the above response.

the text of the game is monotonous and cliché, a lot of unnecessary information in moments that shouldn't, slurred, dull and that leads nowhere. The sexual moments don't give you any excitement, which even teenage fanfics can do better. The truth is that you already know the sentence that will follow, as you have seen in several games, manga, anime of this type.
Two genre benders that I recommend that are good are (Reborn As My Love Rival's Wife and Boku Girl) none of them are +18.

Zach rambles, and he is the narrator for this game. It's core to his personality, and while you can adjust that with Awkwardness, it's still going to be dense. Again, art is a limiting factor here making me have to do a lot more heavy lifting with text.
I flatly disagree with the sex scenes not providing excitement as the transformation scene, mirror examination, and shower sex are all really hot in my person (admittedly biased) opinion.
I think the plot finds a comfortable niche between being familiar and fresh. Keisuke is the most cliched route, but he's designed to be the familiar anchor for people who know this genre. Britney has a lot more going on with her motivations, as does Rich, but I can't get into him as much as he's not in the game yet (again, lack of art).
Also, Boku Girl sucked. If you want to talk about a plot that felt monotonous and cliched, that's a good example.
I'd suggest Fukigen Cinderella if you want a nice, short non-h manga about gender bender that feels like it breaks from the mold. Even though it was unfortunately cancelled as the magazine it was attached to went under, it still feels satisfying, and you can read it in an afternoon.

Anyway, in the most, I liked the characters, their appearance is very interesting, despite finding the protagonist's breasts very exaggeratedly large.

I really like the art too. Britney's cosplay outfit in the sprite viewer makes me go all inside.
Zoey was supposed to be 5'7" with DD-cups but her sprite artist shortened her to 5'3" and gave her H-cups. My producer and I tried really hard to get him to change this, but he didn't understand and one of his several revisions even made her chest larger. At that point, we just decided to go with it even though it's not to my personal tastes, and the story was edited a bit to make Zach knowing he went a bit overboard with the breast slider but not caring as he thought it'd be for an in-game avatar.

I will play it again when I have more content and then compare it to the current game.

It has the potential to be a great game.

Thank you very much for at least giving the game a chance, especially after the swamp this thread became in the last few days (this extends to Balbaar as well). I know there are some rough spots, but I truly believe I have the drive to make this game into something great and worth reading not just for fans of gender bender but a general visual novel audience.

 

[Elliyanne]

I say all this because I always expected a game like this, it was very difficult to find.

 

[Vottan]

View attachment 1951254

This Zach is better suited for his chad version when he gets hallucinated (at 4th companion choice).

View attachment 1951247

So is it a cosplay with Britney way or does Rich have a weakness for princesses?

 

[DreamTeamStudio]

So is it a cosplay with Britney way or does Rich have a weakness for princesses?

We're getting a pair of princess theater costumes and prince theater costumes for Britney's route; Zach/Zoey and Britney will be somewhat blackmailed into taking the lead roles for a historical musical set during the French Revolution in the style of Hamilton (except deliberately a parody). The idea is that one is the prince, one is the princess, and who is which is a major route decision that decides how top or bottom both are (and some other things related to Zach's gender identity that are beyond the scope of this response).
That was the sketch of the reference sheet for Zoey's princess costume should she be the female lead.

 

[Balbaar]

Wow, someone who actually read the game here on F95zone!

As rare as it is, I'm one of those people who only uses the skip button when replaying parts I've already seen(ridiculous, I know), especially when I notice the writer puts in a lot of work. It feels like a waste not to at least experience the game and story as intended. Besides, if I just wanted to look at pictures, there's plenty of other websites for that kind of thing.

With that being said, wow... I saw you were active on this thread so I did think you might respond, but I take my hat off for this one. Thank you for replying in such detail and sharing all that information, I very much appreciate that.

The flowchart explains it and the crossed out choice menu options imply it, but that scene is meant to be harsh a punishment for Zach if he not just withheld that he was masturbating in Keisuke's dorm room, but lied about it when directly confronted about it. Keisuke is one of those people who really, really prioritizes honesty in people, and he brings up that story to drive home the point that Zach is learning a lesson here...

I definitely got the point you were trying to make with that scene and honestly, although I can understand why some people might have some issues with the overall tone, It didn't bother me. It does it's job of making you realize that Keisuke really doesn't like to be lied to, and that Zach probably shouldn't do that again. Not to mention that compared to some other games on this site, the scene is actually rather tame in comparison if you ask me. My issue with the scene had mostly to do with a lot of text feeling unnecessary or poorly timed, with the cigarette story just being an example.
I personally think those type of things are best kept to a minimum during sex scenes, so that the player's focus stays with the actual scene instead of them ending up feeling distracted. Even if it's important to the plot at the time, it's easy for a scene to go from enjoyable to tedious when there's too much text and inner thoughts covering the screen.
Of course, the lack of artwork does play a role in this and as you've said, that's in the hands of your artists so I can't fault you for that.

Also, maybe it's just me... But Keisuke's appearance and his personality (to an extent) kind of reminded me of Veldora the Storm Dragon from Reincarnated as a Slime S2. I even caught myself reading his lines in Veldora's voice at times... Just thought that was kinda funny.

I am in fact replacing all of the placeholder CG art, but that takes time as the artists who work on this game are extremely slow.

I was really hoping you would say that because the biggest disappointment for me was seeing the art shift from what we saw during the transformation scene, to mostly single CGs of a very different style. It's not that the placeholders look bad, because they don't. In fact some of them look amazing, they just didn't fit the style I was expecting and hoping to see after playing through the first 15 minutes of the game.

They are placeholders, and I have explicit instructions from my producer to prioritizing replacing the placeholder art for CGs before adding new ones (the alternatives to the Keisuke dorm room sex scene notwithstanding as the tone of dubious consent bothered a lot of readers and warranted getting added sooner rather than later).

Fair enough, now that I know for sure that those CGs will get replaced at some point, I can understand why you would want to get that done first before adding a bunch of new stuff.

re:/Dreamer largely is a book, and I'm expecting the length to be 50 hours at least across 3 routes and miscellaneous bits. I take both parts of "visual novel" very seriously, but even though I have my hands tied with a lot of the visual part with artists who are slow, miss deadlines, or disappear, I have to keep writing.

Look I'm all for a good story, and if you can manage to turn this into a hot game with good pacing and be enjoyable to read at the same time, I'll be the first to bow my head in gratitude. As I mentioned, I think the writing itself is actually really good and it's quite nice not having to power through a bunch of unintelligible Engrish for a change. The characters feel unique and you manage to capture their personalities perfectly with the way you've written their dialogue.
I do think certain parts could be toned down a bit though, like with the inner thoughts about Alexander the Great for example. I mean I very much enjoy history and I get that Zach is a bit of a brainiac so it's not that it doesn't make sense for him/her to think stuff like that, but it felt a bit much to the point where I found myself thinking "ok I get it, you're smart but can we please move along now?".

The idea of a 50 hours long gender bender is something that I'm very interested in, especially since good games of this genre are quite rare. But for a game of that length the pacing has to feel right and not come to a halt every couple of minutes due to the MC having several inner monologues or conversations dragging on for longer than necessary, otherwise it can be easy for a lot of people to lose interest within the first 10 hours of playing.

With that said, thanks again for giving a lengthy reply to my comment. I'm glad to see that most of my complaints are things you've already been looking to fix, reading this has given me renewed hope for the future of this game. The potential is definitely there like I said before, and whereas I initially thought that potential was being wasted, your reply has made me think I might have been wrong about that.

I'll be giving it another go once the game has been updated a bit more, I'm curious to see what it'll become once more original artwork has been added. Good luck man.

 

[Vottan]

I do think certain parts could be toned down a bit though, like with the inner thoughts about Alexander the Great for example. I mean I very much enjoy history and I get that Zach is a bit of a brainiac so it's not that it doesn't make sense for him/her to think stuff like that, but it felt a bit much to the point where I found myself thinking "ok I get it, you're smart but can we please move along now?".

I think Zach's thoughtfulness is a detail to "get into his shoes." This is the most important thing to start impersonating yourself with the main character, to experience him and therefore get carried away with the short story. But maybe it works with thoughtful and inquisitive people or just introverts.
This is a big difference from graphomania. With graphomania, the author tries to prove to you that he is smarter and more refined than the reader. Like for example the chapter "War and Peace" where the character contemplates in front of an oak tree. And I've seen some writers try to replicate this, only with sakura (maybe you've seen Love, Sex and Rockin' Roll).

 

[SharkVampire]

The idea of a 50 hours long gender bender is something that I'm very interested in, especially since good games of this genre are quite rare. But for a game of that length the pacing has to feel right and not come to a halt every couple of minutes due to the MC having several inner monologues or conversations dragging on for longer than necessary, otherwise it can be easy for a lot of people to lose interest within the first 10 hours of playing.

Exactly, you formulated exactly as I was feeling during the game. Thankfully before playing this game, I read advice in reviews to set awkwardness in the lowest possible value, but even after that it doesn't help much
I think, since the dev created such system as C.H.E.A.T.S. it would have been better to set this references to bare minimum if you set this parameter to 1. As the dev can see, that's not only problem for few people, but many players are talking about it. You may leave it as it is, but only for high values of awkwardness.

At one time I even wished there was a scene where she starts telling Keisuke some facts or story about something again, and it pisses him off and, instead of listening to the end, he says: Enough! There's a much better use for this mouth than telling all this crap! And then he push her to make him deepthroat.

 

[DreamTeamStudio]

I do think certain parts could be toned down a bit though, like with the inner thoughts about Alexander the Great for example. I mean I very much enjoy history and I get that Zach is a bit of a brainiac so it's not that it doesn't make sense for him/her to think stuff like that, but it felt a bit much to the point where I found myself thinking "ok I get it, you're smart but can we please move along now?".

lol, that's one of the parts that is definitely being rewritten when I get the full art for the Keisuke dorm room CGs. I think my inline script comments even have a simple # FIXME good lord for that block of narration.
The timeline for the development of this game is that I first wrote a lot of the story for the intro of the game, stalling because I lacked sprites for anyone but Zoey (which were placeholders). Zach was just sitting alone in his dorm room for months talking to himself without an Ai sprite, and then we got Ai, Britney got about 30 minutes of story, and then Keisuke got about 90 minutes of story.
Later on, the intro got heavily condensed and pointless tangents were removed, Britney's writing almost got completely rewritten, but Keisuke's writing largely stayed the same. I need to go back and polish up his stuff, but patrons keep voting for more Britney content, and as verbose as it is, that one-sided familiarity Zach feels with Keisuke before revealing what happened to him is kind of the point. Zach is playing catch up with his best friend after not seeing each other for over a year, and he sometimes forgets his best friend doesn't know who he is.
The trick is figuring out how to condense that by about 20-30% because it gets a bit too long-winded, but also firmly establishing that these two have known each other since they were very little.

 

[Balbaar]

lol, that's one of the parts that is definitely being rewritten when I get the full art for the Keisuke dorm room CGs. I think my inline script comments even have a simple # FIXME good lord for that block of narration.
The timeline for the development of this game is that I first wrote a lot of the story for the intro of the game, stalling because I lacked sprites for anyone but Zoey (which were placeholders). Zach was just sitting alone in his dorm room for months talking to himself without an Ai sprite, and then we got Ai, Britney got about 30 minutes of story, and then Keisuke got about 90 minutes of story.

Heh, fair enough. Well it's promising to hear most of my listed issues aren't meant to represent what the finished game will be like. It'll be interesting to see where re: Dreamer is at after a few more updates, I'll be sure to check it out again when that happens.
Also, I think some parts being a bit verbose isn't always bad, sometimes it could be useful in order to really let the reader know what the MC is thinking/feeling. As long as it doesn't happen all the time and is mostly reserved for key moments, it shouldn't hurt the pacing that much. It only becomes a slog when a long-winded moment, important as it may be, is followed up by reading several paragraphs of the MC's thoughts as they're sitting on the toilet before heading home, just to give an example.
Oftentimes a good solution is to try and give the player some breathing room after a scene like that, maybe add in a short sexy moment with a nice piece of art before sending them off into the next text heavy scene.

Anyway I do hope you manage to figure things out with your artists and all that, I can imagine it could get a bit frustrating to want to tell a story while having to constantly wait for the art you wish to show alongside it.

At one time I even wished there was a scene where she starts telling Keisuke some facts or story about something again, and it pisses him off and, instead of listening to the end, he says: Enough! There's a much better use for this mouth than telling all this crap! And then he push her to make him deepthroat.

Honestly, I wouldn't mind seeing a scene like that.*Looks at DreamTeamStudio *

I think Zach's thoughtfulness is a detail to "get into his shoes." This is the most important thing to start impersonating yourself with the main character, to experience him and therefore get carried away with the short story. But maybe it works with thoughtful and inquisitive people or just introverts.
This is a big difference from graphomania. With graphomania, the author tries to prove to you that he is smarter and more refined than the reader. Like for example the chapter "War and Peace" where the character contemplates in front of an oak tree. And I've seen some writers try to replicate this, only with sakura (maybe you've seen Love, Sex and Rockin' Roll).

I get what you're saying and I agree, sometimes it's needed in order to feel a connection to the character in question. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, on the contrary, I'd say it's a good thing that some writers tend forget about completely. But it's also important to not overdo it and in the process cause it to harm the pacing of the overall game/story.
And no I have not seen Love, Sex and Rock n Roll. Maybe I'll check it out sometimes, it sounds like something I might enjoy, thanks.

 

[Mokalover]

I came into this VN a few weeks ago looking for a porn game and found the start to a very well-written novel. Freaking loved it though. Personally I think it's pretty well-written, but I do agree with some other posters who talk about it sometimes going off the deep end with randomness, it made a few passages... lengthy? Still not terrible on my first read through, though. I believe some others mentioned how it goes into unrelated topics, and I saw your replies as well about getting into the character's shoes. I have to agree with both sides. Regardless, I think if you continue on with what you have going, despite the painfully slow art progress, you will have a gem of a story. Just try not to get lost in the trolls and the maze of possible alternative routes eh?

I really can't say too much negative about this, it IS in alpha, and I ended up enjoying it quite a bit a freakin lot, but one of the things I did think was a bit excessive was the amount of world building in the beginning, in the encyclopedia/info menu. It felt a bit... excessive? To read all that just to get into the game and understand what is going on. I have this issue when I make my own little stories too, I get caught up in the details, so I understand. Would it be something to simplify it in the future for the new reader? Once the game is in a more complete state, I think grabbing the new reader and keeping them interested long enough to get into it and not meet a intimidating text wall will be important, if you want my two cents. If not, I still think you have the beginning of something that will end up dominating the GB/Trans charts for games/stories. It hits a lot of the right buttons for some with less porn and more story.
Edit: grammar

 

[DreamTeamStudio]

I really can't say too much negative about this, it IS in alpha, and I ended up enjoying it quite a bit a freakin lot, but one of the things I did think was a bit excessive was the amount of world building in the beginning, in the encyclopedia/info menu. It felt a bit... excessive? To read all that just to get into the game and understand what is going on. I have this issue when I make my own little stories too, I get caught up in the details, so I understand. Would it be something to simplify it in the future for the new reader? Once the game is in a more complete state, I think grabbing the new reader and keeping them interested long enough to get into it and not meet a intimidating text wall will be important, if you want my two cents.
Edit: grammar

Zach now has sprites and I'll be writing a short intro of Zach's Friday classes to ease the players into the different setting from showing it rather than telling it, but I've always treated the World Information as supplemental but not required reading. It gives more context to references and technical details, but it isn't needed beyond answering a few of the more basic questions, such as "Why are people using yen?" or "Why does Zach use metric units for everything?"
Despite the confusion and adjustment period it might create, I still think the alternative history setting was the right call.

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I get a lot of creative liberty to adjust things in that setting to fit the needs of the story better, and it is adds a unique flavor to the game.
As an example, one of these changes to society in the upcoming 0.10.10 update is explaining that LGBT awareness and acceptance in this setting hasn't progressed as much as it has in real life. Modern Japan has a relatively understanding LGBT community and Portland, OR is famous (or infamous) for its queerness, but because imperial Japan took over administration of the area in the late 1970's, policy changes to foster that more inclusive environment were never created, and they're about 15 years behind what we are. Britney has relatively lukewarm progressive takes on LGBT awareness and acceptance by our standards, but for the setting she is in, she's considered on the bleeding edge of progressiveness.
To explain why this is relevant for the 0.10.10 writing, Zach's had a construction injury that knocked him out, and his body has been discovered as being female by Britney's theater director and head carpenter (both who are fellow students). Britney has to come up with an explanation for the unconscious Zach. Panicking, she says that he's a trans man, and the director and carpenter have very different reactions to this.
Britney has hung out with this carpenter and has brought up enough LGBT talking points that he knows what transgenderism is and he knows enough to respect Zach's "choice" (incorrect, as gender identity really isn't a choice and Zach didn't even choose for this to happen to him). The director, on the other hand, hasn't talked in this way with Britney, and she does not get it. She is inquisitive to the point of being invasive, asking such insensitive questions as "Why would you want to be a man when you're such a beautiful girl?" before having to be held by the hand and explained why it's none of her business and that she has to respect Zach's identity.
Thematically, it wraps back into a point I am making with this route and these characters. Britney's stance is "you are who you are, and don't try changing that (which relates to her sexuality)," the carpenter's stance is "you are who you chose to be, and being a man is more than your body (which relates to him having two previous conversations with Zach that men have to work with what they have)," and the director's stance is "you are who I say you are (which relates to her giving nicknames to people, not really getting what LGBT stuff is even after being explained, and her eventually casting Zach in the musical they will be doing that semester)." The subtext of Britney's route is that for the first time in Zach's life, he needs to choose who he wants to be and not let outside influences control who he is (which is part of the reason this game takes place in a university setting, as that's a transformative period of life for many young adults).

Sorry for the long reply. I'm glad you like the game, and I am taking steps to make it easier for the player to be gradually told information about the setting instead of all at once.

 

[lacoka1221]

very nice game keep it up

 

[Stijn]

Just played the recent version. Played once before but that was version 0,4 or something... this game has improved a lot since then. Better art, lot more story and looking like it actually might lead to a great completed game with enough time. Last time the premise looked great and now I thoroughly enjoyed the keisuke route. Good work so far and good luck with development Dream Team Studio!
Made a fan outta me

 

[LoneRanger11]

reDreamer-0.10.9

Spoiler: TORRENT (Windows)

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We're crowdfunded, donations of any size would be greatly appreciated!

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[DreamTeamStudio]

The 0.10.9 release has been made public!
Additionally, I'm making the Sustainer password Castaway public because of the whole debacle about machine translation on this thread that forced me to reupload this game several times, and I'm trying to prove a point.

Changelog:

• The cursed mom route sees the light of day. A Sustainer patron request from Sandra, this idle daydream of Zach's at the friend choice menu sees Zach's imagination run wild for 20 minutes as he pictures what it'd be like if he told his mom about re:/Dreamer and asked her for help with it (not in an incestual way). Upon Zach's mom getting actual sprites, and Sandra's continued pledge, this will be expanded into a fully canon hour-long route with a real ending instead of this idle daydream that wraps back into the major route selections.
• The C.H.E.A.T.S. values now show in small numbers below their letter on the menu screen.
• LOTS of typo fixes. We actually hired an editor to go over the script.
• The "Ice Queen" versions of Zach, Zoey, and his mom (the ones where they use
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  for their spoken text) had the line spacing and adjusted to better match the line spacing of the default font, Gilroy Regular.
• You can now skip the arcade games if you've played them once since I know they're so frustrating.
• As long as a Patron password has been entered, you can now get the maximum bPoints even if you have higher Awkwardness as the power of money allows Zach to realize that Britney isn't bisexual but a lesbian.

Previews:

 

[MostlyHereForYuri]

sees Zach's imagination run wild for 20 minutes as he pictures what it'd be like if he told his mom about re:/Dreamer and asked her for help with it (not in an incestual way).

Is incest or other sexual content going to be in the "mom route" down the line or is it a pure story route?

 

[DreamTeamStudio]

Is incest or other sexual content going to be in the "mom route" down the line or is it a pure story route?

There will be no incest in this game.