LSD: Dream Emulator has a beginning. The ending, however...?
(There is a file called ENDING.STR on the CD, but I can't get it to play!)
There are no plots or storylines to follow, and there are no objectives.
You simply explore and interact with your environment by bumping into things.
The game progresses in days. Every dream you have equals one day.
A day can pass if you die in your dream, if you trigger a film, or if you reach the time limit (10 minutes).
After each dream, you are shown a grid. The grid shows you what kind of dream you had (what your state of mind is).
This supposedly affects the next dream you have.
After the grid disappears you are returned to the main menu to save and start a new day.
Linking
Linking occurs when you walk into something.
When you link, you are transported to a new area. Where you go and what you see is random.
Nearly everything you can collide with in LSD can link you somewhere else.
There are very few things that will always link you to the same place. These are usually tied to films.
Flashback
An option called Flashback may show up on the main menu.
Flashback is a strange mode where you link quickly between many places very fast.
This happens regardless if you touch something or not.
Your view has a color layed over it, almost like a filter.
At the end, the screen turns black and you are returned to the menu.
This does not count as a day. I do not know the point of this.
If the man in the black suit above shoots you, you lose this option.
He appears randomly in every area and is hard to avoid.
Textures
In LSD, you will visit the same place many times.
You will notice, however, that it won't always look the same. It may have different textures.
Each area of the game has four different texture sets:
* Normal
* Japanese Writing
* Crazy/Evil
* Sexual
The water in this game is always flashing. This is not a bug.
Audio
The music in this game is also random. Different patterns are played at varying tones, but they all share the same musical score.
The wikipedia article says there are 500, but I could only find 245 on the CD.
Every time you link, the music changes. Sometimes there is no music at all (and that is usually a very bad sign of things to come...)
The sound effects in this game are abnormally loud and very annoying.
The sounds for walking are particularly bad, especially for slippery surfaces.
Films
Sometimes certain links or events cause a film to suddenly start playing.
They are short, nonsensical, and you wake up afterwards.
There are tons of them, and they are rare.
Text Dreams
Some dreams are a black screen with white text. The text is in Japanese.
The text explains a dream, probably from the dream diary.
It counts as a full day and you see the grid afterwards.
Text Dreams cause the dot on the grid to reset to the center.