r/dreamcoregame

I swear I hear steps in the cinema area, anyone else? This freaks me out

I'm interested in hearing the community's feedback to the soundtrack work. I did all the tracks you hear in Deadmall besides the ambient track in the parking garage. The full soundtrack work I did are 15 vaporwave and dark ambient songs, and they'll be released in the coming updates and when the OST releases on streaming platforms.

This level is insane. I think what makes it so creepy is it starts like you’ve woke up out of bed looking out the window, but realising upon looking out the window it looks like something you’d see in your dreams still, so, still dreaming it seems. Then you see the water tower and figure, I’ll go there first, seems pretty obvious. You get a key there with a portrait of a red door in a field of nowhere. The first night or two, the peaceful music goes away, and it’s replaced by sirens from hell, and these begin when you’re in the middle of a field and still have a lot of space to haul ass still, makes you feel so vulnerable. Then eventually, after following the main path, you get to the red door. You think the nightmare is over. The closer you get to the door, you realise the “sky” is appearing to stretch in a dome like fashion. You get to the door and realise the whole world is fake, Truman Show style. A painted dome. Okay, terrifying, but at least the nightmare is over. You put your key in the door, all is over. Nope. Underground facility time. The music is worse than ever. The nightmare is worse than you ever imagined. The deeper you go into this level, and the scale of it, it gives me the most WTF Where am I?!?! Feeling which honestly makes me have goosebumps all over… it gets worse the deeper you go… every time you think it’s over, nope. Time to go deeper. Then when you’re in the last neighborhood, you go into a random building and it’s basically the original Backrooms. The feeling of psychological terror I felt at that moment, with all that build up beforehand, I can’t even describe. Good job devs.

I've been pootling along with this game for about a month now (I'm a slow player) and have only got the Pools and Playrooms levels left to finish.

So I've been wandering all around, feel like I've covered at least two thirds of the overall map... but haven't seen a single flashlight anywhere. Could it be a bug? Or are they just really hard to find?

Sharing my no-commentary playthrough of Dead Mall where I visit each section of the Mall.

Lowkey sorta hyped to buy the game tomorrow, havent really played a game like it, but have been into dreamcore/backrooms/liminal spaces for awhile

Just wanted to drop a quick message to talk about how Dead Mall turned out. I know that for many of you, the map fell short and didn't meet your expectations, and I'm truly sorry for that. Developing this last part was a huge struggle with deadlines, and honestly, I couldn't pack in everything I wanted to. I feel like I owe you an apology for not hitting the bar you all deserve. But I don’t want to just sit back. My goal now is to get to work on an update—not just to fix Dead Mall, but to give the whole game a good polish and get it as close as possible to the version I originally wanted to give you. There's still a way to go, but I promise you Dreamcore is far from over. Thank you so much for your patience and for sticking with me through this!

Just wanted to ask because im definitely buying regardless, but just wanna know how hyped i should be for “getting lost” vibes

I'm currently on floor six of the hotel. There's elevators on both sides but they only take me to floors 7 and 8 but I need to get lower for the exit.

Hey so I started playing the DreamCore demo cause it looked interesting and I love how the game looks visually. Right now I'm in (what I assume) the Dreampools stage but it's completely dark and this might be silly but I have absolutely no idea what I'm supposed to do or where to go in this stage. I need help, thanks.

https://preview.redd.it/kkm986pg0t4h1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=7b21e6dc436bc56a4066f77a7b7b79e1831db9ca

I really enjoyed the levels up until now but this one is just annoying and boring?
How tf do i get down? I'm on level 6 and neither sides of the walkway have elevators that go down?
I've also gone back up and went down the opposite side i previously did and still can't go down past 5?

Like many, I felt the deadmall map was very bare and did not quite live up to its potential. I definitely enjoyed some parts like the outside, arcade, employees-only area and the cinema, but other than that, there just wasn’t much to see. For a level that intentionally makes the exit easy in order to prioritize exploration, there just needs to be more. The following are some ideas (some that others have mentioned, some of my own) for what I would like to see if the map gets updated:

General (lobby/main area):
- A more complete/detailed food court with actual restaurants the food would have come from
- Mini indoor playground, merry-go-round
- Santa’s workshop/Christmas-themed area (most malls have this during Christmas time)
- Storefronts being less copy-paste, more different on the outside
- Gumball machines, vending machines, mini storefronts, fountains, more plants, things of that nature to see in the hallways

Abandoned Stores:
- Large clothing store with mannequins everywhere
- Spencer’s-style store
- Empty supermarket
- Restaurant (like Rainforest Café)
- GameStop/blockbuster style store with TVs
- Being able to walk inside most empty stores

Arcade:
- Laser-tag maze area
- Small jungle gym with ball-pit
- Roller-rink
- A minigame or two within the arcade machines that can be played
- Prize room/counter

Cinema:
- Accessing the rooms in the back of theatres with the projector
- Different small details inside each theatre, so they don’t all feel the same
- Popcorn stand, theatre lobby with movie posters

Misc.
- Gym with locker rooms, pool area with a waterslide that leads you back to the start of the level if you use it
- Ice skating rink where walking through feels slippery
- Elevator that takes you to different floors
- Being able to crawl through vents to get to the other malls
- Abandoned cars in the parking lot
- Multiple exits
- Remains of trash/litter humans left behind to look at
- Fren

Obviously adding all of these would probably be absurd, but if even 1/4 of these things were added this would’ve felt like a complete level. Let me know what you think of the ideas and if there’s anything else you’d add!

Like in Poolrooms, every room is identical to the previous 3, and itself branches into another 2 or 3; how am I supposed to understand which way is the one?

Eternal Suburbia's first level had the big tank that served as a general direction, once you realized that "hey, that's the only place that looks different from the rest", but you can't really do it in Poolrooms. Auditory and visual message saying pay attention to sounds is pointless for most of the levels, it seems to me.

I'm sure I'm missing something since I seem to be the only one presenting the issue here.

Guess I'll add my own thoughts to the mix to the new Dead Mall level.

Yeah, it's fine. But it could have been more than fine.

Everything was too empty with very little to really look at with other areas being too small. I really love movie theaters, so it was kinda disappointing how there was nothing at all to really look at. Nothing about this level wowed me like the others. Other than the "outside" which was pretty cool.

Thing is there could have been so much to add. I remember going to my local mall a lot as kid and there were things like big merry-go-rounds, trampolines, play areas for children, lots of those machine things you put a coin into, and it starts moving around for a few minutes.

And of course, a large food court. None of that was present though, there wasn't even any stores you can enter. It would have been neat going into a Blockbuster, or a GameStop, toy store, Hot Topic, or one of those candle and lotion stores my mom used to drag me into.

(Don't think you can actually use the brand names just saying stores like those.)

I also remember whenever a guy would dress up as Santa and there was a huge set with big candy canes and a gingerbread house. Imagen being able to enter the gingerbread house seeing that it's bigger in the inside and you find yourself in an entirely new area to explore.

I also find it funny how you can beat the level as soon as you spawn in with just a few short minutes. Don't think such an idea is a problem but there isn't anything I want to go out of my way to look at here. Again, nothing really wowing or aweing.

I heard that there was some kind of deadline, I think? Meaning the level wasn't able to be cooked as long in the oven. Which is a shame. I hope maybe Dead Mall will get an update at some point to add more stuff to it. Especially if this ends up being the final level to be made. Not sure if that's the case or not... bit if it is, kinda underwhelming to end it on, especially the doozy of an ending the Hotel had.

The level is still okay for the most part. I still liked some areas such as the employees only halls and cinema. And the "outside" was really cool. I enjoyed how there wasn't any objectives this time around. There was nothing wrong with flipping the switch in the Hotel and finding the generators in Playrooms (All though trying to find the one in the maze can get very very annoying. I'm in the middle of my second playthrough of that level and I still haven't found it in the maze yet). But it is still a nice change of pace going back to just walking around.