Dreamscape CYOA

This whimsical entry, filled with dreamy illustrations, awards you three gifts, which you must choose from 11, to lessen the hardship of life. From doors to other worlds, food you can pay with memories, a pool with always the perfect temperature, to a literal slice of paradise, the hardest thing in this entry is both choose… and realise this will never happen in real life.
But one can dream…

This game features in a more self-reflective way than a traditional narrative. It was written for the Neo Twiny Jam in 500 words or less, and all of those words (save just a couple) are displayed on the page at once.

The self reflection is in choosing which words to keep. There are a dozen or so 'cards' with nice images, good backgrounds and fonts, etc. and they describe magical abilities and items like lucid dreaming or door portals.

It's a fun choice and written well, but there's no hidden depths. In a way it's the opposite of the author's other entry EVISCERATETHISGIRL.com, which is completely linear and nothing but hidden depths. Together they make an interesting study in contrasts.

Looking at the relative popularity of items in the jam, this one slid way behind the other's work, *Eviscerate This Girl*. DCYOA seems a lot more my speed, and I'd like to encourage others to give it some love or thought, too, if you haven't. You could simplify it down to just choosing 3 tarot cards from a pack. Instead of double-edged, murky, stuff like Death or The Wheel, though, it's odd gifts like a Celestial Pillow, which helps with Lucid Dreaming. Or you can visit a paradise resort, but you have to pay for a room. Nothing practical or earth-shattering, but always fun. You choose three, then at the bottom, you click at the end, and said three cards are together.

It's interesting to re-read through and see which is the best fit, but I was amused by how I quickly said some at the top were the best, or if I was offered them take-it-or-leave-it, I wouldn't wait for the next ones. They were too good.

But at the bottom is a choice that might expose my reflexive gratitude as selfish. It's a choice that allows gifts for others. You are less powerful. It's double the height and width of the other cards--whether the author just wanted to leave relatively little white (well, dark here) space or kind of unsubtly point out what they feel is the best gift here, I certainly had a moment of reflection. I'd been slightly enchanted by the possibilities and then felt like a bit of a bum, nothing to ruin my day, but I realized that even with gifts that seemed benign (as opposed to the ones from a Djinni that cause bad things to happen elsewhere) I hadn't thought much of ramifications, or What Was Really Important, or I assumed my gifts could cover WWRI later.

So whether or not it was intended to be a psychological experiment, I found it to be an effective one.