Initial Daydream (Playdate)
A downloadable game
Taking inspiration from NES classics like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy, Initial Daydream brings old school JRPG mechanics to the Playdate! Help the monarchs of the four kingdoms (Ghoulliard, Altantis, Uiskei, and Goo) deliver presents for the annual Royal Gift Exchange. To do this, you'll need to circumnavigate the world, fight monsters, solve puzzles, and meet all kinds of new friends. And after you've delivered all the gifts? There will be a big party! And I'm sure nothing unexpected will happen, like a real threat beaming in from space!
RPG fans will feel right at home in the 1 on 1 turn-based battles. Head to the shop in town to upgrade your Attack, Health, Restore, Speed, and buy pozhns (pronounced "potions") and new abilities. You'll also find abilities hidden around the world, and you might get stat boosts from talking to the right people!
Initial Daydream was made in Pulp.
Controls:
The A button is used for talking to people and interacting with objects throughout the world, and for advancing menus.
When not in battle or a cutscene, you can press B to open the Status page, showing your stats, abilities, pozhns, and key items. From here, you can press A to open a menu to use a pozhn, change the encounter rate, or Save and Quit. Press B from the Status page to Save and Continue.
Most players will be able to finish Initial Daydream in 1 to 3 hours. Stuck? Leave a comment and I'll help you out!
Content warning: fantasy violence, alcohol
Credits:
Art, Animation, Coding, Design, Music, Scenario, and Writing by James Gameboy
Writing by Greg Troyan
Font by AyreGuitar
Full Screen and Boss Design by LadyCelery
Title Font and Trailer by Nick Shaw
You can find the score for Initial Daydream here:
https://jamesgameboy.bandcamp.com/album/initial-daydream-original-score
Purchase
In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $5 USD. You will get access to the following files:
Development log
- Initial Daydream 1.0 is here!10 days ago
- Update looking toward 1.046 days ago
- Update for version 0.9.27Dec 14, 2023
- Update for version 0.9.25Dec 07, 2023
Comments
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Hey! I played/beat this during my Christmas break and really loved it. Thank you for making it! Really appreciate the encounter/drop rate adjustments you can make. Felt emotions at the ending, was not expecting that. One of my Games of the Year, for real.
Oh my word, thank you so much for telling me! I'm so glad you enjoyed it! That really made my day.
Oh! I made a Playdate website and wrote about your game, hopefully you and everyone else likes it, too: https://www.playdateunofficial.com/the-games/initial-daydream (also it’s on my GOTY list, loved it a lot: https://www.playdateunofficial.com/articles/2023-playdate-goty) :)
Someone linked this to me in the discord last night! Thank you so much! I was just about to email you a thank you haha. Hopefully you'll have another plane ride coming up after I finish the new build so you can check out the super bosses!
Also I clicked around the site a bit, and I'm so glad someone is doing what you're doing. Always good to have another Playdate resource.
I am ready for the super bosses! Love to spread the good word of the Playdate, hoping the site grows a lot over the coming months. :)
I love the idea of a small JRPG-like on the Playdate :)
sadly the game bugged out on me in the caves -> i couldn‘t open the menu anymore -> after restarting the game some of the progress carried over, but other didn‘t -> i had 5/4 wheels for the cart and could progress any furthet
Starting a new game also didn‘t work, because all stats, skills and items carried over -> i needed to reser the game data in the Playdate menu
Thank you for the feedback! This is why testing is so valuable haha.
Which caves specifically were you in? The Sunken Tunnel or the Liquor Mines?
The wheels problem should be fixed in the latest version, as you are not the only person who ran into this.
I was actually testing the game on my flight today and ALSO ran into the issue of data not deleting properly! I'm going to consult with the Pulp gurus on this one, but I am out of town for the weekend.
Thanks again for playing. Hopefully in a new go around you won't hit the same issues in the new update. Otherwise, I'll be working on more improvements for a while yet! Thanks again for letting me know!
Thanks for the reply.
The bug started after getting the axe in the liquor mines
Interesting! I will check that out when I get home.
hey man! the game is amazing so far, loving it and going to review it on my site soon. did have one question though: I got to Liquor Caves after beating the alien dude and it won't let me go into the minecart. The only thing I can think of causing the problem is somehow I have 5 wheels instead of four?
hello! if you are the same person who messaged me on Twitter this morning, I've already sent you a new build on there that should fix this! I'm also gonna work on some other stuff tonight and push out a new build soon that includes this fix and other little improvements. Thanks!
awwwww yeah
You know it!
*Wide Eyed Emoji
December 1st!
*Judge Judy Tapping Watch GIF*
Just got home from work! a couple more little changes and we're gold
LOL!
All I gotta do is sell 10,000 copies of Initial Daydream and then we won't have this problem ever again.
you deserve it, man.