LSD: Dream Emulator is an exploration game
developed and published by Asmik Ace Entertainment
for the PlayStation.
In LSD, the player explores surreal environments
without any objective.
The player can only move and touch objects
that will warp them to another setting.
The game was conceived by Japanese artist
Osamu Sato, who rejected the idea of games,
and wanted to use the PlayStation as a medium
for creating contemporary art.
The game's settings are based on a dream diary
kept by Asmik Ace employee Hiroko Nishikawa
for over a decade.
The game received a limited release in Japan
on October 22, 1998, alongside a soundtrack
and a book composed of excerpts from the dream
diary.
LSD quickly fell into obscurity, but in years
since has experienced a resurgence in popularity
on the internet due to its eccentricity being
an engaging point of discussion for humor
blogs and Let's Play commentators.
In retrospect, critics have praised its whimsical
qualities, calling it one of the most "unnerving",
"experimental", and "unpredictable" video
games of all time.
The game was also released on the Japanese
PlayStation Network in 2010.
== Gameplay ==
LSD: Dream Emulator is an exploration game
that has been described as a "playable dream"
in which the player explores surrealistic
environments without any overarching goals.
Gameplay takes place in a first-person perspective
in a 3D environment with the player's control
limited to moving frontward and backward,
turning, strafing, running, and looking behind.
The game is played in short sequences or "dreams"
lasting up to ten minutes.
The player begins each dream in a random area
they can begin exploring.
By bumping into any object or walking through
certain tunnels, the player will be transported
to another setting.
LSD has a set of several static and defined
environments to explore including a Japanese
village, a field, a city, a house, and others.
While the environments are static, the default
textures are sometimes swapped and they may
also be populated with random objects, animals,
and characters roaming about to add variety.
Each dream will end after ten minutes or will
end early if the player interacts with certain
objects or falls off a cliff.After each dream,
one "day" passes in the game, and the dream
the player just experienced is marked on a
graph.
The graph rates dreams in relation to being
an "Upper", "Downer", "Static", or "Dynamic"
dream.
As a player plays through more and more dreams,
the game adds more variety to the dreams by
changing textures more often.
This results in the environments becoming
more surreal and psychedelic.
Sometimes when starting a new dream, a surreal
video is played instead of a playable dream.
After a number of in-game days, a "flashback"
option appears on the main menu which allows
the player to experience an abbreviated version
of the last dream they played.
There is a humanoid figure that wanders the
dreams that, if touched by the player, prevents
the player from using the flashback option
after that dream.
== Development ==
LSD: Dream Emulator is the brainchild of Osamu
Sato, a Japanese multimedia artist.
Sato started his art career in photography
and writing music in the 1980s, before turning
to digital graphic design and computer art.
In the 1990s, he began experimenting with
CD-ROM technology, creating animated 3D videos
with a dimension of interactivity.
Although these projects resembled video games,
Sato's intent was not to create games but
to use game platforms as a means of creating
contemporary works of art.
Sato's first such project was funded by Sony
Music Entertainment Japan and released in
1994, titled Eastern Mind: The Lost Souls
of Tong-Nou.
It was released in Japan and the United States.
Because Eastern Mind was released in the United
States and received some awards, Sato was
able to source funding for his next project
which would become LSD.Sato still rejected
the idea of video games, and wanted to use
the PlayStation game console as a medium for
creating art and music.
He chose the PlayStation as a platform because
he felt Sony was already embracing elaborate
concepts while he felt Sega and Nintendo had
greater reputations as toy companies.
Sato got the idea for LSD after playing racing
games.
He found racing games difficult and boring
since he was not a skilled player, and so
he imagined the possibilities of smashing
the car into a wall and transporting the player
to another dimension.
He thought it would be more enjoyable for
players like him that were unskilled at other
games.
From there, he got the idea of creating an
imaginary world with the same irrationality
and easily forgettable nature as dreams.
He did not give the game any objectives because,
according to him, they are not essential in
video games because even natural human existence
cannot be reduced to simple objectives.
For inspiration, Sato pulled ideas from a
dream diary written by Hiroko Nishikawa, a
co-worker at Asmik Ace Entertainment.
She had been writing in the diary for about
a decade.
Sato also placed many gimmicks in the game,
such as sudden game overs, odd videos, strange
texts, and other details for players to digest.As
Sato is also a musician, he composed all the
music himself.
He used tightly cut samples to create around
500 musical patterns; he felt this approach
more closely resembled the chaos of a dream
state in contrast to full drawn-out melodies.
He was particularly influenced from music
coming out of England's Warp record label.
Initially he was going to include more pentatonic
scales and melodies to give the game an Asian
flair, but he came to realize this was not
necessary after seeing the international success
of Japanese producers like Ken Ishii, who
was later featured on a remix soundtrack featuring
some of the game's music.The title "LSD" is
a reference to the drug of the same name,
lysergic acid diethylamide, in a bid to attract
the hippie and psychedelic subcultures.
The acronym was not given any single interpretation
in the game.
Instead, there were many interpretations in
the game such as "in Life, the Sensuous Dream"
and "in Limbo, the Silent Dream".
Sato felt this represented the chaos and confusion
of dreams.
According to Sato, the psychedelic movement
was intertwined with the personal computer
culture in the West Coast of the United States,
an audience he had in mind when developing
LSD and Eastern Mind.
== Release ==
The game was released in Japan on October
22, 1998.
Sato had hoped for an American release as
with Eastern Mind, but he had no say in further
localization.
LSD was released as a standalone game and
in a limited edition set which came with the
a bonus CD titled "Lucy in the Sky with Dynamites"
and a book called "Lovely Sweet Dream".
The CD contains about an hour of acid techno
music and the book is composed of excerpts
from Nishikawa's dream diary.
The book has English translations of many
dreams and illustrations provided by a wide
variety of artists.
Sato was adamant about releasing a special
soundtrack, so a double-disc soundtrack compilation
titled LSD and Remixes was issued alongside
the game.
The soundtrack features remixes by Ken Ishii,
Jimi Tenor, µ-Ziq, and Morgan Geist, among
others.LSD sold few copies and now is rare
to find on secondary markets, selling for
high prices when it surfaces for sale.
It was re-released on the Japanese PlayStation
Network on August 11, 2010.
== Legacy ==
LSD: Dream Emulator quickly fell into obscurity
after release due to its limited availability
and eccentric nature of its content.
This led to it gaining an avid cult following
in the following years.
Its growing interest among Western audiences
years after its release is a mystery to Sato.
Motherboard wrote that its popularity is due
to the internet, primarily from appearances
on humor blogs like Cracked.com and YouTube
Let's Play video curators who feed off the
game's quirky qualities.
Hardcore Gaming 101 concluded that the popularity
of LSD is a testament for the consumer demand
for hallucinogenic and experiential games.
Enough people contacted Sony about LSD that
they re-released it on the Japanese PlayStation
Network in 2010, generating even more interest.
Sato has noticed young audiences visiting
his art exhibits because they heard about
him due to LSD's online popularity.
English indie rock band Alt-J received permission
from Sato directly to use a screenshot from
LSD for the cover art of their studio album,
Relaxer (2017).
In 2011, a fan began developing an unofficial
remake in the Unity engine for personal computers,
with a public alpha version made available
in 2014.Regarding the quality of the game
itself, Kill Screen called LSD "one of the
most unnerving and unpredictable weird video
games ever made."
Hardcore Gaming 101 said "there has never
been another video game that so effectively
conferred the feeling of an actual dream,"
and continued saying that the game is somewhat
dated but is still worth experiencing.
They compared the game to the comic series
Little Nemo and The Sandman, the film Dreams,
and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland as a
work of art designed to emulate dreams.
Red Bull Music Academy called it one of the
most "experimental titles" in all of gaming
