Dreamweb

About

Dreamweb is a 1994 point-and-click adventure set in a grimy cyberpunk city where reality blurs with fantasy. You play as Ryan, a bartender haunted by visions of an entity called the Dreamweb. The game follows his mission to destroy seven evils, mixing investigative puzzle-solving with moments of graphic violence. The top-down perspective and static backgrounds create a moody atmosphere, while the nonlinear narrative drops clues about Ryan’s possible descent into madness. What sets Dreamweb apart is its willingness to tackle adult themes like nudity and psychological figuring out, uncommon in games at the time. The story’s ambiguity, hinting Ryan might be hallucinating everything, adds layers of intrigue. Originally released for DOS and Amiga, it’s been freely available since 2012, letting modern players explore its shadowy world without cost.

Storyline

The protagonist and anti-hero is Ryan, a bartender in a futuristic dystopian city (implied to be in England, as evidenced by the use of British English terms such as "lift" and "bonnet") who has been plagued by strange dreams of an entity known as the Dreamweb. In the dream that opens the game, Ryan is asked by the master monk of the Keepers to be the deliverer and kill the seven evils, who are united to break the Dreamweb and send mankind spiraling into chaos. In Diary of a (Mad?) man, however, which precedes the start of the game, it is strongly implied that Ryan is descending into psychosis and has fabricated the whole Dreamweb scenario in his mind. After Ryan leaves his girlfriend Eden's house for work, he learns that due to frequent lateness his boss has decided to fire him. After hearing Ryan's explanation, however, he decides to give him a two-week, fully paid vacation to recover. On the bar's TV, Ryan learns the name and location of the first evil: David Crane, a rock star who is housed in a hotel for a gig later that night. He visits his housebound friend Louis, who directs him to a place where a gun can be purchased. After doing so, he registers himself at the same hotel, and after managing to get himself up to the penthouse, killing two bodyguards in the process, he finds Crane in bed with a woman. The woman hides under the bed and, after Crane begs for mercy, Ryan kills him and is teleported to the Dreamweb where he learns of the second evil, a general. He returns home, and while checking the news (where he finds the report of Crane's death), he learns General Sterling is the guest of a talk show being filmed at a TV station.