HYBRID LIFE-SIM RPG GAME

Dream City Psyche represents a unique approach to RPG game with pre-rendered 2D game world in top-down view perspective, open world city scale island, deep life-sim gameplay integration and tight integration of storyline. You can interact with the game world using point and click interface but there is option to use on screen direction pads or physical keyboard.

FOCUS ON SINGLE CHARACTER

You're playing as a single character throughout the game. You have the option to choose from 6 preset characters at the start of the game. Each character has their own unique abilities, skill bonuses and clothes.

MULTIPLE WAYS TO MAKE PROGRESS

The game doesn't use experience level to track progress like typical RPG game. Instead, progress in the game is tracked through several parameters - story (psychic control), career (work visa) and personality (determination and karma). You'll improve psychic control as you make progress throughout the game. If you care about career, improving work visa gives access to better job promotion.

Keep winning in combat to raise determination. Higher determination will allow you to earn HP bonus in combat. Do good deed to people such as donating will raise karma. Higher karma will allow you to earn bonus to roll chance in combat and many other things.

Despite of that, most of your time in the game will still be spent to improve skills. Performing action related to the skill or attending classes at schools will earn yourself experience points (XP). There are 20 skills which can be categorized into physical, tycoon, muse and analytical. Since improving skill points can take lots of time (you don't get XP from doing quests), focus on improving a few skills that's useful to you.

TIGHT STORYLINE INTEGRATION

There are a total of 25 quests in 4 separate acts (Prologue, Act 1, 2 and 3). Most quests revolves around investigation to uncover the mystery behind disappearances, murders and other things. The full story can be experienced in a single playthrough which can take around 8 to 10 hours to be completed.

The game starts with a long prologue to provide necessary background stories that could be helpful in later acts. When you arrived at Dream City, you have a mission to find your missing uncle. You'll meet a police detective to investigate murders. This will eventually leads to encounter with cultists. A guy managed to help you to reveal what really happened to your uncle - he is being kept at a place. You decided to join his group to be able to rescue your uncle.

The guy has a mission to storm the place where your uncle is being kept but he has a problem. A dangerous person has been guarding the entrance to the place. You'll volunteer to find his weakness. You'll meet many characters that either provide help or impede your progress. Your uncle left behind an important journal. You'll have to hunt several of the journal pages kept by a few people.

Eventually, you'll have to undertake an expedition to the underground city in order to find the last missing pages and unlock your last psychic ability. You'll discover the dangerous person's weakness. You'll use this information to bait him out and to beat him. With him out of the way, it is now possible to storm the place where your uncle is being kept. Will you be able to rescue your uncle?

In addition to talking to people, you'll discover stories by collecting up to 20 documents throughout the game. These documents provide lore and background details to help you make sense of why the events took place in the first place. It should be able to help you to connect lots of missing links between details.

OPEN WORLD CITY SCALE ISLAND

The game takes place in a city on a small island where you can have freedom to explore the whole island. The city is divided into 9 districts with more than 50 places to visit. Lots of effort have been made to create a living city.

Shopping district allows you to visit plenty of shops, cinema, art theatre and hypermarket. The hub of the city is city park where you can find night life entertainment (dance club or bar), plenty of schools and night market. Office district allows you to work at several office places such as ad agency, law firm, modelling agency or fashion firm or go to investment office to invest your cash. If you like nature, you can go to forest to forage or do some fishing.

The city changes dynamically every month in term of economy, crime and weather. Jewellery, house and company stock prices change based on economic condition. Because of the price changes, it is possible to make or lose money by taking advantage of the price changes. Crime will affect bad guys on the street. The crime can be so high that night curfew will be enforced throughout the month. Wet season means you'll see rain most of the time while going outside. When the city in plague, some places such as dance club or gym club are closed throughout the month.

There are 200+ generic characters you can talk to throughout the city. Their randomized response are based on their profile. Tourists will talk about tourist attraction, office workers will talk about office life, villagers will talk about forest and teenagers will talk about mischievous stuff. In addition to talk, it is possible to sell stuff to some of them to earn some money especially to characters on the street.

LIFE-SIM GAMEPLAY

You have to monitor energy, hunger, health, morale and hygiene bars at all time. Neglecting any of the bars could jeopardize your effectiveness in performing day to day life. Fortunately, these bars are easy to be taken care of due to close proximity of many places in the game.

There are a lot of job opportunities if you know where to look. You can take part-time jobs at the restaurants to earn side income. You have option to apply for a full-time job at several office places. You can dedicate a significant time to build the career. It is possible to get promoted all the way to the top as CEO.

There are plenty of ways to earn money without you working for people. You can buy a fishing rod from a guy and use it to fish at any 9 different fishing spots throughout the island. You can then sell the catch to the chef at sushi restaurant for some money. If you don't mind to get dirty, you can scavenge trash cans all over the island to look for scraps. You can then sell the scraps at the back of pawn shop for some money. You can walk around city park or forest to forage tree stumps for mushrooms. These mushrooms can be sold to villagers for some money.

You can rent to live at flat, apartment or condominium. You can buy 20 varieties of furniture or equipment and equip them at your home to unlock more activities such as sleeping, storing food, cooking and watching TV.

Even though you can buy meals from restaurants, cooking your own meals can save lots of money. You start with 22 recipes and can learn up to 66 recipes by taking part-time job at the restaurants or watching cooking show on TV. You can buy ingredients for the cooking from hypermarket, 24 hours shop, cake & pastry shop or night market stalls.

Even though the island is small, you can buy scooter and car to move faster between places. There are plenty of bus stops throughout the island to call for taxi or use bus service. Paying for taxi serves as fast travel to move between places. You can use free bus to move between districts.

If you have extra cash (more than $1,000), you can invest the money to buy jewellery and company stocks. The stuff will appreciate or depreciate in value at the start of month based on economic condition. The economic condition changes every month so it is possible to make money when the stuff appreciate in value. You can then sell the stuff to earn some profit.