LSD Dream Emulator

Submission 4,626

About

LSD Dream Emulator is an exploration video game developed and published by Asmik Ace Entertainment for the original Playstation. Released only in Japan in 1998, the game has garnered a cult following online due to its surreal nature and content, alongside its relative unavailability due to its obscurity.

History

LSD Dream Emulator was developed and published by Asmik Ace Entertainment and produced by Osamu Sato, a Japanese multimedia artist.^[1] Sato, rather than making games, had wanted to use the medium of video games as a platform for artistic purposes, with his project Eastern Mind: The Lost Souls of Tong Nou being his first. He took inspiration from a dream journal by Asmik Ace employee Hiroko Nishikawa, who had been writing the journal for over a decade. The game has no objective, and instead features the player walking around surreal environments, and when they touch certain objects, they are warped to another surreal environment. The game was never released outside of Japan and faded into obscurity for a time. The game was re-released on the Playstation Store in Japan in 2010 due to popular demand.^[4]

Online Presence

On July 2nd, 2014, YouTuber MikeNnemonic posted the playlist "Let's Play LSD Dream Emulator." The playlist received more than 104,000 views in less than six years (shown below).

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Because of the bizarre nature of the game and its obscurity, it developed an online reputation and grew into a cult hit.^[1] Vice wrote that the game developed a reputation online thanks to sites like Cracked^[2] and Let's Play videos. It has been played by channels like Vinesauce (shown below, top left), 2GuysGaming (shown below, top right), Game Grumps (shown below, bottom left) and PewDiePie (shown below, right).

English Translation

On May 1st, 2020, hacker Mr.Nobody^[7] posted an unofficial translation of the game completed with the help of ArcaneAria, who provided the translation pulled from the fan Wiki for the game. The majority of the translations are in the text-based dreams, while in-game text textures remain in Japanese. One must have an original copy of the game to play the hacked translation. The translation was covered by Kotaku.^[8]

Impact

The game's visuals were used by British indie rock band alt-J for the cover of their 2017 album Relaxer along with its singles and promotional campaign.^[3] The game has been cited as one of the most bizarre and experimental ever. Killscreen^[5] called the game "one of the most unnerving and unpredictable weird video games ever made." HardcoreGaming101^[6] stated its graphics were dated nowadays but "there has never been another video game that so effectively conferred the feeling of an actual dream."