Designer Diary: What is the DreamScape? (as an in-game tool)
3 months ago
– Fri, Apr 03, 2026 at 12:41:00 PM
Let's take a quick behind-the-scenes peek at the Vaporwave Wanderlust dev process, in a way that would be more exciting than watching me write. (I don't know that these diaries will be a regular feature, but this was a lot more fun to write than I expected).
Designer Diary: Why Build a Fake World inside your Fake World?
If you backed the project, you (hopefully) have a clear picture of what Commway Communications built the DreamScape to be: a low-poly VR world that's reminiscent of the early '00s and '10s internet. It's supposed to be like the Metaverse or Second Life but good.
But, what is it supposed to do?
It is an in-universe hub world that players can access from anywhere in the Sector they happen to be. My core idea was letting PCs search for information or meet NPCs on other planets without having to move the entire party. If your game doesn't have an internet analog, then this layers right in. If you do have one, it's just another representation of that.
As written, DreamScape only connects the star system players are in. If you crew is in the core book's Sutler System, you couldn't chat in real time with someone from F-Infiniti's Senna system. Technically, this is a purely fictional boundary (although it eliminates the need to figure out how interstellar communications would work). For that kind of communication, I added a feature called the App Agent (I swear I wrote that before the phrase "Agentic AI"* was everywhere): Programs that you can send to another system and then wait for them to come back with info.
I've written up other useful internet features, like private meeting spaces, cloud storage, and e-commerce sites. They seemed like natural fits, and useful things that Commway could make money from, justifying the DreamScape's existence in the world.
The other big inspiration of this was '90s VR Arcades, where you could go and play (probably not very good) VR games, so naturally, we have to have room for PCs to play games. I've written a couple of small games, but you could also easily slot in a 1-page game for sessions where one or more people can't make it but you don't want to cancel.
That said, it did feel like my book was still missing something, so I skimmed my older books. The other three modules all include a location and an adventure (Actually Station-bound Semitones is 8 locations and 8 mini-adventures, but you see my point), so what was missing became pretty obvious. Then it was a pretty easy question to answer: What would be cool to do in a VR world?
The almost obvious answer: A Data Heist. (More on that later, maybe?)
* This book is human made, I don't use AI in my processes. I just also work in the tech industry, so I spend a lot of time hearing about it at work.
But, what is it supposed to do?
It is an in-universe hub world that players can access from anywhere in the Sector they happen to be. My core idea was letting PCs search for information or meet NPCs on other planets without having to move the entire party. If your game doesn't have an internet analog, then this layers right in. If you do have one, it's just another representation of that.
As written, DreamScape only connects the star system players are in. If you crew is in the core book's Sutler System, you couldn't chat in real time with someone from F-Infiniti's Senna system. Technically, this is a purely fictional boundary (although it eliminates the need to figure out how interstellar communications would work). For that kind of communication, I added a feature called the App Agent (I swear I wrote that before the phrase "Agentic AI"* was everywhere): Programs that you can send to another system and then wait for them to come back with info.
I've written up other useful internet features, like private meeting spaces, cloud storage, and e-commerce sites. They seemed like natural fits, and useful things that Commway could make money from, justifying the DreamScape's existence in the world.
The other big inspiration of this was '90s VR Arcades, where you could go and play (probably not very good) VR games, so naturally, we have to have room for PCs to play games. I've written a couple of small games, but you could also easily slot in a 1-page game for sessions where one or more people can't make it but you don't want to cancel.
That said, it did feel like my book was still missing something, so I skimmed my older books. The other three modules all include a location and an adventure (Actually Station-bound Semitones is 8 locations and 8 mini-adventures, but you see my point), so what was missing became pretty obvious. Then it was a pretty easy question to answer: What would be cool to do in a VR world?
The almost obvious answer: A Data Heist. (More on that later, maybe?)
* This book is human made, I don't use AI in my processes. I just also work in the tech industry, so I spend a lot of time hearing about it at work.