DreamWeb (HQ Remake) (Amiga Version) - Track 1
11This soundtrack was commissioned by Xerardo. If you would like to commission a piece of your own, be it remake or original, please feel free to contact me at EpicPiecesof8bit (a_t) G_m-A,i.L (d.o,t) c_o,m . All proceeds go back into the channel to the benefit of all gamerkind. Thank you for listening!
DreamWeb is a cyberpunk adventure game that was released in 1994 on PC and Amiga, the same year as the ESRB (who rates the appropriate age range of games for minors). It may very well be the first adventure game "Rated M for Mature" for the pixel depictions of nudity and violence. In fact, clothing had to be added to a certain character in order for DreamWeb to be allowed for sale in Australia.
The game featured a booklet with a prequel story written by author Stephen Marley, who is known for creating the genre of "Chinese Gothic" in his Chia Black Dragon series. He is also known for writing Judge Dredd novels. The booklet, entitled 'Diary of a (Mad?) Man' expanded upon the background of Ryan and also acted one of the last forms of text-based copy protection as we moved into the CD-ROM era (Phew! That phase was annoying! You were always looking for the book, or a decoder wheel, or a red film that you had to use to see the answers just so you could play).
"Unseen, a dwelling of pure thought is shaping our futures: The DreamWeb. Watched over by servants billions of years old, for centuries the DreamWeb remained stable, but now evil is about to take control. Keepers, the web of dreams is slowly unwinding. The seven evil powers on earth are joining forces. If they become too strong, the DreamWeb will be destroyed. Who will be the Deliverer?" -Excerpt from the intro of DreamWeb
In DreamWeb, you take on the role of a bartender named Ryan in a dystopian future who has been having strange dreams lately. A Keeper, communicating with you in your dreams via the DreamWeb, tasks you with becoming the "Deliverer" and to kill seven evils that threaten to destroy the Dreamweb and sink the world into chaos. You awaken in your bedroom next to your girlfriend Eden and begin your search for the first evil, the weakest of the seven, a rockstar by the name of David Crane...
DreamWeb is a gritty, noir-style top-down view adventure. It features very adult content that was very uncommon for the adventure game genre outside of the Leisure Suit Larry series. It bucked certain conventions of the adventure genre, and many people complained about the number of useless items that would clog your inventory (we always called them "red herrings" back in the day). The puzzles are really simple. All of the conversations are scripted, and there are no dialog choices (a feature the developer David Dew hated). Instead of using objects, or giving them to NPCs to get past them, you oftentimes were required to shoot them (which gets messy fast). Despite these issues, the game is full of atmosphere. It was fully voice-acted on the PC CD-rom version (link to the free game below), but the most memorable part of the game is by far the incredible soundtrack (which is why we are here). Sadly, because it was ported to CD-ROM from a disk version, the amount of music is actually very little and it was just looped, but it managed to set the mood anyway.
DreamWeb took a lot of inspiration from the films 'Blade Runner' and 'Highlander'. Despite its best attempts to channel that energy, it was released to very polarizing reviews. It tended to get worse reviews in the USA, while European reviewers tended to think very highly of the game. Love it or hate it, the music is fantastic.
Original Score by Matthew Seldon ©1994
This version is Copyrighted ©2022 Pieces of 8-bit
Where applicable, All Rights Reserved
DreamWeb was re-released as freeware in 2012. You can download the fully narrated CD-ROM version for Windows 10+ here: https://archive.org/details/DreamWebCDVersionInstallerWin10
There are also sites that will let you play the non-narrated version in your browser, easily found with a search.
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DreamWeb Statistics For Pieces of 8-bit's HQ Remakes
At present, Pieces of 8-bit's HQ Remakes has 1,161 views spread across 4 videos for DreamWeb, and less than an hour worth of DreamWeb videos were uploaded to his channel. This makes up less than 0.35% of the total overall content on Pieces of 8-bit's HQ Remakes's YouTube channel.