Having quite a bit of nostalgia for replaying the Beast Signer Alpha over and over again, the idea of being in a bleak real world and diving into fantastical ones to explore and build a team in puts a smile on my face. This idea seems like it would take more hours to develop than Frayth, but if you're passionate about it maybe it would take the same (or fewer!) months to create.
It's funny you mention not being able to think of an RPG where your progress keeps resetting for each "world"- the immediate counter example that came to my mind, Live A Live, got a remake very recently! It's an RPG where you can follow the stories of seemingly unrelated characters from different time periods, and you can play through them in any order or jump around. As you progress through them you start to see how they might be connected, and without getting too spoiler-ey, there's a finale that ties them all together. The game is widely considered a cult classic and a tragedy that it wasn't officially translated until now, but people have been playing fan translations for years and years.
I'm not sure about the Oneironauts name- the basic premise of the Dreamons story being about diving into the minds of others to help them with their mental issues immediately reminded me of Psychonauts, so I'd personally try to avoid the -nauts suffix. I'm not even sure if you've played it, and the -nauts suffix makes sense for what they are, but it keeps making me think of Psychonauts despite the ideas only being similar on a very vague, zoomed-out level. I suppose it's kind of like the "Figmon" name you were going with before "Dreamons" (I much prefer the new name).
Best of luck with the assessment and counseling! I hope the wait between the two won't be too long.
1
Tobias 1102~9M
I've been keeping in mind how long these ideas would take to make while coming up with them, intending to minimise necessary work as much as possible, and I don't think this idea would be any different in terms of time from the previous one... though I also thought Atonal Dreams would be done in six months, so I hardly have the best track record of estimating completion times. In one of my blogs from the beginning of the year, I thought I might be done with whatever this project is in like a month! Ha.
I've played Live A Live! Both the originals, many years ago (via a fan translation; they were one of many inspirations for MARDEK), and the remake recently. It's the player character's stats that I was thinking about resetting for each psychepelago, which Live A Live has no equivalent to since the worlds all start off independent. Bringing the characters together at the end like that game did seems like an idea I should explore, though annoyingly there'd be six of them plus the player which would exceed the six party slots! (Unless the six got together to help or find the protagonist or something?)
I've known from the beginning that comparisons to Psychonauts are inevitable for this anyway (though I've never actually played that myself so I don't know how similar it actually is other than the basic concept), and I'm only using Oneironauts as the name of the faction rather than the game. I also considered something like 'Dreamon Tamers', though I've wanted to use 'oneironauts' for something for years so this seemed like a good opportunity.
It's funny you mention not being able to think of an RPG where your progress keeps resetting for each "world"- the immediate counter example that came to my mind, Live A Live, got a remake very recently! It's an RPG where you can follow the stories of seemingly unrelated characters from different time periods, and you can play through them in any order or jump around. As you progress through them you start to see how they might be connected, and without getting too spoiler-ey, there's a finale that ties them all together. The game is widely considered a cult classic and a tragedy that it wasn't officially translated until now, but people have been playing fan translations for years and years.
I'm not sure about the Oneironauts name- the basic premise of the Dreamons story being about diving into the minds of others to help them with their mental issues immediately reminded me of Psychonauts, so I'd personally try to avoid the -nauts suffix. I'm not even sure if you've played it, and the -nauts suffix makes sense for what they are, but it keeps making me think of Psychonauts despite the ideas only being similar on a very vague, zoomed-out level. I suppose it's kind of like the "Figmon" name you were going with before "Dreamons" (I much prefer the new name).
Best of luck with the assessment and counseling! I hope the wait between the two won't be too long.
I've played Live A Live! Both the originals, many years ago (via a fan translation; they were one of many inspirations for MARDEK), and the remake recently. It's the player character's stats that I was thinking about resetting for each psychepelago, which Live A Live has no equivalent to since the worlds all start off independent. Bringing the characters together at the end like that game did seems like an idea I should explore, though annoyingly there'd be six of them plus the player which would exceed the six party slots! (Unless the six got together to help or find the protagonist or something?)
I've known from the beginning that comparisons to Psychonauts are inevitable for this anyway (though I've never actually played that myself so I don't know how similar it actually is other than the basic concept), and I'm only using Oneironauts as the name of the faction rather than the game. I also considered something like 'Dreamon Tamers', though I've wanted to use 'oneironauts' for something for years so this seemed like a good opportunity.