Friday, November 5, 2010

LSD: Dream Emulator

A few years ago, while searching on /x/ for Paranormal or Creepy games, I came across an obscure Japanese Playstation game, called "LSD: Dream Emulator." Despite the game releasing in extremely limited numbers, many ROM sites had it available for download. Naturally, I downloaded it, converted it, and started playing.

Unfortunately, the ISO was corrupted - or incorrectly ripped - as I couldn't get any further than the title screen and, when I did, all I saw was a mess of color and heard a strange fuzzing sound, like radio static. I tried re-downloading the ISO multiple times, trying it from different websites, but every single one was the same. Strange colors, fuzzy static sound. I tried posting questions on various gaming sites, but hardly anyone had heard of the game and even less had played it. I learned that the game had a cult following, both here and in Japan, and I eventually found a small yahoo fan group, dedicated to the game.

I posted a question, asking if anyone had managed to get the game working on emulators, and a few days later, I received an answer.

"Hi. I was one of members of the ripping group who released the LSD rip. We managed to successfully rip the game, but we have never managed to get it working on emulators, only the original hardware."

By this point, I had practically given up on it. I didn't have a Playstation console, and my attention span was short, and I had long since moved on to other things, like Eversion, and Yume Nikki.

Then, earlier this year, LSD was released on the Japanese Playstation Network. I remembered how much I had tried to play it, even browsing eBay a few times, in the vague hope that a cheap copy surfaced.

So, I made an account, bought a JPN PSN card, and purchased the game, and after downloading and installing, I began playing it.

The Playstation logo came up as usual, but with SCEI instead, as it was a Japanese game. There was no copyright screen, but they had removed it from several other games as well.

The intro video started playing after that. Different colored words bounced across the screen, spelling out "Thespian Linked Dream" multiple times. (Apparently this is what LSD stood for)

I pressed the circle button, and the game went to the title screen. There was no "Press Start" screen, it just went straight to a screen with 4 or 5 options. Start, Save, Load and Options.
Above Start, there was a line of text, telling you what Day you were on. It displayed "a DAY 01"

I chose Start.

One thing I had learned from the Yahoo group, was that the first Day always started in a Japanese House, with three floors. The contents of the house were random. The entire game was played in a First-Person view.

I walked along the hallway I started in, and walked into a Bookcase, and the screen faded to white. That's the strange thing about this game, you can't interact with anything. Walking into anything moves you to a new area, which the game calls "Linking".

The white faded away and I was in a field. I couldn't see very far into the distance, because every area had fog a few feet ahead of you. The graphics were also basic, with most having no texture to them. I walked onwards, eventually bumping into a tree, which sent me to another area.

This time, things had gotten a bit more sinister. I was in a dark city, standing on a metal pier. A boat loomed in the fog, out on the water, and lamp posts lit the streets. I walked down into the road, and came across alleyways. Graffiti covered some of the walls, strange multi-colored eyes staring out at me. Then I heard a noise and the screen flashed quickly. I turned around.

Just behind me, a man had appeared. He was wearing a grey hat and a long trench coat. He was walking slowly towards me, almost gliding across the ground.

I tried to walk backwards, to get away, but my controller wasn't responding, and he was getting closer.

For a split-second, two red dots glared out from under his hat, then the screen flashed again.

This time I was back in the house.

Something had changed, though.

The textures of the walls, were replaced with pictures of real violence. Women being raped, children torn apart, Cannibalism, Torture, a Japanese man breaking his own fingers with a hammer.

As I moved through the house, the pictures slowly began getting worse and the music began distorting and slowing down. The corridor was longer than it was before and it was getting darker.

I knew what was at the end.

He was.

I moved onwards, the bile rising in my throat and fighting the urge to vomit, as the pictures began escalating into terrible levels of obscenity and violence. A few steps forward, a man removing a young boy's legs. A few more, a pregnant woman cutting her own fetus out. Further still, a gang of men cut a cow to pieces, wrapping the internal organs around their bodies. Closer to the end, people being forced to eat the corpse of a child, vomiting as they eat parts of him.

Finally, I reached the end of the corridor.

The screen faded to black and a line of text appeared on the screen.

http://www.oharaweb.jp/LSD/GMN.html

I wrote the link down quickly and a few seconds later, the game faded to white again, and returned to the title screen.

This time, the status said "D dAy 00"

I tried to choose Start again, but the game wouldn't let me continue. I restarted the PS3, and the status went back to "a DAY 01."

Before I played it again, I tried the link. It still worked, and a page came up, filled with Japanese writing. Further down the page, there was a picture of the Gray Man, as he normally appeared. I can't read Japanese, but one of my friends could.

He lived in Japan for a few years, so he could read and speak the language fluently. I copied the writing down and called him up.

After he showed up, I spent the next few hours telling him what had happened. Obviously, he didn't believe me. Who would?

But he still agreed to take a look at the writing on the page.

Despite several tries, I couldn't get the web page up again, so I handed him the copy I had made.

He glanced at it for a few minutes and then suddenly turned white. He handed it back to me and sat down on the couch.

He said nothing for 5 minutes, then he told me what it said.


"If you are reading this, well done.

You have seen the man as he is.
What he did to me as I slept, as I
dreamed his dark nightmare. You have
also seen it. Those violent images
were him. He had no form, only the
dream man. He caused all this, those
events in the images, he took those
innocents and possessed them. He made them
do it. He made me make that game.

GRAYGRAYGRAYGRAYGRAYGRAY"

As he finished, he stood up, grabbed his coat, and said "Whatever you saw in that game, don't tell me anything about it." Then he left.

The next week, he went back to Japan. I couldn't touch another console after that. I destroyed the PS3 and replaced my computer.

A few weeks after he left for Japan, I got a call. He had killed another man, then committed suicide.

The man he had killed, Masima Akukichi, was the lead designer on LSD.

(This story is credited to a person called Nick. Also, if you guys are wondering, this game actually DOES exist.

...This story is now diamonds.)

44 comments:

  1. Holy crap, is there videos of this game?

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    Replies
    1. just search on youtube, you'l find them

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  2. I have played this game for over 365 days (days in the game) and the person who wrote this obviously didn't get WHY this game could be freaky.

    Also Masima Akukichi is a voice actor. Osamu Sato was the lead designer, and he's still well and alive. I know copy pastas are a fake but I'd suggest making the victic a bit more vague JUST in case for people who know the facts.

    LAME!

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  3. Yeah this is totally fake. The game is weird but there's nothing involving murder or craziness like was described.

    PSSSHAAWWWWW

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    Replies
    1. There are dead people on one of the levels. There's a video,

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    2. Uhhhh...... you probably never explored the Violence District much. There's a crime scene, a beheaded woman, women hanging from lamp posts, a dead sailor, a plane crashing into the sea, an actual gunman that shoots a victim and will also shoot you, and there's bodies laying on the ground sometimes, and sometimes when they ARE spawned in-game, there's a man kicking one of the bodies.

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    3. True so true


      GO 2016

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  4. What happens if you go to the URL mentioned in the story? It's 1:35 am here and I'm too scared to do it right now.

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  5. I punched the URL in, being the moron I am. nothing came up.

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    Replies
    1. i got a weird web page. its in japanese i think but some parts are in english. idk what it is but i got something to show up. simple site really.

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  6. I'm the guy who wrote this. This was was written in 5 minutes, so it's obviously unpolished.

    @anon1
    I've played it for a good 30-40 days on PS3. I get why it's freaky, hell, just the thought that someone actually dreamt of the crazy stuff in LSD freaks me out. Also, totally didn't know Masima Akukichi was a real name. I was using my slow laptop to write this, so I just though of a japanese sounding name quickly.

    @anon3
    Nothing happens, it's fake. When I rewrite it, I'll make a proper website.

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  7. Hey Nick, when you rewrite it, just email it to me and I'll paste it over this.

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  8. HOLY FUCKING SHIT
    THIS IS NOT FAKE.
    THIS JUST HAPPENED TO ME INGAME X_X
    Seriously. I was playing LSD Dream Emu, and I was teleported with a red screen.
    When I came to, I was in a dark black and red place, with cliffs going into nothingness filled with eyes everywhere, watching me. I looked forward, and about shit myself. THERE HE WAS, the Grey Man. I ran and ran, but he kept following me. when he got me, he lifted his face a little, revealing the ghastly glow of his deathly red eyes, and the dream ended. On the stats graph, it says my dream was "Downer" all the way. CREEPY SHIT. I'm so getting it on video next time. I'll keep you updated on if I see the textures turn into people mutilating others and creepy-shit-you-see-on-/x/, 'kay.

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  9. @Joe: Send me the video link please. Nobody has gotten a video of walking into the Grey Man. :/

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  10. Okay, I'm uploading it as we speak.
    OH dear. Uhm, as typing this, I realized your request was of me walking INTO him. WEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL, in the videos I've recorded, I don't walk into him, and when I tried (no creepypasta shit intended here, you will have to trust me on this one), the part where we walks into me lags FRAPS so bad, it skips it out. o_o
    This game is so delightfully creepy. My friends watch me get scared at this and call me a pussy, because "the graphics are too poor for it to be scary". I am not scared of it because of this creepypasta. I am not scared of it for it's crazy things. I am scared of it for the simplicity, and how the dreams don't feel synthetic, they feel so real. Deep shit.

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  11. Well... Here's one anyways~
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TM_0IPybpU

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    Replies
    1. I did a short series of let's play videos and met the Grey Man as well. Thought I've attempted to run into him, he disappears in a flash of white each time..
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz0tYYJ_Db0&feature=player_detailpage&list=PLgNSw8KUuMRp9mvq6cNRWeD_inyxVnO91#t=465

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  12. the gray man is real, hes a part of the game, there are some images of violence in the game too, crappily pixilated women haning themselve,s peoples heads falling off, but nothing graphic, but still its kind of freaky.

    PROTIP:next time take a game thats not scary and make creepypasta out of it, because the game itself is 100X scarier than your story

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    Replies
    1. There was one I saw and... not joking... I saw a dude kicking a dead body...

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  13. (same poster as above) Oh, and if I find a ROM of this, I'm so whipping out my old PSOne and playing it off of a CD.

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  14. This game is creepy as hell, if it doesn't trigger xenophobia, I don't know what does. There's plenty of videos on Youtube of the Shadow man.

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  15. LSD: Dream Emulator actually is a dream diary. One of the developers made this game to make you see what he dreamed about.

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  16. OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoh! A scaaaaary vidja gayme with scaaaaaary pictures! Aren't you scaaaaaared? OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo!

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  17. Well, there's actually some playthroughs of LSD on youtube. Usually they're more funny than scary.

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  18. This game definitely works on an emulator. I've got it myself.

    But anyway, nothing much disturbing happens. Or at least nothing that graphic. I have however seen people hanging themselves, a woman's head fall off and I got shot by some guy.

    Things that pop up suddenly scare the crap out of me though.

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  19. The game play of this game makes me think of Myst, they even use the term Linking like Myst does, just something I observed.

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  20. "I destroyed the PS3 and replaced my computer."
    NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!1!1!!one!!!!

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  21. This game is real and is pretty creepy. the only guy that i new that has let's play'd it was DavetheUsher

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  22. Oh come on! People actually tried it!?

    The fuck? Do you people think this shit is real? How did you get here anyway? Do you think this is a real blog?

    GOD!

    I'm gonna go drink some tea. Idiots.

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  23. Git, EVERYONE HERE is reading to scare themselves in a way of fucking course they're going to check the link if they think it'll scare them.

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  24. The only thing I thought of was DavetheUsher, he did a gamereplay of this game. He's awesome

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  25. Spent a long night playing this game, it's kind of odd nothing is ever the same videos of kids eating cereal and tigers that look like they have human heads and messed up music creppy game but when you do it with friends it isn't that bad just odd mostly

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  26. The game is sentient. As you play it, it "learns" the way you play and uses ways to frighten you. Although the game wasn't intended to be scary, it becomes such because of it's atmospheres and the way it presents things.

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  27. Y'know. This has never happened. The most you have to worry about is mental stimulation in this game (Look it up. I'm not going to type a lecture about it). This is pathetic. Yes, it's a Creepy Pasta, and the game's nature is strange. But seriously... Once you start putting in fake descriptions of what's in the game, you ruin the entire concept, and you look like an idiot who just wrote an unpolished story.

    Look, the game merely gives you a stimuli every time you go through the linking. And based on what you go through, things get stranger. You react accordingly (Or not at all, sometimes), but your mind is always acknowledging what's going on, even though you don't notice that your mind is seeing and watching. My only advice, is that once you start feeling pressure and sensations where your brain would be, turn off the game and take a breather (This is the only game where it'd truly advised to do this).

    Sure, you can keep on going, with disregard of the sensations, but if you do, your mind keeps "seeing" these things without your knowledge.

    To put a long story short: Your mind can only take so much of the environment, before it opens a "backdoor" of sorts, and you subconsciously take everything in.

    The result of this, is mind stimulation (Again, look it up for more detail). And yes, stimulation is bad in this case, as now, you're more liable to have a nightmare or otherwise bad dream, thanks to the "taint," as I like to call it.

    This would be more believeable if it revolved around a man disregarding the sensations, and wound up having nightmares and hallucinated. But this is not the case, and instead it's a story that puts in things that are not in the game. Absolutely pathetic.

    1/5

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  28. ^ tl;dr -- "My personal tastes in fiction are the one golden barometer of all objective quality. Also psychobabble."

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  29. The website you linked to really isn't convincing on a mobile device. :P

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  30. I played the game. It gets wierd like a women hanged from the neck on a street light. A ghost. The guy on the coat. And a ladies head falling off. But half of this story is fake. Of course. Its a great story. Its a good game. Its just dreams that the lead guy making this game had. It took them years making it and would write his dreams. There are some trippy random videos like a kid eating spaghetti and stuff. But other than that its pretty nice to play and experience the randomness of the game. Either download it on the pc or make a japanese psn account and buy it. Its better on the ps3 though. The last part of destroying the ps3 is stupid. You couldve just deleted the fucking game. Only a fucking dumbass pussy would destroy it for disturbing images. Theres disturbing images on the internet but that wouldnt give you the reason to destroy the pc is it.

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  31. The game is really cool, i've read that initially strange things cannot happen, and this is the reason this story is a fake... but really i'm playing it and i'm around day 25 and things are getting scary.
    I don't think i'll go further then day 70 :P

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  32. http://oharaweb.weebly.com/lsdgmn.html
    It's the real web page.

    Osamu Sato designed the game, no Masima Akukichi.
    I love LSD, and I'm one of the few fans of this game c:

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  33. Make that: Linking the Sapient Dream. They have a lot of standings like Leisure the Sonorous Dream, Limbo the Silent Dream and Lunacy the Savage Dream.

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  34. I thought the story was pretty good. Even if it was unpolished it was a good start. Gave me the chills and I have played LSD and know that it is a strange game that can make you jumpy for some reason. I usually experience the same thing over and over in that game, there's a demon that flies at me in the middle of some kind of ancient temple complex and if I go into the temple there are two sumos circling eachother and bumping into eachother in a ring. Then I go past that into something that looks like the inside of a body and at the end are jumping babies. Also there is an elephant that falls into a hole in the ground near where the demon is or the elephant floats up out of the hole into the sky.

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