This post contains spoilers for the entirety of the game, I discuss all the dreams, their twists, etc. Do not read this before playing MMSD - it will affect your experience.

Seriously, you should play the game first.

Do it, for me, and the talking cactus.

Loneliness. Desolation. That’s how I interpreted this jam’s ‘Winter’ theme.

As with every game I’ve made, I put pieces of myself in every story.

Nowadays, Winter is a much happier time of the year for me.

But unfortunately, that is not the case of [redacted], our protagonist who makes a return from Overcomp. I greatly recommend that you play Overcomp, as it sets the stage for everything that happens in MMSD.

On the subject of putting myself in my games, the real-life backgrounds are literally my room. I took pictures of my desk and arranged various objects to make the main menu. The pills you can take are my own sleeping medicine. Touché.

I’ve explored a multitude of themes in this game. Unrequited queer crushes, parental abuse, depression, job searching despair. Each one more relatable than the last. I’ve discovered things about myself, making this game. I should go tell my therapist, ASAP.

Jokes aside, I’ll do a quick overview of what I had in mind while producing each dream.

1. Confession

You grow a crush on someone, but they’re straight. You pine and wonder and fantasize, especially when you’re too young to know better. Next thing you know, you’re sighing to yourself while watching them talk to their own opposite-gender crush, wondering if this is how life will be from now on.

2. Mother

My mom tried to break into my apartment building a few Christmas-es ago. I don’t talk to her.

3. Job Interview

I work an unpaid internship. It’s tons of works with no reward other than… learning, I suppose, which doesn’t feed me. Interviews are pure neurotypical hell and I hoped to express how the questions they make in those made me feel. Cacty probably didn’t even reply to [redacted]’s email with a rejection. Sadly very common.

4. Grim Reaper

More [redacted]’s moment than mine. It was challenging to draw the Reaper, you can tell I was struggling. But I like how he looks now, weird-looking scythe and all. I tried!

5. Komi stares at me for 3 minutes straight

No comment needed.

6. Mirror

There are some secrets in this one! Can you find out how to unlock them? Heheheh… oh, there’s a cool little minigame that unlocks after you complete this dream - I was learning how to make dress-up games in Ren’py, and decided to test what I learned with that. I’d love to see how your Thing ended up!

7. Lover

OVercomp fans can recognize a familiar face. ‘Him’ from Overcomp is back, and they’ve never been prettier. This is the end of their romantic relationship with [redacted] - there’s some bitterness and resentment, even though they didn’t mean for things to be like this.

Also, you can tell [redacted] uses he and they pronouns to refer to his boyfriend. In the time between games, the boyfriend has done some gender questioning. It’s a little subtle detail I hoped got conveyed without needing to overexplain it in-game. I had to do some research on neutral pronouns in Portuguese for the translations, and settled on elu/delu for them.

8. Paradise

THIS IS A MESSAGE FROM YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS. I wanted to represent the nonsensical dreams we sometimes have. Personally, the more meds I take, the weirder they are. Buy TP.

9. Time Loop

I thought it’d be fun to have a dream that can just randomly drastically changes for no reason.

Doo doo daa doo it’s a time loop~ Doo doo daa doo it’s a time loop~

You don’t recognize the song? Then that means you haven’t seen all the content this dream has to offer.

That’s right, I sang. But I’m so embarrassed with how it ended up I put the resulting video behind RNG.

You can only watch it once. Never again.

10. Maniああアああああ

ああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああ

11. A winner is you!

This one is unlocked by beating all minigames! Can you do it? Let me know if you’ve unlocked this one - I really wanna know what percentage of players bother to mess around with all the puzzles!

**Ideas for possible future post-jam expansions...**

- Mixing different pills for new dreams.

- I want there to be more endings... the current one should trigger when you take way more pills.

- More stuff to interact with in the room menu. I had ideas for a computer with minigames that unlock by viewing certain dreams. Or the room changes as the game progresses (such as moving from the bedroom to the bathroom.)

- There were some assets for the 'random note' feature that had to be left unused due to the jam's age restriction (I think they'd still be PG-13 as they're very cartoony, but I didn't want to risk it.), I'd like to use them in the future.

- More puzzles! I find them really cool, but I ran out of images to use.

- A prettier GUI for Create-A-Thing, and more customization options.

Sadly not worth it to keep updating.

Ideas for minigames:

• I REALLY WANTED TO HAVE A COOKIE CLICKER SPOOF. Komi Clicker. I had a whole thing written out for the plot, the upgrades, ideas for lines……. but coding such a minigame is too much for my skills. The most I could do was make her spin when you clicked her. I’m still upset about this.

• A minigame spoofing mobile gacha games, you open a box and a bunch of anime girls show up in various rarities. Can you get UR Komi?!?!

Ideas for dream concepts I’ve had:

- A point-and-click 'escape room' dream, like the ones in the good ol' Newgrounds days.

- A zombie apocalypse dream.

- A noir detective dream in which you're trying to solve a mystery.

- One taking place in a chatroom. Something spooky or weird or both happens.

(Yeah the above are not happening. Better to make them individual games instead. MMSD has done terribly here, it might be more worth it to release more games instead of updating this one.)

• A dream that’s told in manga format - as in, literal manga panels on screen.

• A dream where the graphics are bad MS Paint attempts and the dialogue is very very broken, an homage to Nyan Neko Sugar Girls.

• You’ve been hired as an editor for the prestigious publishing company Tangelo Books. Your writer is having a major crisis. It is your job to calm them the F down.

• Your friend from school reads your visual novel. She’s a sock puppet. Literally

• And of course, the ‘Is it cake?’ dream.

For now, I’m just happy I managed to participate in a jam! :) Special thanks to Nevi and Marie for letting me use their gift art in the minigames.

I quite enjoyed this experience, and I want to try and participate in more jams in the future! I’ve had my eyes on the O2A2 Jam for a while, and there are some ideas bubbling up…

I hope you enjoyed this experimental VN!

• Meiri