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Updated December 13th, 2023
Latest Developments: Kitty's Eldritch Catastrophe
The demo for Recurring Dreams is now complete with the addition of Kitty's Eldritch Catastrophe. This stage is a homage to cat lovers such as myself. In this dream, the player explores the dream of a cat named Catastrophe. The stage features a cat paradise home, filled with cat themed decorations and toys. However, all is not well for our little Catastrophe, as it seems his dream has been invaded by eldritch abominations. It's up to the player to set Catastrophe's mind at ease by fighting off his nightmares.
As this is a prologue stage, I designed it to focus on using your surroundings to progress through the level (much like a cat would to explore). Unlike Cloud Towers Carnival which focuses on regular jumps and aerial jumps, this stage often requires wall jumps and aerial kicks (after learning them). Each prologue stage is designed such that they're beatable regardless of the order you do them in (i.e. aerial movement upgrades are only required within their own prologue stage). However, having more movement upgrades does increase your options for how you explore the stage and can make it easier if you are stuggling. As there's no pitfalls in this stage, I also put a bit more emphasis on the combat in the stage, making the monsters a little more difficult than in Cloud Towers Carnival. This is especially true for the nightmare, The One That Howls, as it has many attacks that require the player to move or position themselves well to avoid being hit.
While this stage was inspired by my love for cats, I also incorporated two dreams that I had into it. The design of Catastrophe was largely based on a dream I had of my most beloved cat Little Kitty (sadly passed away a few years ago). He was a white longhaired cat in real life, but in my dream he possessed dark magic that inverted his fur color to black. There he taught me how to read the shadows on the wall, which when done caused various catastrophes across the world. The second dream I had inspired the eldritch elements of the stage. I dreamt that there was a party at my house with a lot of people, but I began to feel sick and went into the basement to avoid everyone. I started to cough, and then I spitup a purple tentacle infested hairball. Some guests were drawn towards it, and then they ate it and became eldritch abominations. I was able to command them and soon I infected everyone at the party.
Gameplay screenshot of the Kitty's Eldritch Catastrophe prologue stage in Recurring Dreams
Updated December 13th, 2023
Recurring Dreams Wiki
The wiki for Recurring Dreams is now available under the Games category or by clicking here. You'll find all sorts of information there about the game including design choices, names, lore, artwork, videos, content plans, gameplay tips, and much more. While the game is still under development, everything currently made has been added to the wiki, along with some placeholders for things to come. As more content is finished, new additions will be added to the wiki for your perusal. I wanted to create this wiki now to serve as portfolio of my own work as well as to give the public a source of information about Recurring Dreams.
If you've been frequenting the website, you may have seen the original wiki page, which only featured some game lore and introduced the characters. Originally, I envisioned the page as many manuals for older games that introduced a few key elements of the game, but didn't go into detail on everything. I think nowadays, it's a lot more common for games to have digital wikis that explain every detail of the game (although many of them are likely fan made for convenience). Since my game is still fairly unknown, it falls to me to create this at this time, especially since I want people to have a reliable source of information about the game. That said, there are some details of the game that I will purposely leave out of the wiki so that people can discover them from playing. Major plot developments, various stage secrets, and anything else that would spoil the fun of the game will be excluded (although there may be a couple mild spoilers just to introduce things). My main goal for this wiki is to just display the things that I've developed (reaching those things is up to the player).
I've included a small sample from the wiki page here to show how I present a majority of the content there. Each important object that I've developed for the game (collectables, enemies, items, upgrades, stages, characters, platforms, etc) is listed with descriptions, images, and/or videos. I decided on doing videos for a majority of these objects because that would let me see how many views different things are getting, which could give some insights as to what players are interested in or need more information about. You may notice that you need to click these videos twice to initally activate them. This is because embedding a large number of videos puts a strain on loading the webpage, so I've set it up to load each video after being clicked on. Originally, I hoped to make these autoplay after the first click, but apparently Youtube does not count embedded autoplays as views. Thank you for your understanding and may the wiki serve you well.
Cloud Giant:
A giant enemy that lives in the clouds and likes to throw hammers at invaders. It seems to have a strange alliance with the clowns that have appeared in the clouds as well. These giants are quite large and tanky, but it's still possible to sneak by them if you dash well or utilize your surrounding to avoid them.
A sample enemy entry from the Recurring Dreams wiki page
Updated December 13th, 2023
Meet The Developer
Hello, my name is Matthew McCutcheon, and I am the creator of Dream Portal Games and Recurring Dreams. I've always had a passion for games, art, and coding. My first experience with game design was with RPG Maker way back in middle school. In high school, I made custom maps for Warcraft 3 and created a small Fire Emblem demo using Java. At college, I created a short Zelda demo using C++ and Allegro, which the professor was so impressed with he showed it to future classes as a sample project. I graduated from college at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, FL in 2012, where I earned a Bachelor of Science degree with honors in aerospace engineering. At the time, I believed engineering would teach me a lot and lead to a good career, but ultimately I still found my passion to be designing games. About a year later, I decided that I would create and manage my own game design company using my knowledge of math, physics, art, and programming. I started teaching myself how to use Gamemaker Studio, which I have now used for over 10 years. With patience and diligence, I refined my game ideas and artistic ability since then all while working a full time job to pay my bills. In 2020, I launched Dream Portal Games, and released my first demo for Recurring Dreams. It was a homage to many of my favorite games growing up as well as a loveletter to the dreamworld I adore to this day.
My biggest inspiration for going into game design was playing The Binding of Isaac in college. This was a very fun game for me, and it was primarily made by just two people. It got me thinking that it would be possible to make something on my own if I wanted. When brainstorming on what types of games I wanted to make, I knew that my dream experiences would really shape an interesting world for players as just about anything is possible there. I've always had a strong memory for my dreams, and around the age of 15, I started having lucid dreams. Since then I've had all sorts of interesting abilities while dreaming such as flying, elemental manipulation, teleporting, reshaping surroundings, rotating gravity, superspeed movement, travelling through time, etc. Many of the levels and enemy designs within Recurring Dreams are based on actual dreams I've had. A big part of the game is about overcoming fears and defeating nightmares. This too was an experience I had as a child with some recurring nightmares I experienced. Eventually, I found the courage to defeat them, and never had another nightmare since. I felt nightmares were a good focal point for the primary gameplay but also wanted to feature other types of dreams, so I designed minigames that could give a different experience to players and reward them for completing them.
My goal as a developer is to create fun, interesting, and challenging games. I strive to create an enjoyable experience that players of all ages and skill levels can enjoy. Throughout my journey of development, I encountered many hurdles to adapt to, which I believe have strengthened me as a developer. I decided at one point to release my game demo on as many platforms as possible, and I learned a lot about the production pipeline for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, and HTML5. New updates to Gamemaker Studio often broke things for some platforms, and I took those opportunities to create workarounds and report bugs to the engine developers. These updates often presented new features to learn and grow with, which is part of why I like Gamemaker Studio so much. Everything is well documented and there's a nice community where developers can work together to make a better engine for everyone. I always welcome new challenges and am eager to grow my skills, whether it be from learning new software, getting feedback on my game, or otherwise. Making games is a long journey, and I hope to have your support along the way. It is my sincerest hope that my games fondly inspire your dreams, both asleep and awake.
