Lila Dreams: a very cool concept
(Visited 7395 times) Game talk
May 302008
What the heck is Lila Dreams? It’s a massively multiplayer online game where you become a mental entity (called a “memekin”) and live out an adventurous life inside an 11 year-old girl’s psyche.
They also have a blog with interviews and the like; looks like it’s in Flash and will be on Kongregate. Based on the concept art, I’m betting it is a side view game…
11 Responses to “Lila Dreams: a very cool concept”
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Is it just me, or do little girls get most of the “inside the mind of” consideration? I’m aware of little boy exceptions (e.g. “Little Nemo”), but more aware of girl examples (“Pan’s Labyrinth”, “MirrorMask”, “Labyrinth”, “Alice in Wonderland”, “Wizard of Oz”, aso). Just an observation. Looks like a fun project.
You might also want to scope out the blog for another premium game Kongregate’s doing called Remnants of Skystone. http://www.remnantsofskystone.com/blog/
Steam punk isn’t quite as cool as Lila’s brain, but Flipline is doing a remarkably great job with it. Both Lila and RoS are being developed by teams of 3 or fewer people.
@csven: So are you saying that game designers tend to have the personal quirks of Lewis Caroll, or that the young female mind is a vast unexplored and mysterious frontier of games we don’t understand?
Iniquitous minds want to know.
How many mainstream or cult films have been made from that point of view? Quite a few.
Perhaps there is simply the “prejudice” (in quotes because that’s far too powerful of a word to use without them) that the young female mind is more mysterious and unpredictable than the young male (or, formulated the other way, that the young male mind is more predictable and resultingly dull when told as a story)?
Besides, if we’re going to talk about modern “Inside the mind of…” games, let’s at least mention Psychonauts and American McGee’s Alice (which, despite being the aforementioned Alice in Wonderland, is more appropriately described as an exploration of American McGee’s mind if anyone’s). Neither of those were little-girl focused.
Let’s also mention Persona, back on the Playstation 1. If you ever played that all the way to the end, that also proved to be an exploration of the mind of a young girl (I’ll spoil it if asked). Certainly not at all the same as what’s here.
Was St Elsewhere really the exploration of a young disadvantaged boy’s mind or just a way to wrap it up with a puzzler?
I’ve never found my daughter’s mind to be more mysterious. I’ve found her tastes to be more expensive. Being a Dad, I’m a slave to them. 🙂
@len – I’m not “saying” anything. Just making a personal observation. That is still possible in this day and age, yes?
Hi Raph,
Thanks for posting about the game! I’m really, really flattered that you did! 🙂 You’re a big inspiration to me.
Peter S. wrote:
Probably. But then there’s Jarhead and Elephant…
@Jason and @Raph
This looks really cool, I’m going to keep my eye on this one. Thanks for the heads up Raph, and thanks for the game Jason!
If you want to play the gender card, look to Bridge to Terabithia for something more gender-neutral.
On the other hand, check out The Sandman Vol. 2.
@csven: I meant that to be humor. So much for the dry side.
Interior views as a means to explore psychology and enhance dramatic effect is a well-explored technique in film. In literature, it has always been a staple possibly because it is easier than dialog. I’d not heard of such in games per se although I worked with it in 3D in the Irishspace scenes and ROL. I’m more curious about how that is represented as game elements.