Summer Dream

Summer Dream

Author/Designer: Laura Renfroe

Winner: Excellence in Writing, USM Interactive Writing Contest (2023)

In this sensual interactive fiction game, the player jolts in and out of a lucid and youthful dream, stimulating a sense of nostalgia for memories and places never experienced. The dream is set in a hilly countryside village, where greenery stretches as far as the eye can see and streams flow at the edge of town. There are tea houses, small, green-painted convenience stores, and friendly neighborhood cats. As the player traverses this unreal and bittersweet environment, they are jarringly awakened to the contrast of a humdrum reality. The dream world portrays romanticized youth, a sort of "hyperreality" that in turn dictates how the player views their reality. The media’s magical portrayal of adolescence and romance ends up feeling more real than the players' experience of their youth. This game illustrates the question of how to thrive in the tedious, sometimes insipid day-to-day routines that often seem so far removed from the winsome fantasy portrayed in the media.