Dream Zone

The game was met with generally positive reviews, with critics commending its atmosphere and presentation while having mixed reactions to its difficulty and humor. The game was JAM Software's last before adopting the Naughty Dog name for their next game, Keef the Thief (1989).

• Title — Dream Zone • Developer — JAM Software • Publisher — Baudville • Platforms — Apple II, Apple IIGS, MS-DOS, Amiga, Atari ST • Released — * Apple II, Apple IIGS • Q2 1988 • MS-DOS • November 1988 • Amiga, Atari ST • December 1988 • Genre — Graphic adventure • Modes — Single-player • Designer — * Andy Gavin • Jason Rubin • Programmer — Andy Gavin • Artist — Jason Rubin • Writer — * Andy Gavin • Jason Rubin • Composer — Sarah Sidman

• Illustration — In this example of gameplay from Dream Zone, the player prepares to shoot an uncooperative porcine bureaucratic officer. Dream Zone is a graphic adventure game in which the player controls a boy who is sent to a surreal dream world by a psychiatrist's potion and must defeat a lurking beast to escape. The game features a screen divided into distinct areas for streamlined interaction: a menu bar at the top for game management, a central picture area displaying the current location with panoramic views and up to twelve objects, a control pad on the right for movement, an icon bar below the picture for action verbs, a command line at the bottom for input execution, and a description window for text responses. The player issues commands through a hybrid system combining mouse-driven icons and keyboard text entry. Common actions occur via the icon bar, where single-clicking verbs like "drop", "talk", "hit", or "buy" inserts them into the command line, followed by clicking an object or character to complete the phrase, with a final return key activation. Double-clicking verbs toggles alternatives, such as "hit" to "kill" or "buy" to "steal". The control pad provides directional arrows, up and down bars, and a central "enter" button; double-clicking the enter button causes the player to exit the current location. Keyboard equivalents support all commands, including typed directions like "Go north" or full sentences, with function and cursor keys dedicated to frequent actions. Pull-down menus handle saving, loading, editing, options like text colorization, toggling the Visible Objects command, inventory display, music control, and quit functions. The game accommodates up to ten saved games on the disk. The Visible Objects command renders movable items as icons in the picture area, enabling mouse capture by clicking to name them in the command line to acquire or manipulate. The Special Inventory command shifts icons to the description window for direct use. Inventory appears in the icon bar and can be interacted with from there. Double-clicking companion names or location descriptions in the display line initiates talks or detailed views, with color-coded text signaling conversation (light blue) or danger (red).

A boy plagued by recurring nightmares seeks help from the eccentric Dr. Sigmund Fraud, who wires him up to a bizarre machine and determines that a monstrous "beast" is tormenting his sleep. Fraud prescribes a strange liquid that will send the boy to a dream world in which he can slay the beast, warning him that failure to do so means never waking up. Before going to sleep, the boy sneaks a water gun from his brother's toy chest after bribing him with money. Upon falling asleep, the boy enters a surreal landscape, with the beast preventing his return. To enter the Rigor Mortis Saloon, the boy must buy a fake ID from an anthropomorphic fox hustler in a nearby alley, who requires a form from the Department of Information to make the sale. The boy navigates the labyrinthine building, a bureaucracy inhabited by pig officers, in search of the form. In the dream world, his water gun takes on a lethal quality, allowing him to shoot uncooperative officers and retrieve the form. In the saloon, the boy trades a holy wafer for a keg of beer, emptying it for a thirsty crowd. The boy happens upon the dock of an oriental palace, where only married couples are permitted to swim. Upon swearing, the boy is teleported to the Department of Information's romper room, where he is made to repent. Here, he proposes to a girl in a crowd of people who had gotten lost attempting to acquire the same form he had. The two marry in the secular church, with the fox hustler officiating the union. With his new privilege, the boy swims to an underwater cave, where he encounters a rat and trades the empty keg for a pearl that displays maps. The boy buys a loan of tuna from a literal loan shark, allowing him to buy a ticket onto an airship bound for the Castle in the Clouds. The pearl allows the captain to navigate to the Castle, where the boy shoots a drunkard for his bottle of acidic wine and collects a key for the door back to the real world. The boy confronts the beast, using the wine to dissolve him. He unlocks his bedroom door and wakes up. Feeling guilty, the boy returns his brother's water gun, for which he receives a hug.

Following the success of their previous title Ski Crazed (1987), JAM Software founders Andy Gavin and Jason Rubin continued their relationship with publisher Baudville and began development on Dream Zone. The game was jointly designed and written by Gavin and Rubin, with Gavin programming the game and Rubin creating the graphics. The music was composed by Sarah Sidman. The game's introduction features black and white digitized graphics depicting the real world, with the dream world scenes conveyed in color by Rubin's hand-drawn illustrations, an effect that Gavin compared to The Wizard of Oz (1939). Dream Zone was released for the Apple II and Apple IIGS in the second quarter of 1988, for MS-DOS in November 1988, and for the Amiga and Atari ST in December 1988. It was JAM Software's first game to be released outside the Apple II platform.

The following is established of the heading itself. Institutional cataloguing adds that dream Zone is associated with United States.