Dreaming About Games - Games with a Sleep/Dream Theme

 The Magical Realm of Dreams

Dreams are a wild thing. We spend the day awake, thinking about the real world and how it affects us, following very specific laws of physics, interacting with the natural state of things in set parameters. Yet, when we fall asleep, the dream world allows us to do crazy things like flying, or manipulate the reality in which we are in. Physics goes out the window when we sleep and reality is anything that we make it.

Good dreams often can be one of the coolest things that people can experience and "lucid dreamers" (those that can manipulate their dream world while asleep) have been characterized as having god-like powers in these dreams. Reality bends to their wills and what was once a normal house can turn into a 300 foot tall mansion with gumdrops for windows, a zany slide from the top floor to the ground, and hundreds of rooms to explore that each house something completely different. Imagination runs wild in dreams and the constraints of the world are only determined by the mind that is dreaming.

On the other side of the dreaming coin, we have nightmares. The dreams that leave us gasping for breath when we awake because they feel so real. These are the dreams about things that go bump in the night; the long fingered man that stalks slowly behind you while you feel like your feet are trapped in mud; the endless falling through the sky as you plummet towards the ground. The manifestation of our fears, anxieties and all the dark places that lurk in our subconscious mind when we're awake come out to play when nightmares come around.

It's such an interesting theme and I heartily believe that much of the media that we have today comes from the minds of dreaming individuals. The worlds that are created in dreams and imagination are fantastical and wild and I'm betting that there are more pieces that are inspired by those ideas than people would admit.

With that theme in mind, here are ten games that either have a theme with sleep or dreaming, or (at least in my mind) blur the lines of reality and the dream world, allowing the player to perform feats that were not necessarily possible in the real world. Many of them might be on the top games list here on BGG, but others are ones that I've stumbled upon in my wanderings here on BGG that seemed interesting to me.

Etherfields

Year Released: 2020
Designer: Michał Oracz
The Dreaming: Starting things off with a bang, we have Etherfields, a tactical deck-building game that features a very heavy dream theme to the game. Players are tasked with first finding out their purpose for why they are in the Dreamworld, as much of why they found themselves there has been forgotten and clues must be obtained to remember. As the game progresses, the rules change, much like being in a dream, and players will find themselves proceeding through the campaign of this surreal world, investigating what happened to the Dreamers in the past. Like with many dreams, logic can be a benefit, but so too can be instinct, and players are tasked with finding out what drives them in this exploration of dreams and the lands that they create.

Neodreams

Year Released: 2024
Designer: Ivan Lashin
The Dreaming: This is a newer game that popped up on my radar recently and it looks to be extremely interesting. The premise is that dreams have now become commercialized and companies are looking to dominate the dream world, earning as much money as possible through the curation of dreams for clients. The game utilizes worker-placement mechanics (a favorite of mine) in order to gain resources, develop the dreamscapes of clients, and upgrade their companies' technology. The game itself looks beautiful and features bright, colorful artwork on the cards with easy to understand iconography as well as simple to read boards and a well-written rule book. I am definitely intrigued by this game and hope to be able to play this absolutely gorgeous game sometime soon.

Onirim

Year Released: 2010 (Second edition 2014)
Designer: Shadi Torbey
The Dreaming: I will be up front about Onirim: I wasn't really a big fan of the game and felt that the theme didn't really do much to really enhance the gameplay, nor did it really feel necessary for the game itself. The "story" behind Onirim is that you are a dreamer trapped in The Chamber of Dreams, looking to open the doorways of the chamber, while avoiding the nightmares that stalk the halls. It's a cooperative solo/two player game, but I really didn't feel like it was my cup of tea when I played it. Still, this game does fit the "dreaming" theme, even if it is by association, and this is one game for those that want an extremely challenging card game that they can play on their own. Me? It's more of a nightmare to play, and I'd rather play something else.

Incubo

Year Released: 2024
Designer: Francesco Messina
The Dreaming: This is another game that came up on my radar while I was perusing things here on BGG. It was recently crowdfunded back in June on Gamefound and features a boy and his cat looking to save their sister. The game is built around the sleep theme with players going through three "stages" of REM sleep, building their decks together to prepare for the boss fight that comes at the end of each stage. With a creative twist on cooperative play, Incubo looks interesting both from a mechanical perspective and from an artwork perspective, as the dream theme seems to bleed through on everything on the cards.

When I Dream

Year Released: 2016
Designer: Chris Darsaklis
The Dreaming: When I Dream is a really interesting looking party game that features one player acting as the "dreamer" and the other players acting as dream spirits looking to provide a dream for the player. One side features the "fairies" who attempt to bring good dreams, while the other side is the "Imps" who look to bring bad dreams. There is also a third team: the "tricksters" who attempt to balance out both sides by switching back and forth. Each team must give one word clues to the dreamer who attempts to determine if one of the words given is the card chosen. If correct, it goes into the "fairy" pile, and if incorrect it goes into the "imp" pile. At the end of the round, the dreamer must attempt to retell their dream to earn additional points and players earn points for each of the cards in the piles with each team scoring differently. It looks to be a really fun party game that plays from 4-10 players with limited time each round, making for a quick game.

Stuffed Fables

Year Released: 2018
Designer: Jerry Hawthorne
The Dreaming: While not technically a game that features "dreams" as a theme, I would argue that the overall theme of Stuffed Fables falls squarely into the "sleeping" category. Players each choose a toy to play as and proceed through the storybook game board which also acts as a guide book and rule book for each scenario. The game features various toys looking to protect the little girl that the enemies that belong to the various manifestations of milestones in a child's life. The game features a child-like sense of wonder and adventure and delves neatly into the realm that borders between imagination and dreams, which is why I have included it on this list.

Sleeping Gods

Year Released: 2021
Designer: Ryan Laukat
The Dreaming: While the main gameplay of Sleeping Gods features realistic adventuring set in the 1920s with a steamboat and other ongoing characters and decisions that players must make, the entire premise is the reason that I have included this game on the list. The gods of the Wandering Sea have summoned you and your fellow players to their dream (or is it another world? or both?) to find their totems in order to wake them up from their slumber. Yet there remains a being that does not want the gods to reawaken and seeks to destroy you and your ship as you proceed along through the game. Will you manage to complete your quest and complete the awakening, or will you succumb to the ever-present threat that stalks after you in this highly rated storybook game.

The Night Cage

Year Released: 2021
Designer: Christopher Ryan Chan, Chris McMahon, Rosswell Saunders
The Dreaming: Ok, I will fully admit that this game technically doesn't feature a dream or sleep related theme, but there's something so nightmare-like with this game that I had to include it on this list. The Night Cage features an ever-growing maze that players are looking to escape from, monsters that lurk in the dark looking to devour your characters, and a flickering candle that slowly disappears as the game progresses. Can you work with your teammates to find the keys necessary to escape, or will you be lost in the nightmare, devoured by what awaits in the darkness?

Isle of Night

Year Released: 2024
Designer: Ryan Laukat
The Dreaming: Another Red Raven Games game featured on this list, and this one too is a bit more dream/sleep adjacent rather than directly related to dreams. The Isle of Night is a two to five player card game where players take turns claiming cards that make up and build the mysterious island that only appears at night. With the dream-like entities and items that show up on the island, there is an ethereal, otherworldly nature to this simple card game that is coming out later this year from the publisher. It's another game that has piqued my interest and I'll be curious to see how it rates and plays when it arrives.

Dreamscape

Year Released: 2019
Designer: David Ausloos
The Dreaming: In this medium weight game published by Sylex, players are tasked with collecting dreamshards as a dreamer from fantastical places like The Clockwork Golem or The Eternal Summer Lake during the first phase of the game. In the second phase, players then take their dreamshards and construct a small tableau looking to accomplish both private and public objectives. It's a very unique looking game that features route-planning, resource gathering, and tableau building, all combined to create a one-of-a-kind game that is unlike anything that I've ever seen before.

Final Dreams

Dreams are such an interesting idea to build a game off of and I think that it would be really interesting to make a game with that theme. There's so many wild things that can be done with that theme that the possibilities are nearly endless. With the rules of a dream ever-changing, a game could have a shifting, changing rule set that grows and wanes as the game goes on, or feature wildly different mechanics that don't usually go together.

I personally would love to see a game with a dream theme where players are jumping from dream to dream having to "fix" the dreams from encroaching nightmares or outside meddling. I think that could make for some really interesting gameplay and there could be mechanics that require the players to fight monsters or fix the dreams with resources that were gathered resulting in completely different dreams. Players would score points based on how close it was to the original dream, or points for making the dream better, but could potentially lose points for deviating too far from the original dream or not defeating nightmares.

I also would love to see a game based off of Neil Gaiman's "Sandman" series. Would it be too much to ask to have a well-crafted game based off of that universe where players choose one of the foundational aspects of the universe and work towards their own goals? Anyone else want a game based on that universe?

Give me your thoughts (and dreams): What is the coolest game that you've played that has a dream or sleep theme to it? What would you like to see in a game that was based off of the theme of dreams? Do you remember your dreams when you have them, or are they something that you forget almost immediately when you wake up? What do you daydream of when you drift off?

As always, thank you so much for checking out this blog. If you liked it, please hit the green thumb  at the top of the page and feel free to leave a comment on the post. I appreciate all interactions and will respond to everything that I can. If you really liked the post and want more ramblings, feel free to subscribe and get new posts every Monday/Wednesday/Friday.

*Originally posted on BoardGameGeek on 19/8/2024*