I dearly adore Delusional Office's depiction of the human mind's dreamscape.
Spoilers for Delusional Office by kz_kr on Robox! Lots of yapping with varying degrees of organization. Image not really related.
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I think one of the main things that drew me to Delusional Office in the first place (aside from being desperate for Rooms content) was what draws me to many of these roomslikes — the liminality of it all. What made me stay was the causal dreamlike aspect that haunts this game.
And of all of those roomslikes, Delusional Office shines the most in its dreamlike aspect because it is a dream. You are in a person's consciousness and you go through rooms drawing from it. It's highly nonsensical, sure, but it has a baseline and everything stems from it (with varying levels of clarity).
The whole game takes place in Arlyn's office, devoid of people, with random paintings and nonsensical items scattered about. The clocks are stuck, the windows lead to a void and/or a rotating skybox of an unrealistically colorful star-filled sky, and sometimes the textures one the walls aren't even right. It's less of a copy of their office and mode of a visage, a memory. It reminds me of the Backrooms a lot.
(Not to mention, numerous rooms literally come from the Backrooms and related media...)
You go from one room to another with minimal transition. You could be atop a building roof with a fake sky one second and then a school classroom the next. The pace of the game makes it so that you go through them quick with not much time to slow down and take in all the details if you're just focused on progressing. It reminds me of the way dreams jump around so fast from one thing or another and that getting treated as normal within the context of the dream.
Back to that part of dreams taking from one's subconscious – entities are based off of figures, feelings, and events from their life. The rooms are littered with small hint towards who they are and what they're here for, but they can mostly be glossed over. All of this manifests with varying degrees of execution which I love because that makes so much sense to me. Sure that thing from your past, probably bullying from fellow students? They turn into a train of laughing emoji pngs. Yay.
The bigger things about the subconscious is, well, the subconscious itself. EN-000 is fascinating to me in the context of this subject because they guide Arlyn, they're clarity in the chaos of their mindscape. They had a part in creating it all, sure, but everything related to them for the most part have a direct purpose or meaning. This differs from dreams but definitely isn't out of place. There has to be some kind of guidance so that Arlyn isn't lost in their own mind, so that they see how they can get out. On the other side of the coing is EN-019, one who directly works against Arlyn (even if it claims otherwise). It's another thing with a clear purpose, and permeates their journey (being guaranteed at certain rooms, being in some ghost rooms, random spawn chance 1/365) because it is part of them, isn't it? You can never truly get rid of your flaws. You can't hide from it in your own mind, in fact, that's its territory. It permeates the Office because the Office is you and It is you – I'm getting off-track.
What's the opposite of dreams? Nightmares! This game can actually be scary sometimes. Cough cough En-013 (test place 3.6 en-013 is genuinely terrifying what the fuck) cough cough its stupid ass scary ass origin room. En-009's obby and whatever the fuck is happening when you fall in the hole in its origin room. All the little random events that catch you off-guard. All the little snippets of unwanted memories you can pass through. You won't forget them. Your mind refuses.
And then there's the music. Oh dear there is the music. I'm not sure what Alter's playlist looks like but if he's the one choosing all these tracks then dear god do I need his playlist. I'm not really good when it comes to describing music (& just not good with audio in general) but they're all so perfect. They add to their contexts so much and I don't think I can hear any other track playing in those moments. They contribute so much to the dream-like atmosphere too! Thinking of Xorberax's track, Numbers, and the neutral/good ending theme song in particular......... :sob:
One more thing that the game is, I'm not sure if this the best way to say it, raw. It's not as 'polished' (??) as other games and that's a big part of what makes it so special. I'm not sure what exactly makes me say this, I think it's little things that add up like the movement being so free causing bugs and glitches to be really easy to do, the simple UI, the small team, the shitposting, and whatnot. The fucking entity designs man...... all /positive btw
Dreams are messy. They're personal. They're nonsensical. They draw from your experience and that can even result in something unrecognizable. They can be genuine shitposts and they can be nightmarish things you'd never imagine (but you are.) and they can be a mirror of the self. They're beautiful. And Delusional Office encompasses all these aspects in its own special little way.
and yeah! my brain is currently fried of things to say but so far things like Delusional Office hit me especially lethally because of their depictions of the human mind that immediately do so much mental damage to me. -1000000hp. ow. why you do this to me. why is this all so real—er, why is the way they depict this unreality so personal and so relatable to me that it is so real, i mean (by "things like delusional office" i refer to it, OMORI, and XG's GD level White Space, all of which have done the aforementioned. they r a beautiful trio to me)
if you read allat thank you :3:3 more to come because i cannot shut my stupid mouth on the world wide web
