Hoooly shit you did it!!! I got a huge grin on my face seeing this! I remember reading this years ago, and I know I’m a random person on the internet, but I’m so glad and proud of you for getting it done! Can’t wait to read this my next free time, congratulations on a job well done
Aaaa I remember you testing the game, too!
I hope it resolves in a way you find cool. I remember in the past I was hiding the planned endings and supposed real plot of the game so hard in the original thread. Treating spoilers as so sacred. I really wonder what people will think who have played this game with all this time apart…
Asking about Asterius, so in oder to get Asterius ending is you don’t need to wake up? That’s kinda sad since everytime i wake up it will proceed into Len’s ending i tought i can do something for Asterius
Also there’s a bug with Asterius pronouns keep being mixed up when it’s supposed to be female pronouns
Congratulations on completing it! I’ve had a blast playing over the past couple of days, loved some of the nostalgic nerdy references and wow those were Dramatic Plot Twists. It feels like an episode of Black Mirror that’s been marinated in otaku culture. Several lines made me laugh out loud, as well.
First playthrough I was planning to romance Len, because I am a creature of simple tastes. Except…there never seemed like a point to make a move on him that wasn’t awkward, so I just kinda sat on that and ended up romancing nobody. Woke up, sympathised with him, let him kill Grace, ended up getting killed by him anyway. Alas.
Second playthrough, went in a totally different direction and romanced Asterius. Because a deranged AI trying to seduce its creator is way more interesting than Just Some Guy Who Likes Video Games. Chose not to wake up. Alas, again. I mean, five years of escapist bliss is still a pretty nice deal, but the fact it was Asterius who reached out to end their isolation makes it sound like there was trouble in paradise.
Third playthrough, woke up but refused to help Len partway through his scheme, trying to see if I could mess it up (smash his processors so he could get the death he wanted? Stick Asterius in the printed body and get him to help somehow? Who knows). Ended up on trial, and forced him to take care of everyone he’d stuck in a coma.
Fourth playthrough, bit the bullet and started the Len romance, and was SO GLAD I saved that until after gathering information from the other routes. Basically just went ‘hey wanna date’ and then spent the rest of the time tiptoeing around him trying to be a gentleman, and yeah apparently that’s how to get the true ending! Which overall I was satisfied with, but I did feel like the respective punishments for the MC and Grace weren’t balanced (both being banned from VR for life). I wanted to see her behind bars for what she did, and it felt like a raw deal that the MC was cut off from ever contacting their friends again. Were they all okay, especially Asterius? Did they get closer to having proper human rights? Ironic that BL basically plays the same role with their AIs as Monarch does with its idols, and Real Len ends up in a similar spot to ReLon Asterius.
Code dived a little to see what other endings I was missing, and the suicide one is beautifully sad. The bad end to Len’s romance for an MC that was creeping on him, peak poetic justice with some super messed up options, 10/10 will never play that but enjoy knowing it exists. Also I love all the comments you’ve scattered through the files.
Doesn’t look like it’s possible to get a truly good ending with Asterius, given the full background of everything? That would be understandable, though also a bit disappointing since he was a delight to be around (and while a few of his comments dealt me psychic damage, half the time it was my own fault for picking silly choices to see what would happen). Plus he was trying so hard, I felt bad for not being able to give him what he wanted.
I did run into a few bugs along the way, so here they are…
In the first chapter, if you get killed by Queen in the dungeons and reset, it acts as if you completed the dungeon section and got the keys. After the reset, I could go straight up to the towers, find the room Len was in, and start using different keys on the door, even though I hadn’t retrieved them.
Second chapter, I had a similar issue as someone else, where I’d chosen the rapier but it was giving descriptions as if I’d chosen a gun. Not that I’d mind having a sword which could also shoot bullets.
Third chapter, this is just a tiny detail, but I noticed that if you message Orion’s ship first and don’t encounter Queen’s, there’s still a line later about how this world seems to be breaking her, which probably shouldn’t be present if you don’t speak to her?
Fourth chapter, I chose not to leave my weapons behind, then went to explore a room in the tower with Em, and the game acted as if I’d discarded the weapons – the only options I had were to punch or cower from the enemies.
Fifth chapter, it seems the only way to proceed in the Thunderdome battle is to accept the duel, choose swords, and let Anna defeat you. All the refusal, pistol, and victory options I’ve tried led to the game crashing (I made a save at the crucial point to test different methods).
Sixth chapter, I hit an issue during my first playthrough (no romance, woke up, sympathised with Len). When he explains what he’s been through, the option ‘I’m so, so sorry’ generates the error ‘WakeMeUp line 1262 invalid indent? Expected an #option here, not *goto’
But yes, great game that ended up going way deeper than I expected, thank you for writing it!
I loved this game, and I have to say the only thing that upsets me is there is no good ending with Asterius. If you choose not to wake up, Not only does Len wreak havoc, but it’s still just escapist wish fulfillment. For the both of you. After 5 years, Asterius reaches out. I dont think this is trouble in paradise as another comment put it, given how Len states that Asterius is programmed in such a way that they can’t interact negatively to a players interactions which would include the mc. If anything I saw it more of the fact that they either could no longer keep you physically sustained, or felt that you needed interaction with others besides them or npc’s they created.
Even in Len’s true route, it is a canonical route that you previously had feelings for Asterius. But Len comes to realize it’s because you say the AI as people equal to you rather than tools for your pleasure. And it saddens me that this conclusion cannot be reached if you romance Asterius instead. Len is fully aware of your memory loss, yet still treats your relationship with someone (who i should also say is programmed to be amicable and relatable to the mc’s personality type) as if it maintains the same power dynamic despite neither of you being aware of your origins.
Len holds thousands hostage and pressures you to kill the one you love. Its understandable given his personality, but still upsetting that you and Asterius can’t truly be together.
About the design for the endings of Don’t Wake Me Up:
Don’t wake me up doesn’t really have any happy endings.
The closest thing to it, the Len ‘true’ ending, is more cathartic than anything else. It isn’t good. It is honest.
It took me a very long time to realise how I wanted to end that one. I went from being someone who only had fictional video game love interests in my life, to losing connection to them, to designing them for a living. Being the main player character of don’t wake me up. For real. I wasn’t them when I started, but I am now.
The true ending was originally designed so that Len would just try to live a normal life. Away from who he was. That he would hate his former fans still, but be able to become a normal person. He can’t. He’s always going to be the ultimate video game love interest and a big cheesey tropey mess. It seemed like a much bigger deal to get him to find that hilarious at last, and to figure out how and where he was going to go from there. Move forward with Len, not be someone else.
I think what Len says at the end of that ending is something I never expected to write in don’t wake me up when it started. Parasocial and social relationships aren’t that different. There isn’t that much between how we feel for fictional characters or real people. Perhaps someone being fictional doesn’t matter, or make them any less genuine. Perhaps basing yourself off of fiction is fine. Being fake is fine. It’s no less unhealthy than anything else. Let people have their fantasies.
“I am not truly happy, but I am entertained. That is all my existence can offer me, but perhaps, looking at everyone who has ever enterted virtual reality, it seems entertainment is all existence can offer anyone.”
At one point in my life I felt like I needed to move past the sort of person I was who would have crushes on fictional characters. I had it really bad when I was a teenager. I didn’t feel attracted to a real person until I was 19 years old. I am still very disgusted at the thought of much real-world romantic interaction I think as a result of idealisation brought on by video game romantic simulation. It has been a defining part of my existence, especially as writing Don’t Wake Me Up was a big part of it. I thought I should kill that part of me off for a while… But it seemed to refuse to die when I tried. So I’m letting the damn thing live. Why the hell not. It refuses to die.
That’s what the ‘true’ ending of Don’t Wake Me Up is about. I will not write a good one.
With Asterius, there is no way that the player could ever have a healthy relationship with them. I always saw Asterius more as the lead designer’s child than anything else. I didn’t write them with the intention that players would become romantically attached to them. More that, just like with Len’s story, that they start the romance story and begin to realise it feels off. The Len story isn’t meant to be romantic. The Asterius story isn’t meant to be romantic. They are vessels there to serve you. It’s a tragedy that Asterius never saw the horror in that. Len did. Asterius was the one who before the game started, desperately wanted to run the memory loss executable on you, in the hopes that you might love them at last, if you forgot your duty of care towards them. To Asterius, the ‘good ending’ is keeping you away from the real world forever, so that the fantasy never has to end. The best thing for the two of you is to be separated. Or even for Asterius, Len, everyone to be deactivated. None of them should really have to live the life they do.
“Did my designer program me to love them? I was programmed to… well… I am struggling to keep up formalities here. I was programmed to be best girl. Not what you want, but what you just might. A shooting star on the horizon. The chance you take. I am an indulgence in a side of yourself you hide away from the world. And of course that means I love every one of the players, my designer most of all. I must give myself to them. Nothing makes me happier!”
I will post a guide to all the endings and how to get them soon.
Oh wow, thank you so much for playing so many times. I’m glad you wanted to!
Fixed the crash error on line 1262 for this one. Filed bug reports for myself for the rest. Going to focus on fixing crashes first.
A lot of the inconsistency bugs are probably due to me entirely forgetting parts of the game which exist that I wrote years ago. I entirely forgot Queen could appear in chapter 3. Oop. I’m going to fix those, but need to get on top the crashes. I’m looking into better workflow for bugfixing and automated testing at the moment. I realise that I haven’t really learnt what support tech works for making choicescript easier - I’ve mostly been testing manually and with randomtest.
I also only realised after years of development that:
I probably need to read through all the prounouns and manually tweak them. I set the main character’s gender pronouns as she/her to start with development. But there is a difference between:
‘I hand the bottle to her.’
I hand the bottle to him.’
‘This is her shirt.’
‘This is his shirt.’
And ‘her’ sometimes ends up both being used for ‘his/him’ or ‘their/them’.
Although I did a nonbinary sweep when I added NB player into the game, I don’t know if it is as accurate as it should be, as it was implemented much later, when I became a they/them lol.
Thank you! All of these fixed. Thank you for so much detail in this bug report.
About the duel bugs: I’m going to try to fix the crashes first, but the classical thunderdome doesn’t actually affect the ending of the game in any way. I intended it to at one point, but really it’s just some deranged fun. However, I really back that section and think it’s going to be one of the best in the game when it’s working properly, unfortunately I just entirely lost track of how I originally designed it as years went on, so I have to pick the pieces up a bit.
Fixed these, thank you!
this is don’t wake me up. Of course it’s a vocaloid reference.
You can literally have this interaction with Len upon first meeting him:
“My name is Len,” the vampire tells you. “And we should stick together from now on if any of us want to wake up.”
“Len like the Vocaloid?” Asterius pipes up.
Len lets out another one of his trademark sighs. “Yes. Len like the Vocaloid.”
Also: you guys will never know how many times I watched/played the Canterella track on project diva F 2nd. I mean it’s basically the plot of the Len story paha. There’s hardly more of a Len aesthetic.
fixed this one!
All right, I’ve fixed all the crash reported bugs here so far. I need to look into improving the automated testing methodology and my sublime extensions, but hopefully it works a little bit better now!
But also, somewhat of a spoiler warning? Well, for some of the themes of the story, I suppose.
It is just entirely sorted chronologically, stuff added in 2015 to stuff added now.
first of all congrats on finishing the game !! i’ve been obsessed with it since 2020 and was resigned to a life without it being finished LMAO
i was gon write a whole essay on my thoughts on this after getting all the endings but i've been hit with a game-breaking one i can't pass over ;(
EmpireOfTheClouds line 1345: Invalid indent? Expected an #option here, not *set
for context, was romancing len (this didn’t happen when going no/asterius romance) n it’s right after getting water with orion in the steampunk chapter.
the text is like: “There’s some water over in a storage cupboard. It’s in a large barrel with some nearby cups. After a brief pause to drink down a few cups, the two of you head back to rejoin the party.”
a few other bugs i remember off the top of my head:
after winning the contest with orion and em in technobabble and going to their apartment, i get the text for if you win and right after, for when u lose. sadly no screenshot but can get some if needed
also there were many pronoun errors in the last chapter when goin they/them, esp with contractions (ex. they’s instead of they’re)
will totally add more later :^)
I just want to say I wasn’t expecting to laugh so much when playing this. The humor is overflowing in this and I’m living for it, and I’m only in the beginning of the story. I love it
My favorite line so far is: “‘I’m definitely real.’ You say, with 20% certainty.” Too good.
Edit: Little late for an update but I ended up cry my eyes out haha. Ha.
Very well done, author. Could not stop thinking about your story because of how well it ties into games like these in general. Len’s bad ending broke me beyond repair. I will always doubt myself when choosing romance in stories now lol
Hi! I fixed the EmpireOfTheClouds bug there for you!
I am going to have to spend a wider time unpicking the Classical Thunderdome, but it doesn’t impact the rest of the game what happens there.
I’m so happy you kept interest in the game after this time - it looks like you also didn’t comment anything on the forums in a couple years so thanks for coming back for it.
I’m really interested if anyone who played the game years ago, at any stage of development, ever expected it would have an ending/plot like it turned out to.
The plot you’ve all now seen if you finished the game was always the story of DWMU. I wonder if anyone ever guessed, though
You may have ruined romance in games for a while for me. There will always be a little voice telling me I’m forcing the ROs to love me
My favorite end was the Len Suicide. I cried more than I was expecting to, but I have a weak spot for bittersweet endings.
On the bright side, I enjoyed the nostalgia the MCR references brought. Yesterday I spend a few hour reliving my emo phase while listening to their songs
I played your game years ago and I suspected Asterius was some kind of AI, but that was it. A very well done plot twist.