Dreaming with Elsa

Dreaming with Elsa (DwE) is the first adult game set in the Elsaverse, that takes its name precisely from Elsa, this game's main love interest. It was publicly released in English on July 3, 2015 in HTML format and is the first joint work of Tlaero (writer) and Mortze (graphical artist), later known as Tora Productions. Under the appearance of a classic dating sim with a single love interest, a genre in which Tlaero had some experience after having created (partnering with another artist named Phreaky) another fictional universe called "Keeleyverse", Dreaming with Elsa actually represents the start of a deeper and more complex story arc, this romantic conquest being, in fact, the mechanism chosen by the authors to tell the real story. In that sense, DwE is only the first part of an ambitious tetralogy later completed with Redemption for Jessika (2016), Finding Miranda (2016) and Saving Chloe (2018).

Dreaming with Elsa was officially ported to Ren'Py in 2021, and it can be found in the Elsaverse Omnibus Vol.1 (2021) compilation.

Plot overview
The player takes the role of Jason, a young delivery man for a publishing house who has been having strange dreams for a couple of weeks. In those dreams, he always sees this same attractive woman, whom he never manages to reach, running away from something or someone he cannot see. One day, to his surprise, a change in the usual delivery route leads him to the bookstore run by Elsa, the protagonist of his dreams, whom he has never seen in real life before. Helped by Conner, his friend and co-worker, and Chloe, the bookstore employee, Jason will try to find out what's behind his strange connection with Elsa and, incidentally, start a romantic relationship with her.

Canon Path
''Please, be aware that this is not a walkthrough, but a plot summary. In order to suceed in the canon path, the player must adjust most of his comments and answers to one of the two sides of the spectre: either romantical or sexual.''

'WARNING! Spoiler alert!' In the first scene, as they follow a new delivery route which has been assigned to them after the sudden seizure suffered by another co-worker while sleeping, Jason talks to his partner and friend, Conner, about his recurring dreams of an attractive young stranger. When they arrive at Elysian Books, one of the bookstores on the route, Jason is surprised to see through the shop window the woman he dreams of. The woman also seems surprised to see them and sneaks upstairs. The delivery men talk to Chloe, the bookstore clerk, who informs them that the other woman is Elsa, the store owner. Conner invites Chloe on a date and Jason decides to return late in the afternoon so he can talk to Elsa alone. During that chat with a nervous Elsa, Jason doesn't say a word about his dreams. Elsa mentions that her family has been running the bookstore for generations, and that she never leaves the place as she lives in an apartment upstairs. That same night, Jason has the same dream again, but this time he calls out for Elsa and catches the hooded man chasing her. Depending on the personality shown by Jason up to that moment, that hooded man will look like Conner or like Jason himself; in any case, Jason will end up receiving a hard blow in his head and, strangely, he will feel the pain during the following day, despite having been hit only in his dreams. But his surprise is even greater when, after visiting Elsa again, they discover that they have been having the exact same dreams for weeks, dreams that both vividly remember after waking up. Elsa turns to Chloe, who is apparently interested in esoteric topics and tells them about the "Morpheus", a legendary book she was after when she first arrived at Elsa's bookstore; allegedly, that book could explain what is going on. In order to check if their dream connection is actually real, Jason and Elsa agree to have a talk in their dreams, provided they see each other in them once again. And indeed, that same night they meet again in their dreams, and Elsa gives Jason her phone number. Then Jason wakes up and calls her immediately, confirming that they can share information while sleeping and then remember it when they wake up. During that phone chat, Elsa tells Jason that she has had some bad romantic experiences in her past and is therefore reluctant to engage in physical relationships with men. Then Jason convinces her to go on a date with him, but in their dreams: a safe place where she can just wake up if something makes her feel uncomfortable. During their dream dates, the two of them take advantage of that safe environment to get to know each other, but also to explore their sexuality without actual physical contact. Slowly, she starts to warm up to Jason and one night they even share a phone sex session outside of the dream world. Finally, Conner and Chloe pressure Jason to take Elsa out for dinner and have a real date with her. Elsa eventually agrees and, after going to Delfinos, an Italian food restaurant near her home, she seems willing to end the night making love to Jason in the real world. However, when they return to her apartment, Elsa notices that Tora, her cat, is locked in a room, and concludes that someone has broken into her home while she was away. Freaked out, she checks whether the only object of real value she has in her apartment has been stolen: a copy of the legendary "Morpheus", the book of dreams Chloe told them about. After finding it intact in her safe, Elsa confesses that the book has belonged to her family for many generations and has been passed down from father to son with a warning of never open it, as it could cause terrible things to those who read it. But after all those strange events she's been experiencing lately, Elsa decides to ignore that warning and search for information that might explain what is actually going on. As a result, Elsa finds out that she probably owns the only copy of the book that remains intact in the whole world. After reading it, she discovers that the "Morpheus" contains various spells that could allow her to influence other people's dreams. Elsa inferes that there's someone using one of those spells to link her dreams with Jason's, but she also learns that there are much more powerful spells, so that person must have only a tiny part of the book, and was therefore trying to manipulate her to get her out of her house in order to have a chance to steal the "Morpheus". After talking to Jason to be sure that he was not the one behind all of this, Elsa casts a more powerful spell to catch the thief, who turns out to be Chloe, her employee. Once the mystery is solved, Elsa demands Chloe to hand her over the bookpage she had, leave her bookstore and never use that knowledge again, threatening her with turning every dream she has into a nightmare. Chloe has no other option than to accept Elsa's conditions and walk away. With her fears and insecurities about physical intimacy finally forgotten thanks to Jason's attitude during their dream dates and real-world conversations, Elsa shares a long and satisfying night of real sex with her new boyfriend, and the game ends.

Non-canon Path
Storywise, the only non-canon path available in Dreaming with Elsa is not exactly a different path, but more like a bad ending for the canon path. The story remains basically the same until reaching a certain checkpoint, where an alternative ending scene with Chloe is triggered.

''Please, be aware that this is not a walkthrough, but a plot summary. To unlock this path, the player must flirt with Chloe on every occasion, while keeping a quite difficult balance between romantic and sexual answers that allows him to keep his relationship with Elsa alive until the dinner date.'' 'WARNING! Spoiler alert!' In this route, Chloe has been receptive to Jason's advances during their encounters, and she has even flashed him a couple of times at the bookstore. Right after the break-in at her house, and due to Jason's inconsistency and her own fears, Elsa decides to break off with him. Then Chloe appears in Jason's dreams to offer him sex; in exchange, he must tell her the combination that opens the safe in which Elsa keeps the "Morpheus". Jason agrees and a steamy sex scene starts; the game ends when Chloe gets all the digits she needs to steal the book. In this alternative ending, Chloe reveals that she had caused the regular delivery man a heart attack by having sex with him in his dreams so that Jason and Conner would get his route, and also that she has been fucking Conner so that he would help her to convince Jason and Elsa to go out on a date, in order to get a chance to steal the "Morpheus".

Achievements
In Dreaming with Elsa, players can get up to 12 different achievements. Completing the game at least three times (one in each route) is needed to unlock them all.


 * "That was easy...": Complete the game on "Easy" difficulty setting.
 * "I'll take mine medium rare...": Complete the game on the "Medium" difficulty setting.
 * "This game makes me hard...": Complete the game on the "Hard" difficulty setting.
 * "It is an erotic game, after all": Succeed on the "sexual" path.
 * "Romance in an erotic game? What's the internet coming to?": Succeed on the "romantic" path.
 * "Elsa? Chloe? It's so confusing.": Succeed on the "confusing" path.
 * "I'm in an exclusive relationship. I'm not dead...": Take every opportunity to check Theresa out at the restaurant.
 * "The Spirit of 76 to the Max...": Get the max score (76) either on "romantic" or "sexual" paths.
 * "Shoes before shows, bro...": Check out where Elsa's shoe lands during the date at the park in the "romantic" path.
 * "I liked that game too...": Choose to play a game at Jason's home.
 * "Is that a tiger fish?": Look for Tora while having underwater sex with Elsa in the "sexual" path.
 * "It's traditional...": Check Elsa's rear out when visiting her apartment after catching the thief.

Getting all the achievements unlocks a bonus scene of sexual nature.

Post-credits Scene
Like superhero movies, every game in the Elsaverse incorporates a post-credits scene. The obscure scene in Dreaming with Elsa was the first hint of this game actually being something more than a simple dating sim with some story on it. 'WARNING! Spoiler alert!' In DwE post-credit scene, that takes place a few days after the canon path endgame, Elsa is wandering in her dreams, experiencing with her newly acquired powers and knowledge, and passes through a glowing door. She then finds a short woman with glowing eyes that welcomes Elsa and calls her "Dream Master". After explaining her that they are now in the lady's dreams, she warns Elsa about turbulent times ahead of them. Although her name is never mentioned in this brief scene, in future stories it will become clear that this mysterious woman in a cloak is actually Xara.

Bonus Scene
After getting all 12 achievements, a bonus scene is unlocked. This scene takes place some undetermined time after the endgame, and depicts a sexual threesome with Jason, Elsa and Theresa, the waitress at Delfinos restaurant. 'WARNING! Spoiler alert!' One night, Elsa links her dreams with Jason's and Theresa's, the restaurant's attractive waitress, who have been flirting with both of them during their dates at Delfinos, guessing that Elsa would be at least curious about experimenting sex with her. After explaining to Theresa that they all are sharing the same dream and will remember all of it in the morning, the couple asks her to join them for a threesome. They have thought she would need some convincing, but Theresa quickly agrees, as if all this shared-dreaming thing were an ordinary situation for her. The reason for such behaviour will be explained much later on, in Saving Chloe (2018): the waitress has a supernatural ability that lets her know when someone is telling the truth, and, despite the oddness of their claims, she's seeing that Jason and Elsa are telling her the truth. Then Theresa, as the more experienced person in the room, takes the initiative during the action: first calming Elsa's nerves with her attentions, and then suggesting Jason what to do, until his girlfriend feels ready to lead the show.

Sex Scenes
According with the nature of the story, and with Elsa's personality as a love interest as well, sexual scenes in Dreaming with Elsa follow the classic "stairway to heaven" progression, starting with just some tentative kissing before gradually escalating to naughtier interactions, leaving the first actual intercourse for the game's grand finale.

'WARNING! Spoiler alert! This section also contains NSFW graphic sexual depictions' During the game, Jason will convince Elsa that the dream world is a safe environment in which she can do anything she wants, and that she can always wake up if something doesn't go the way she likes. If players pay attention to the limits set by Elsa on their first date and respect her (basically by not groping her after her warning), they will be able to keep progressing in the game.

The first sexual interaction happens during their second date in dreamland, when Elsa recreates a special scenery. In the "romantic" path, she will appear dressed in a tunic, next to a Roman column, and will allow more kissing and some petting. In the sexual route, she will be sitting on a throne with some sexy lingerie and a tiger at her feet (it's actually her cat, Tora), and will order Jason to eat her out over her panties. In both cases, due to Elsa's shyness, the scene will end with both characters turned into two black silhouettes over a white background: in the "romantic" path Elsa will masturbate Jason, and in the "sexual" path she will give him a blowjob.

In the next erotic scene, Elsa and Jason finally see each other naked. After talking to Chloe about how his relationship with Elsa is progressing slowly but positively, Jason appears naked in Elsa's bathroom, while she is taking a shower. After the initial shock, as neither of them remember falling asleep, she allows Jason to watch her naked for the first time before asking him to wake up, as this was not an intended date. Plot suggests that this unexpected encounter was Chloe's doing, as she was trying to speed things up betwen them.

For their third date, Elsa takes the initiative and, instead of meeting each other in their dreams, she suggests a phone sex session. The scene unfolds in the same way in both paths, although dialogues offer slight variations. For the most part, pictures show Elsa touching herself according to Jason's choices and the sexual actions he describes, until they both cum.

The next erotic scene takes place after the break-in at Elsa's apartment, when it seemed that the couple would finally make love in real life. After returning home from Elsa's, on the canon routes Jason falls asleep and has a strange dream in which he first watches Theresa, the waitress at the Delfinos, stripping, and then a more than suggestive Chloe offers him to have a little fun with her, albeit nothing happens as Jason decides to go and look for Elsa in his dream. In the 'confusing' path, however, this is when the alternative ending is triggered, and Chloe explains to Jason her scheme while showing him her memories of her fucking Conner and also the old delivery man. The lengthy sex scene with Chloe includes oral, vaginal and anal sex, but it may end before Jason's orgasm if the player negotiates poorly when to confess the last digit of the safe's code.

Next in the canon route comes Jason's first sexual intercourse with Elsa, albeit still in their dreams. He's out of Sangrive on a business trip and, after talking to Elsa on the phone, he finds himself in her apartment's bathroom, taking a shower. Now is Elsa who walks on him; again, none of them remember falling asleep, but this time they take advantage of the situation to make love for the first time in dreamland. Oral and vaginal sex in the shower are the actions depicted. The dialogues and the scene's ending are different depending on whether the player is on the "romantic" or the "sexual" path: if in the latter, Jason cums on Elsa's face; if in the former, he cums in her pussy.

Once it becomes apparent that Chloe is manipulating them to steal the "Morpheus", Elsa comes up with a plan to catch her red-handed: using another spell from the book, she will allow Jason and her to have sex in a humanly impossible way, something that will reveal Chloe's presence near them. In the "romantic" path, they'll be having sex while flying over the clouds, and in the "sexual" route they'll be doing it underwater without needing to breathe. The scene is limited to a couple of still pics and a brief animation before Elsa discovers Chloe's hideout.

Then it's time for the game's grand finale: Elsa and Jason's long-awaited first sexual intercourse in real life. The scene, which takes place at Elsa's apartment, is quite long and starts out with oral sex and a first vaginal penetration on the couch. Then, after Tora's interruption, the couple moves to Elsa's bed, where they try out more positions. Again, dialogues vary slightly depending on the path, but the scene is basically the same on both routes; the main difference being that, in the "sexual" path, Elsa will allow Jason to stimulate her anus with his finger, although there's no anal sex.

Finally, the threesome with Theresa in the bonus scene includes a lenghty woman-on-woman introduction where the waitress eases Elsa into the action by disconvering her the pleasures of sapphic love, before Jason is allowed to participate. Then both girls perform oral sex on him and let him fuck them vaginally on several positions, with Jason lasting more than usual thanks to Elsa's dream mastery. "Dreaming with Elsa" has no gallery of scenes, so there's no way of replaying those sex scenes out of the actual game. The only replayable scene is the bonus scene, which can be accessed from the Achievements screen.

Characters
''This section tries to explain character's involvement in the game's plot. For a full profile on them, please check Category:Elsaverse Characters.''

Dreaming with Elsa has a very reduced cast, barely the minimum needed to tell the intended story: there's only three main characters and a small group of side characters whose presence is limited to very few scenes and play a very minor role in the plot, if any.

Main Characters

 * Jason is the player character (PC). In order to allow players to self-insert themselves more easily, he is basically a blank slate: throughout the game, the only background information provided about him is that he lives alone and works as a delivery man for a publishing company, despite having an university degree (in one of his dates with Elsa, the player can choose his major, but that choice has no consequences at all). There's no clue about what he likes or dislikes, about his family or past relationships, and his only known friend is his colleague, Conner. Even the main traits of his personality are kind of missing, since they are defined by players with their choices: although he must be always a supportive and respectful man, Jason can succeed either being a quiet and romantic guy or a more daring and sexual one, as Elsa will addapt herself to the path chosen. This PC's lack of depth was one of the major points of criticism for DwE.
 * Elsa is the main love interest (LI) of the game. A woman in her twenties, she is the current owner of Elysian Books, an independent bookstore specialized in antique books and rare volumes, with a long tradition in the city. Elsa lives alone in an apartment above the store, with her cat, Tora, and she never leaves the building. She's presented as a shy girl, kind of a bookworm cliché, who apparently does not have any friends or family, although during her dates with Jason she talks about a happy and sheltered childhood with her family. Her love experiences have been unsatisfying so far, as she felt pressured by men to have sex; depending on the path, she even confesses she has never experienced an orgasm or that she didn't like intercourse. The story will reveal a big part of the reasons why she never goes out, but in the end, and thanks to Jason's loving and supportive attitude towards her, she will break her chains and discover a new strength within herself.
 * Chloe can be considered the non-canonical love interest (LI) of the game. She is introduced in the story as Elsa's dutiful employee at Elysian Books. With her very visible tatoos and her punk and provocative clothes, she appears to be a confident girl with esoteric interests who tries to help Jason in his romantic pursue of Elsa. In the non-canon path, she seems very receptive to Jason's interest on her despite being in a relationship with Conner. The story will make clear what her actual goals are.

Also Starring

 * Conner is Jason's old friend and co-worker. He is presented as a strong, attractive and not particularly intelligent guy, the archetype of a carefree college student with no actual expectations or goals in life other than enjoying parties, drinking alcohol and bedding women. He tries to pick up Chloe as soon as he sees her and, surprisingly, succeeds; then he tries to help Jason to ask Elsa out on real dates. He's also the one who tells him that "you can do anything in a dream", a recurrent line in the game that Jason will use to convince Elsa to try dating him.
 * Theresa is a voluptuous woman who works as a waitress at Delfinos, the Italian food restaurant near Elsa's store. Her role seems to be just an eye-candy during one of the main characters' dates, as an achievement can be unlocked just by checking all her assets. This first impression seems to be confirmed a bit later when Jason dreams of her, and even more so after watching her in the bonus scene. However, she'll keep appearing in later titles in the Elsaverse, playing a minor role in the overarching narrative.

Other minor characters
Listed in alphabetical order due to their minimal involvement in DwE plot:
 * Beatrice is an old lady who lives next to Jason's. She is seen in one scene, while their building is being evacuated due to a fire alarm.
 * Brenda is mentioned a couple of times as Jason and Conner's boss, but she never appears on screen.
 * Jensen is Jason and Conner's co-worker, and the regular delivery man on the route that includes Elsa's bookstore. In the first scene Conner mentions that he has suffered a heart attack while sleeping; in the non-canon path, the cause of his seizure is unveiled.
 * Jessika is an attractive young brunette who lives in Jason's building. She appears briefly during the evacuation scene, coming downstairs with her roommate, a blonde woman whose name Jason can't recall. In that scene, she's said to be humming a soothing tune.
 * Sarah is Jessika's roommate and therefore Jason's neighbour, although he can't remember her name.
 * Tora is Elsa's cat, and apparently her only company in life, besides Chloe, until Jason shows up. In the "sexual" path, Tora appears in one dream transformed into a tiger, keeper of Elsa's purity, and from that point on the cat seems to act nervously and agitated around Jason. In another dream, he becomes a tiger again and tells Jason that "Tora" means precisely "Tiger".
 * Xara is the mysterious woman that appears talking to Elsa in the post-credits scene, although her name is never mentioned in DwE.

Structure and Paths
Dreaming with Elsa has a linear structure, with two successful paths: "romantic" and "sexual" routes. Both of them lead to the canon ending, in which the player solves the mystery and Jason becomes Elsa's boyfriend, but depending on Jason's personality defined by player's choices, there are slight variations in Elsa's dialogues, and a couple of alternative scenes that are mutually exclusive. There's also a "confusing" route that leads to an alternative "bad" ending, culminated in a sexual scene with Chloe.

Gameplay
Gameplay in Dreaming with Elsa is mostly based on conversational choices. Usually, the player is offered to choose between three options: one answer is sexy and daring, another one is romantic and respectful, and the third one is neutral and non-committal. However, on specific occasions those options are reduced to two: a neutral one, and one that shows a little more sensitivity from Jason's part, this obviously being the preferable response to score points.

DwE rewards consistency in choices, so players can succeed with Elsa either by being clearly daring ("sexual" path) or sweet ("romantic" path) over the whole game, accumulating or losing relationship points with Elsa according to the prevalent trait. Several checkpoints placed thoughout the game determine whether the player can continue the story. The "confusing" path, on the other hand, requires a complex balance between sexual and romantic answers: this inconsistency causes Elsa to not fully trust Jason and the alternative ending will be triggered after the date at Delfinos, provided the player has also shown interest in Chloe during the game. The score is always displayed on screen, showing the romantic, sexual or confusing personality of the PC, as well as the relationship points accumulated over the total available at each moment. If a checkpoint is failed, the game over message mentions the score needed to pass it; generally, Elsa's last words also offer some hints about what needs to be improved in future attempts.

The game's original version in HTML included clickable areas or hotspots on certain scenes, sometimes while the usual choice menu was also present: when a hotspot was available, the whole scene was displayed with a yellow frame, and the hotspot's exact location was revealed by a tooltip when hovering that area. Clicking on those hotspots could also add or detract relationship points, or even unlock special achievements; in the final sex scene, there was even a short mini-game in which players had to move the cursor according to Elsa's indications. All these 'point&click' elements made the game a little bit harder. However, in the 2021 Ren'Py version, these clickable areas disappear and become choice menu options, lowering the game's difficulty and simplifying the gameplay.

In addition, the game incorporates a difficulty setting system (easy, medium or hard), a mechanism carried over from Tlaero's previous dating sims. Easier difficulty levels mean less demanding requirements to pass the score checkpoints; however, players can only reach the canon endgame on hard mode, as easy and medium modes do not allow to progress beyond a certain point of the story. Although there are three different achievements to get for reaching the end of the available content on each difficulty level, beating the game on hard mode also unlocks the achievements for easy and medium mode, so those modes are of little use, other than act as a "training course" to take a first look at the story and understand the scoring mechanics before activating hard mode. After DwE, difficulty settings were dropped in the Elsaverse's games.

Technical aspects
The game was originally created with Tlaero's own software, "Adventure Creator", and released in HTML format in 2015. Pictures could be displayed in 3 different sizes, according to player's preferences, and rollback was not allowed. Ren'Py version (2021) incorporates this engine's usual mechanisms, like rollback and unlimited save slots (the original HTML version only included 3 save slots plus a quick save slot).

Graphically, the screen is divided into three areas. Over a black background, the exposition text and dialogues appear in a classic narrative prose style above the pics, that occupy the screen's centre, while the lower part of the screen is reserved for player's options: the game usually advances by selecting one of those options.

The game has no sounds at all.

Miscellaneous

 * Elsa's model was the first render Mortze sent to Tlaero when he offered himself to be her artist and she asked him to render a beautiful and sexy girl. Upon seeing Mortze's beauty canon, Tlaero decided not only to accept his offer and take him as her artist, but also to honor that model's quality by designing a whole fictional universe around her.


 * Silhouetted scenes and credits titles are a tribute to old Phreaky's creations, as that artstyle were already a trademark for Tlaero's games.


 * Jason's brunette neighbour who is seen in the building evacuation scene, Jessika, is actually Jessica Springfield, the main love interest in Redemption for Jessika (2016), the second game set in the Elsaverse. That game was already planned out when Dreaming with Elsa was created, and her appearance in DwE with her roommate, Sarah, was totally intentional. As a result of this foreshadowing, in future games fans started to build theories about what side character on each title would be the next one's love interest.


 * Tora (Elsa's cat) is referred as a 'she' in Dreaming with Elsa. However, in future titles, starting for the short story Beginnings (2018) that was written after the release of Redemption for Jessika but takes place before DwE, Tora is always mentioned as a 'he'.