Dreaming with Elsa

Dreaming with Elsa (DwE) is the first adult game set in the Elsaverse, which is named after Elsa, the main love interest in the game, and it's also the first joint work of Tlaero (writer) and Mortze (graphical artist), later known as Tora Productions. It was publicly released in English on July 3, 2015 in HTML format, and officially ported to Ren'Py in 2021; it can be found in that format in the Elsaverse Omnibus Vol.1 (2021) compilation.

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 starting point of a deeper and more complex story arc, with this romantic conquest being just the narrative mechanism chosen by the authors to tell the bigger story. In that sense, DwE is only the first chapter of an ambitious tetralogy later completed with Redemption for Jessika (2016), Finding Miranda (2016) and Saving Chloe (2018).

Premise
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, a change in the usual delivery routes leads him to the bookstore run by Elsa; to his surprise, he realizes she's the protagonist of his dreams, even though he's certain they've never met in real life before. Helped by his friend and co-worker Conner, and the bookstore employee Chloe, Jason will try to find out what's behind his strange connection with Elsa and, incidentally, start a romantic relationship with her.

Canon Path Summary
''Please, be aware that this is just a plot summary. To succeed on the canon path, the player must adjust most of his comments and answers to one of the two sides of the scale: either romantic or sexual. A proper walkthrough can be found here.''

As they follow a new delivery route that 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 who is always running away. When they arrive at one of the bookstores on the route, Elysian Books, Jason is surprised to see a familiar face through the shop window, although he can't remember where he met that woman before. The woman also seems surprised to see them and sneaks upstairs before they actually get inside her bookstore. The delivery men talk to Chloe, the bookstore clerk, who tells 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 afternoon chat, a nervous Elsa mentions that her family has been running the bookstore for generations and that she never leaves the place because she lives in an apartment upstairs, so they couldn't have possibly met before. But that same night, Jason has the same dream again, and he finally recognizes the girl: it's been Elsa all the time. He calls out for her and catches a hooded man that is chasing her; depending on the personality shown by Jason up to that moment, that hooded man will look like Conner or like Jason himself. Anyway, Jason ends up receiving a hard blow in his head and, oddly enough, the following day he can still feel the pain, despite he was only hit in his dreams. But his surprise is even greater when he visits Elsa again and 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 dark and mystic topics, and the shop assistant 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. He wakes up and calls her immediately, confirming that they can share information while sleeping and still 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 and 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 push Jason to take Elsa out for dinner and have a real date with her. Elsa eventually agrees and, after going to the 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 her cat, Tora, 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 opening 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 look 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 infers that there must be 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 trying to manipulate her to get her out of her house and, that way, get 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 dream spell to catch the thief, who turns out to be Chloe, her employee. Once the mystery is solved, Elsa forcefully orders Chloe to give her the book page 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 terms and walk away.

Then, 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 and perfect boyfriend, and so the game ends.

Non-canon Path Summary
''Please, be aware that this is just 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. A proper walkthrough can be found here.'' 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.

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 as well as 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 code 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 pleasuring 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 on each route) is needed to unlock them all.


 * "That was easy...": Complete the game on the "Easy" difficulty setting.
 * "I'll take mine medium rare...": Complete the game on the "Medium" difficulty setting (it unlocks the 'easy' achievement too).
 * "This game makes me hard...": Complete the game on the "Hard" difficulty setting (it unlocks the 'easy' and 'medium' achievements too).
 * "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. In the DwE post-credits scene, that takes place a few days after the canon path endgame, Elsa is wandering around in her dreams, practicing her newly acquired powers and knowledge, when she passes through a glowing door. She then finds a short woman with glowing eyes that welcomes Elsa and calls her "Dream Master". After the lady says that they are now in her dreams, she warns Elsa about the turbulent times ahead of them.

This obscure scene in Dreaming with Elsa was the first hint of this game actually being something more than a simple dating sim with some fantasy story on it. 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 of the 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 attractive waitress at the Delfinos restaurant.

One night, Elsa links her dreams with Jason's and Theresa's, as the waitress has been flirting with both of them during their dates at Delfinos, guessing that Elsa would be at least curious about experiencing sex with her. After telling 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. Although they have thought she would need some convincing, Theresa quickly agrees, as if all this shared-dreaming thing was an ordinary situation for her. The reason for such behavior 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 weirdness of their claims, she's seeing that Jason and Elsa are telling her the truth. Then, as the more experienced person in the room, Theresa takes the initiative during the action: first, calming Elsa's nerves with her caresses and attentions, and then telling Jason what to do, until his girlfriend feels ready to lead the show.

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

"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 the 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 are 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 a 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, as they are defined by players with their choices: although he must be always a supportive and respectful man, Jason can succeed either by being a sweet and romantic guy or a more daring and sexual one, as Elsa will adjust herself to the chosen path. 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, and therefore the reason why this fictional universe is called "Elsaverse". A woman most probably still in her twenties, she is the current owner of Elysian Books, an independent bookstore specializing in antique books and rare volumes, with a long tradition in the city. Elsa lives alone with her cat in an apartment above the store, 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 relatives, 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 that 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 eventually, and thanks to Jason's loving and supportive attitude towards her, she will break her chains and find new strength within herself, becoming a Dream Master.


 * Chloe can be considered the alternative, non-canon love interest (LI) of the game, and the villain as well. She is introduced in the story as Elsa's dutiful employee at Elysian Books. With her very visible tattoos and her punkish and provocative attire, she seems to be a confident girl with dark and mystic interests who tries to help Jason in his romantic pursuit of Elsa. However, the story will show that she's actually manipulating their dreams to get them together so that she could get a chance to steal Elsa's most valued treasure, the "Morpheus".

Also Starring

 * Conner is Jason's old friend and co-worker. He is introduced as a strong, attractive, and not exactly intelligent guy, the archetype of a carefree college student with no actual expectations or goals in life besides enjoying parties, drinking alcohol, and bedding women. Conner tries to pick up Chloe as soon as he sees her and, surprisingly, succeeds; then, encouraged by Chloe, 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 there's an achievement to be unlocked just by checking all of 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 saga's overarching narrative.

Other minor characters
Listed in alphabetical order due to their minimal involvement in the DwE plot:
 * Beatrice is an old lady who lives next to Jason's. She is only 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 usual delivery man on the route that includes Elsa's bookstore. In the game's first scene, Conner mentions that he has suffered a heart attack while sleeping; in the non-canon path, the cause for 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 neighbor, although he can't remember her name.
 * Tora is Elsa's cat, 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, Tora becomes a tiger again and tells Jason that "Tora"'s meaning is, 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". 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 the player's choices) there are slight variations in Elsa's dialogues and a couple of alternative dates and sex scenes that are mutually exclusive. There's also a "confusing" route that leads to an alternative "bad" ending, which culminates in a sex scene with Chloe.

Gameplay
Gameplay in Dreaming with Elsa is mostly based on conversational choices that modify a relationship score. 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, this obviously being the preferable response to score points. In other scenes, the player will be able to choose between several actions to perform, or between some actions and answers.

DwE rewards consistency in choices, so players can succeed with Elsa either by being insistently 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 throughout 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 before that game over also offer some hints about what needs to be improved in future attempts.

The game's original version in HTML includes clickable areas or hotspots on certain scenes, sometimes while the usual choice menu is also available: whenever a hotspot is present, the whole scene is displayed with a yellow frame to let the player know that there is a "hidden" action available, and the hotspot's exact location is revealed by a tooltip when hovering that area. Clicking on those hotspots can also add or detract relationship points, or even unlock special achievements. In the final sex scene, there's even a short mini-game in which players have to move the cursor according to Elsa's indications. All these point&click elements make the game a little bit harder. However, in the 2021 Ren'Py version, these clickable areas disappeared and became choice menu options, lowering the game's difficulty and simplifying the gameplay as they are now explicitly displayed.

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 them 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 the 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 quicksave slot).

Visually, 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, which take the screen's center, 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.

Related Stories
After Dreaming with Elsa, several short stories expand on Elsa and Jason's relationship and dig into the supernatural aspects of the overarching story, although none of them are really necessary to fully understand Redemption for Jessika (2016), the next game set in the Elsaverse. For more details about these stories, please check each title's wiki page.

DwE: Learning to Fly
DwE: Learning to Fly (2016) is a visual short story that was originally released as a Patreon perk for donors, and it shows how Jason and Elsa are doing shortly after the end of DwE. The main purpose of this story was to offer Tora Production's patrons an anal sex scene featuring Elsa, as this was a common request from fans due to Dreaming wth Elsa not including that kink. From a plot point of view, it just shows how Elsa is already mastering everything that happens in their shared dreams, and teaching Jason how to overcome his fears and trust her in dreamland.

DwE: Dreaming with the Dead
DwE: Dreaming with the Dead (2016) is a visual short story that was originally released as a Halloween special for patrons, showing another spicy experience in the couple's love life. In this short story, Elsa and Jason find themselves amidst a zombie apocalypse. After getting to a safehouse and making love vigorously, Elsa begins to show clear signs of being infected, and Jason reluctantly shoots her, as he had promised her before. Then they wake up, as this was just a Halloween surprise dream Elsa had designed for Jason. She's happy to know he'd be willing to do anything she could ask him.

DwE: Multiplicity
DwE: Multiplicity (2017) is another short story that was originally released as a Patreon perk for donors. Despite being labeled as a "visual story", it's a special case since it has a lengthy introduction and an epilogue that are purely text-based. Both the sexual and romantic parts are brilliant, showing that even a gang-bang can be meaningful: after Jason verbalizes his doubts about him not being the man Elsa actually needs or deserves, Elsa reassures him, and casts a new dream spell that allows her to create several facsimiles of Jason; she then has sex with all of them while Jason feels everything that his copycats are feeling, this crude sex session letting him know how much Elsa loves him and how far from her comfort zone is she willing to go for him, until he eventually collapses and has to be resuscitated by Elsa. But the narration is also quite interesting from a worldbuilding point of view: it is stated that the original "Morpheus" was written in an unknown language, that Elsa's copy is a quite obscure translation not easy to follow, and that the book mentions as true facts some stories that never really happened in History. DwE: Multiplicity also shows the way Elsa is slowly getting through all the book's content, learning spells that will be useful in the future.

Other related stories
There are other stories that involve Elsa and/or Jason, expanding and explaining their role in the saga beyond Dreaming with Elsa and their appearances in other games. However, to avoid spoilers and maximize the understanding of other storylines contained in them, these titles should be read in the suggested order.


 * Royal Guard (2016) is a visual short story that shows how Elsa tries to help Xara, the mysterious woman she met in DwE post-credits scene, in her dreams. It should be read right after playing Redemption for Jessika.


 * Beginnings (2016) is a text short story that should be read after RfJ as well. Among other things, it tells the intriguing story of how Tora came into Elsa's life.


 * Dream Master (2017) is a text short story that, due to its great spoilering potential, should be read immediately before playing Saving Chloe (2018). It explains part of Elsa's origins, back in the 17th Century, and how the "Morpheus" entered her family.


 * Elsa's Nightmares (2019-2020) tells how Elsa starts to realize in a dramatic manner (especially for Jason, but also for herself) that she should be putting all she has learned since DwE to better use. This visual short story should be read after Darkness Falls (2018-2019) second season.


 * Elsaverse: Transitions (2020-2021) is a visual short story in which Jason tries to adjust himself to the new reality of his relationship with Elsa. It's advised to be read just after Elsa's Nightmares.

Miscellaneous

 * Elsa's model was the first render Mortze sent to Tlaero when he offered himself to be her artist and she requested a beautiful and sexy girl as proof of his abilities. Upon seeing Mortze's beauty canon, Tlaero decided not only to accept his offer and take him as her new 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 Phreaky's old creations, as that art style was already a trademark for Tlaero's games with that artist.


 * Jason's brunette neighbor 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, fans started to build theories in future games about what side character on each title would be the next one's love interest.


 * Tora (Elsa's cat) is referred to as a 'she' in Dreaming with Elsa. However, in future titles, starting with the short story Beginnings (2016) that was written after the release of Redemption for Jessika but takes place before DwE, Tora is always mentioned as a 'he'.