Don't Wake Me Up

Hosted Games

Contains adsIn-app purchases

About this game

You’re trapped in a malfunctioning virtual reality with no memories. No memories, except of every video game you’ve ever played. Jack into a wild night in a virtual world you’ll never remember.

Armed with puns, pop culture, and a sharp dose of sarcasm, can you muddle your way through levels of satirical video game pastiches, back to reality?

Adventure through virtual worlds alongside a delusional gamer, an actual emo vampire (who really wishes he wasn’t an emo vampire), a poet from outer space, and a dashing princess in shining armor, among others! And perhaps, just perhaps, learn a bit too much about the kind of person you are when the real world isn’t watching.

A satire of the trapped-in-a-video-game genre, and a tragicomedy on the theme of dating sims.

"Don’t Wake Me Up" is a 400,000-word interactive novel about love in video games, where your choices control the story. Entirely text-based, and driven by your imagination. It is written by Baudelaire Welch, a professional game screenwriter currently working as a companion character designer for RPGs.

• Play as nonbinary, male, female, straight or queer.
• Travel through 6 worlds inspired by different video game genres
• Wield a weaponised top hat
• Rack your brains in a spaceship escape level inspired by old-school adventure games
• Compete in a classical music-themed monster truck rally
• Lose yourself in a cyberpunk casino
• Date the Ultimate Video Game Fanservice Vampire
• Or, date the Ultimate Video Game ‘Best Girl’ Waifu
• A period piece honed in early 2010s internet cringe
• Bifurcates entirely halfway through the game based on your love interest.

Sometimes true love is a wrong dialogue choice.

Ratings and reviews

A zany and incredibly human quest. Don't Wake Me Up was a text game that made me realize that a CYOA isn't boring if the creator is having fun with every step of the process. The game is absolutely off the walls, chock-full of absurd actions and references from everything. I'd have never expected to learn about a word inspired from an 1880's comic and knee a vampire in the knob so early in the game. Kudos to Baudelaire Welch; thank you for this adventure! Hope to see more work from you later.

It's difficult for me to leave a proper review without spoiling the story, but I greatly enjoyed reading this and it gave me something to think about. I'd recommend this for anyone who enjoys video games and music references, but you might enjoy the story even if you don't have much of an interest in those tppics.

When I read that the author had written most of this when they were a teenager who spent more time in fanfiction than in reality, it started to make sense. It's rather juvenile and out of touch. Even the real human characters don't come off as real people. If you grew up on Tumblr, Fanfiction, AO3, etc, and don't mind that it brings you back to that sort of quality and vibe, maybe it's for you. That's a bit after my time, and so this seems rather trite and puerile to me.

What's new

Bugs fixed. If you enjoy "Don't Wake Me Up", please leave us a written review. It really helps!