Been thinking about Junk Dreams while applying for jobs and working on products today. Five applications sent, three confirmed. One of the big issues before I go any further with the concept development of Junk Dreams is setting on some sort of system for the game.

The other big question, though, was asked in a forum:

A question, if I may - how do the junkies interact with "the real world" during junkscape? Do they interact at all? To what extent those two worlds correlate?

I don't know... but I'm willing to write a whole bunch about it...

This has been a point of discussion for the past 36 hours here. I *want* there to be correlation, that the junkies shuffle around in the real world while meeting people and such in the junkscapes. But this introduces a lot of additional work in maintaining suspension of disbelief... I was figuring that Mugwumps also manifest in the 'normal' world as very boring people, but that you can only really interact with them as mugwumps in the junkscapes. So in the 'normal' world, the junky walks up to this boring guy at the bar and starts to mumble something and the guy eyeballs him and ignores him. In the junkscape, the junky is talking fairly clearly to the mugwump and the mugwump is replying. The issue becomes one of dexterity and agility. It is hard to imagine a junky in his fix actually, well, doing anything remotely physical. So, I think that the junkscape image doesn't have to really follow the physical movements / actions of the real person too much, maybe only having to TRY to occupy the same space. So the safest way to go into a junkscape would be to be tied down to a stretcher first or some such... except of course the last member of the group who would not be able to tie himself up before shooting up.

But I don't want the junkscape to be 100% independent of the real world. I prefer if the junkies are prone to wandering about and muttering to themselves while in their fix. Making the junkscape fully independent of the 'normal' world would make it seem to be MUCH more of a dream scape and less... real. I don't want the junkies to be easily able to shrug off the machinations of the Control Machines as the stuff of their nightmares.

To answer the question above from Allan, this is probably what I really want - I need to think through the permutations of the three different options (full correlation, partial correlation, no correlation) and determine which suits the ideals of the game best, and to point out what I'm missing as I think it through. Just writing out the paragraph above has helped cement that I would PREFER a partial-to-full correlation to exist, but I'm sure there are elements I'll miss over. The first reason to avoid full correlation is that someone existing only in the 'normal' world could stop the junky from moving and this would stop the junky in both worlds... thus 'normal' security guards near the location of a Control Machine would be a perfect defence for it, able to stop the junky without the junky being able to see the security guard.