An interview with ONEiRA crew at Dream Matter Labs about their incredible upcoming game
- Eric Halliday
- Jun 24
- 10 min read
Recently I had the chance to chat with the good folk at Dream Matter Labs about their upcoming game ONEiRA which has you entering the dreams of others, exploring the traumas and events that make us, and all while dealing with the kind of corporation that 2025 has us already desperate to rally against.
Involved in this conversation were four of Dream Matter Labs crew in no particular order:
John Martini-Stolzle - Studio Director / Interactive Sound Designer
Pâmela de Assis Beltrani - Level Designer
Joël van Doorn - Marketing
Frederik Helgesen - Narrative Specialist
And also, obviously, me:
Eric - Me
Eric: So, tell me about ONEiRA. Give me your best "elevator pitch".
Pâmela: For me ONEiRA is a game where the player is invited to explore various dreams. As a genre it’s platform puzzle with some Metroidvania elements where the player decisions matter.
Jöel: ONEiRA is a narrative-driven puzzle-platformer where your choices matter. Explore a world where dreams are sold as entertainment and your job is to ensure each is market-ready. Inspect virtual dreamscapes and untangle the trauma hidden within.
Puzzle-platformers have told great stories over the years, but have always done so through (mostly) linear experiences—making you a consumer of their story, rather than an active participant. By honing in on 'exploration' and 'choices-matter', we aim to give players optimal autonomy and really immerse them into the story of ONEiRA!
Fred: ONEiRA is a puzzle platformer with an expansive narrative set in three dream worlds and a central hub connecting them all. You work for a shady tech company selling dreams of their (mostly voluntary) hosts to wealthy patrons. While the dreams are usually stable, humans are prone to breaking down, and it's your job to find out why. Armed with the company's tech, you are sent into the dream worlds of three hosts to untangle their trauma from within, and maybe find out what the company hides while you're at it.
Side note here: the intention is to create something human. We want to focus on the joy of discovery as well as exploring darker themes in a respectful manner. I like to call dreams, and by extension anything subconscious-related, the final frontier of the human mind. There's a sort of chaos inside our minds that still feels magical, for lack of better terms. It's this chaos the company the player works for hopes to harness.
Eric: You mentioned to me before the interview that this game came about during a time when you were seeing massive waves of people in the industry suffering from layouts. How did ONEiRA tie to those events?
Pâmela: The massive waves of layoffs in the industry come with a major shift for my career. I'm a game developer with 16 years of experience, my formation originally is computer science and I have a masters on the subject, so I'm a programmer by formation.
In the beginning of 2024, the company that I previously worked for went out of business, and I was pretty burned out from all the events related. I was thinking of getting out of the area, but during the last months inside that company I worked on the creation of a pirate ship with another colleague and it was very pleasant.
It took us around 20 days to make that pirate ship, from the asset import until delivering the final ship. I took some time to think about it and resolved to make a shift on my career, I know that the industry now is in recession mode and will take some persistence to keep on her, or in my case to switch positions.
I took some courses on the area of level design and started to build a portfólio. Level design is a strange area inside the industry because you need to have a game to run your ideas. Without a game above it, its just architecture. I don't like to play shooters in general, which are the majority of games that have map builders.
So when I saw a message from John, looking for another level designer to help on the project, I didn't wait and hit him up with a message.
John: The team behind ONEiRA is made up of incredibly skilled and driven developers who are deeply committed to their craft. They're the soul of this game. We've been working together for over a year and a half—entirely unpaid—while juggling 'offline' jobs to support ourselves. It's intense and can be a lot to balance in addition to the ebb and flow of life's craziness.
Over the past four years, the games industry has faced a tsunami wave of instability. After the hiring surge of 2020, mass layoffs have continued to sweep across studios, flooding the job market with seasoned developers. As a result, entry-level positions are being filled by people with many shipped titles. This leaves little room for new talent to gain a foothold. Amir Satvat put together some solid data which further describes the situation; ultimately, this is a critical issue, because without opportunities to grow, how can the next generation of developers enter the field?
ONEiRA was born out of that frustration. Despite our team of 'juniors', many have contributed to professional indie games and nearly everyone has done 10+ game jams in addition to pushing the boundaries of the craft and technique in some way. But we still find ourselves shut out of traditional games industry job paths, so we decided to forge our own. This project gives us the opportunity to demonstrate what we’re capable of, both to the industry and to ourselves. And beyond that, it gives us creative freedom. Everyone’s voice is valued and heard. We make space when life throws people curve balls and we flex to pick up the slack when its needed. This degree of passion is rare and our studio has it in spades.
In a time of uncertainty, ONEiRA has become a space where we can build something together across timelines and cultures. The team shows up every. single. day. to morph this dream matter into a truly special experience.
Fred: We haven't really set a time or place for this world we're creating - it sort of exists in its own reality - but of course the game is fuelled with our frustrations about the state of the industry. Several of our team members have industry experience, but have been laid off or had their hours slashed significantly, myself included.
At least partially, the overarching narrative of ONEiRA ties in with these events. While we don't want to give away too much of the juicy details, there's strong notes of exploitative corporate overreach, diminishing worker protection, and the rising dominance of artificial intelligence. Going back to what I said in the first point, we aim to hone in on the human experience, in a time where you have to ask yourself 'are you real?' each and every time you interact with someone on the internet.
Eric: When building this game what were some of the biggest challenges you, personally, in your department, faced?
Pâmela: Even though I have 16 years of game development, Unreal is completely new for me. I used Unity for 10 years and previously I was a hard-core programmer doing my own game engine for each game I did. I'm a brand new level designer, which is getting my gears switched both by changing engines and by changing my view on game development. This is bringing some learning curvature, it's being fun...
I will never forget how my brain exploded when Max showed me a screen on Unreal where you can see how many lights are illuminating a surface. Every programmer should know how ray tracing works, but thinking on how do I optimize a space with that in mind? My brain had to reconnect some cells inside it.
About my department, I think that everybody loves the game and wants to make it work, so the feature creep is real.
I imagine that John or even Fred can talk more about past challenges here, since I've been on the project for less than 6 months.
John: One of the biggest challenges I’ve faced throughout the development of this game has been managing the very real human circumstances of life. Everyone on this project is balancing offline responsibilities and navigating a time when, frankly, things are exceedingly uncertain and difficult. As a director, I’ve tried to not let this project become an added weight on anyone’s shoulders. We have work to do, but that work doesn’t need to come at the cost of people’s wellbeing.
Throughout this project, team members have gone through very significant personal events. And what’s remarkable is how the team has responded to those moments. People have stepped up, adjusted timelines, or taken on extra work to support one another. There’s a real spirit of mutual care. But even with that willingness, there’s a limit to how much stress a team can collectively absorb.
Each delay or disruption, even when entirely justified, adds pressure elsewhere. So it becomes a delicate balancing act.
That’s been my greatest challenge: managing that balance with empathy, transparency, and communication.
I approach this from a production and planning standpoint, building flexibility into our workflow so we can avoid crunch. Being proactive about scheduling and risk is important but more than anything, it's about building trust. I need the team to feel safe coming to me when life throws them curveballs so that we can adjust as needed. As we have done and will do.
Honestly, it’s also one of the reasons I’m so proud and honored to be working with this team. Their capacity for care and collaboration is extraordinary.
Fred: The game includes themes of empathy, of creating bonds and understanding, so naturally that means we're asking players to engage with a deep story. How do we combine that with fast-paced puzzle/exploration gameplay? Does reading chunks of text bore the player? It's a constant push and pull between departments to find ways to 'outsource' information to environmental art and also make sure the player isn't confused. We're selling this as a 'choices matter' game too, so of course we want the player engaged.
That's another challenge, right, to anticipate player responses without them feeling like we're railroading them. To me, there's nothing more dull than a choice without consequence or meaning. Finding that middle ground, to give the player enough agency in dialogue without increasing complexity tenfolds, is an ongoing process that has forced many revisions and much doubt.
Speaking of process, John has been instrumental in keeping the project running as it has, not just in terms of check-ins, but also to make people feel important, which is an aspect I feel is often neglected in a larger team. Everyone has a say, feedback is sent and received when requested, and we take ample time to destress and joke around on our team discord server (cat pictures are essential to any project).
It's not always the same structure, though: John has introduced many organizational approaches, and while not all of them have been as effective, momentum has never stopped. Slowed, for sure (and I'm part of the problem there), but never stopped. Deadlines have been pushed back and scope has increased, but no long-term developers on the team have left as of yet, which I think speaks to our shared vision and drive.
Eric: What were some inspirations to the way the game is played? If you had to compare the structure or lay out.
Fred: It's a little difficult to pinpoint an exact game that matches ONEiRA (trust me, we've tried). It's got some 'Portal', some 'The Talos Principle', a hint of 'Psychonauts', and a dash of 'Hypnagogia' - but mostly we're just occupied with making all these pieces synergize.
When it comes to dialogue, I've been inspired by titles like 'Scarlet Hollow' and 'I was a Teenage Exocolonist', specifically in how the protagonist's voice comes across in choices alone, and I hope to replicate that in our title.
Pâmela: For me references are something that you can just add. You can't remove it from your pool... but what always comes to mind is Batman Arkham Asylum and Banjo-Kazooie. I'm also taking some inspiration from Kim Swift's work directly from Quantum Conundrum and Portal.
Right now I'm playing Psychonauts, which is much more fun than I was expecting, I shouldn't have waited so long to play it.
John: The roots of the project trace back to LSDJAM 2023, a Game Jam, which celebrates the cult-classic PlayStation 1 game LSD: Dream Emulator which was only released in Japan. If you look up videos, you'll see it's a wild ride that challenges what games can be.
We are doing something very special with this game, in combining dreamy aesthetics, fun fast paced exploration, and sprinkling in some serious narrative depth. It really makes for a unique experience.
Eric: Now, let's say a player has beaten the game, what's something you want that player to take away from it?
Pamela: I hope they had some fun of course, but I hope they enjoyed their overall experience. I know that a big hit is that their choices matter which will affect the map and their experience... but I'm also trying to get some oneiric aesthetics around everything I touch.
Fred: The boring answer here is that the player should think 'Wow! That was a great time!' and support everything we do in the future, forever.
But no, from a narrative standpoint at least, since we're pitching this as a game with a strong narrative focus and emotional themes, the aim is for the players to be curious, to care, and be left with a sense that their choices had a significant impact on these digital lives.
Joël: ONEiRA explores a range of psychological themes, and I personally hope some of them resonate with our players.
Of course, I want people to have a good time—but to me, a truly meaningful game is able to evoke something beyond itself.
Perhaps a player will see part of themselves in a character, and in that reflection, find a new way to understand or face their own struggles.
John: I have two main goals for what players walk away with after finishing the game. First, I hope it offers a genuinely exciting, imaginative, and fun escape, something that sparks curiosity and that players enjoy exploring just for the sake of being in the world.
But beyond that, I hope the game also opens up space for reflection. Through the structure of the game we’re able to touch on real-world themes in a subtle but meaningful way. The game doesn’t hit players over the head with messaging, but it does provide room to reflect on the kinds of difficult situations and emotional tensions that people face in real life: conflict, trauma, uncertainty, and transformation.
Eric: And, finally, do you have any plans for DLC or additional content in ONEiRA's future?
Joël: I don’t think we do, as we're currently aiming for a one-and-done experience.
At least in my eyes, it depends on how the game performs. After all, the industry is a mess right now and I believe the future lies with indies. If triple-A won't give people like us a chance, we may just need to look for additional ways to make ourselves sustainable.
Pâmela: Do we have? I don't think so hahahahah....
John: Don’t tell the team but I do have a wishlist idea for a potential DLC-expansion. I’m going to keep most of that under wraps for now; but for those in the know, imagine an unplugged and "upside-down" of the Hub.
I'd love to thank the folks at Dream Matter Labs for their time. And if you're interested in getting the ONEiRA, which comes out in 2026, PLEASE make sure to wishlist it on Steam at the following link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3521080/ONEiRA/
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