Dreams of Aether - TV Tropes

Dreams of Aether is a spin-off of the indie fighting game Rivals of Aether, originally released for free as an April Fools joke in 2025. It is a WarioWare-like microgame collection featuring a unique "dual" mechanic.

The plot sees Absa finding herself in a dream world and meeting a strange piñata-like creature called Añi, where she invites her to a party. Añi informs Absa that she must gather up other dreamers in order for the party to commence, thus beginning her bizarre dream-like adventure.

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Tropes present in Dreams of Aether:

• A Day in the Limelight: Absa has top billing, but Artemis, Sylvanos, Hodan, and Añi all have big roles.
• Art Shift: Used often - everything from photos of real world Aether merch, to sprites ripped from the first game, to models poorly ported over from the sequel grace the microgames. The game's "core" pixel style is used in cutscenes and a few microgames as well.
• Ascended Extra: Añi was originally a Steam Workshop character, and now here she is as the plot driver in an official Aether product. To a much lesser extent, the workshop character Amarelle joins her in a brief cameo.
• Bar Brawl: Artemis is unhappy that there has not been one for a few hours. Once presented with a target, she immediately goes ham and trashes the place.
• Big Bad: Tristis, a giant snail-like demon who apparently spends most of its time sleeping, is ultimately the cause of the nightmare keeping everyone trapped within the dream world.
• The Cameo: Amarelle, another workshop character made by the same team behind Añi, appears upon winning the level 3 version of "Batter Up".
• Continuity Nod: Quite a few.
  • When Artemis looks at the food Absa presents to her, she sees the Rivals 1 world map.
  • The "Assassinate" microgame involves carrying out the assassination of Renburn that kicks off Rivals 1's story mode.
  • The Duck Hunt microgame features Bradshaw being clocked by a rock from an offscreen Kragg, as in Rivals 1's story mode.
• Curse Cut Short: Artemis only gets out "A b-" before being interrupted.
• Denser and Wackier: Even by the oftentimes very silly standards of Aether spinoff content this one is odd, though given the nature of dreams perhaps that's appropriate.
• Difficulty by Acceleration: As is genre convention, microgames grow in difficulty both by added layers of complexity and by speeding up to a maximum of thrice as fast as the base speed.
• Dream Land: Most of the game is set within Aether's dream world, and Absa can travel to others' dreams.
• Enemy Mine: Artemis threatens to kill Sylvanos in the waking world once they wake up, but mostly has no problem working with him until then.
• Freeze-Frame Ending: After Hodan asks Añi what her element is, and she responds with "Surprise", Sylvanos and Artemis both jump to attack her and the game ends on a freeze-frame of everyone looking some flavor of surprised, shocked, angry, or terrified.
• Loose Canon: Given everything happening in this story takes place in a shared dream world, the trailer for it calling the events "dubiously canon", and the appearance of two workshop characters, one of whom is described as a "pure elemental" with the element of "Surprise", it's intentionally vague if anything that happens in the game will have tangible consequences on the greater narrative.
• Or Was It a Dream?: Finishing the three Tristis levels with at least one star earns one final cutscene, in which Absa awakens and reads a message that says "Thanks for playing!! NOW LEAVE ME ALONE.", suggesting the events of the dream world might have happened after all.
• Painting the Medium: When selecting Sylvanos, his "dialogue" goes on for so long that it runs out of the text box and off the screen.
• Shout-Out:
  • There are microgames that are direct takes on Punch-Out!!, Duck Hunt, Flappy Bird, Dark Souls, Mario Kart, Touhou, and Friday Night Funkin'.
  • Hodan dresses up as Goro Majima when searching for his scarf on a clothes line, among other famous characters.
• Straight Man: Absa, compared to everyone else.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change: Añi's level starts out typically enough, but after a few microgames she changes things up by forcing you to play two microgames simultaneously, some of which have conflicting controls by design to make the task even more difficult.
• The Unintelligible: Sylvanos only barks and howls instead of speaking.