#hotel named for the fact that it evokes the vibes of water park hotel vactions

[thedreamparadox]

What would your own Nightopias look like and what kind of Nightmaren would live there?

I used to have a few figured out for aesthetics forever ago (like, a decade easily), but none of them were ever actually reoccurring and were just cool one-off dreams I had one time. While I'm still fond of the concept of Serenity Island (take the play island from the Destiny Islands from Kingdom Hearts and then hollow out the underside of the island and put a really cool hollow coral save in there), and Frozen Hill has some neat art potential (being a snowy nighttime winter scape with a frozen over lake and a snow covered massive jungle gym and playground structure and lots of pine trees), I'd probably adapt one of my more reoccurring dreamscapes instead.

Since I gave Shay the giant Toys R Us (which has an arcade stapled onto it that will probably be relevant later), that leaves my other commonly reoccurring locations as the hotel/water park hybrid (that said arcade connects to) and a giant mall complex that either has an underground section or connects to an underground section. Given that I am very bad at names, I've just been calling these Lucidia Mall and Lucidia Hotel. (Personally, going by what I've been operating on for my own fic lore, I'd probably have a blue Ideya and a white one so running on the 'one level per Ideya not counting red Ideya up to a max of three' that leaves me with two.)

The mall is a complex that seems to go on forever, varying from about three to five floors, sometimes more with a very high ceiling. There's at least one really cool water fountain and a bunch of stores. It's not based off of any one mall in particular but has the vibes of about three different malls I used to go to frequently/went enough to know roughly what's there I've been to plus a lot extra. The stores connect in completely illogical ways and there's a store for about everything. The only ones I can really think of that stick out are the jewelry/shiny objects store that somehow goes on for two floors, the scale broken store that vibes roundabout a JcPenny's/Bed Bath and Beyond/similar department stores. Let's call the underground section as connected. It vibes with the energy of a Japanese market side street with lower ceilings and a general vibe. But I remember having a dream with a really rad buffet. Chinese buffet level stuff but with way weirder foods (blueberry syrup tea comes to mind along with ice cream shaped into roses). This would probably be the white Ideya aligned Nightopia.

The hotel is a mix of a giant indoor pool/water park complex and an outdoor one that may or may not have a zoo attached to it? I vaguely remember a dream where loose zoo animals were a theme. But yeah, giant water park, huge slides all over the place and lots of pools. It has an arcade in the basement. Of the two, this one works better for an actual Nightopia if we're talking in terms of level design before more space to fly around it. One of the hot tubs is super deep and has the stained glass motifs from the Stations of Awakening from Kingdom Hearts. Generally a cool place to vibe. Blue Ideya associated because water motif.

Nightmaren-wise? Spiders, definitely spiders. Not canon to the games but I've got arachnophobia for those to be a thing. Aside from that uh. Not really sure? I don't really have a ton of phobias that make for good specific Nightmaren. Maybe the scorpion ones because arachnids are kinda freaky. Maybe moths. The water park would probably have the slightly freakier fish-based Nightmaren. Maybe some Shleep and Kircle for the hotel for obstacles in the outdoor section. Zero idea for boss Nightmaren, I'd probably have to make original ones and I don't have the brainpower for that right now lol.

I guess I gotta actually give these things names because of the games uhhhhh.

Let's go with Shining Mall (since the ceilings are all arched glass and the overall vibes are VERY bright) and Hydro Hotel. Level titles of ~The Infinite~ and ~The Vacation~ respectively.