Our trip to Munich, courtesy of German developer Discreet Monsters (we did ask about the name, though the explanation, which involved Alfred Hitchcock, just hurt our heads) wasn't your usual freebie affair; in between sessions of intense beering, we were expected to work for once.

You see Discreet Monsters felt the best way for us to experience its The Real Neverending Story game, with its elastic storytelling system and Monster graphics engine, was to design a section of the game ourselves. Split into several groups, and assisted by the Monsters' graphic artists, we were given a brief to 'Design A Dream'. We were told that the game's hero was trapped inside a dream, and had to find his way out, or be consigned to the nightmare world for ever.

We could easily associate with him: we felt were stuck in a dream where we had to design a level of a game when we would have rather been at the Munich Oktoberfest with its halls full of drunk German people, plates of chicken, baskets of pretzels, and roller coasters. Nevertheless, we ploughed on.

We developed a basic outline in which our hero was trapped in the dream of a chap called Franklin, who was represented in the dream by his childlike self, cowering under his bed in a cottage perched on the edge of a deep valley.

The cottage was surrounded by hideous monsters, which we'd learn were the embodiment of Franklin's greatest fears. The only way to break out of the dream would be to get Franklin to confront his fears. The trick was how to get the boy to co-operate. No, really: it was an excellent idea.

After a couple of hours every group presented their ideas to the Discreet Monsters, who were very polite. Admittedly, our design wasn't quite as epic as some, but at least it maintained a cohesive narrative, and didn't drift off into uncommercial existentialism, or unworkable concepts like several of the other groups' ideas. This is because we're great.

However, Discreet Monsters' decision to get us all designing was inspired: it allowed us to experience firsthand the complexities of designing a non-linear adventure like The Real Neverending Story.

Getting from the opening of the level to the outline, while being free to go off at all sorts of tangents in the middle, led to the creation of huge, mind-bursting flow-charts, full of sub-charts detailing conversations and alternative puzzle solutions. Being a games journalist may be a living hell, but we'd rather that than be a game designer.

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