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A | Sleep

A puzzle-solving game in a non-Euclidean setting.

The game discusses contemporary existential crisis through the first-person experience in an absurd and intriguing world.

My Role

Storyteller and Designer

As the main designer of the game, I wrote the storyline and the themes of the individual chapters, decided the visual and audio elements used to expressed the ideas, and designed the walkthrough scenes and puzzles in the chapters.

Introduction

Non-Euclidean World

A non-euclidean world is a place where the usual geometrical rules of the physical world we live in are no longer served. In this world, objects may defy physical rules, and things may change according to different perspectives, which offers a surreal and dream-like experience for the audience to immerse in. It also affords an oppotunity for the audience to think outside of the box of Euclidean geometry rules and use the change of perspective to solve the puzzles we designed and to create new experience.

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Chapter 0

Who am I

You wake up in your bedroom, yet something is off. It looks like night time outside, but your room is filled with daylight. Your chair seems like it is on the floor when you look at it from your bed, but when you walk over, you see that it is attached to the wall in an unatural way. You realized you are in a dream.

Existential Crisis

The Chapters discuss existential crisis through the individual chapter's theme.

Visual and audio elements related to the themes are used to express the ideas and to lead the audience through the journey of thoughts and emotions.

Players acquire corresponding abilities attempting to counter the anxieties and fears, yet are they truly able to reconcile with themselves by using these supernatural abilities?

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Who am I

This is an introduction chapter for users to familiarize with the non-Euclidean world.

Elements such as mirrors and hearts are used in this chapter to imply self-reflection and inspection.

We are inspire by Kusama Yayoi's infinity rooms and applied this concept in expressing the many-perspective identity of people.

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Forms

We are constrained by both our physical forms and the social frames set for our forms. The player acquires the ability to resize objects in this chapter.

Marble sculptures that attempt to represent perfect bodies are presented in flawed and out-of-place ways to express the anxiety of fitting into the perfect form.

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Space

The world is infinitely vast and ever-changing, which makes us question if there is a place for us in this frightfully unknown space. In this chapter, players are provided with the ability to save and go back to a position.

We use constantly changing floors, moving crowd of shadows on the wall, and noises of human voices to illustrate the sense of fear and stress.

Time

The passing of time and death is a major theme that occurs in our fears. The player can rewind and fast-forward time in this chapter to counter the fear.

We present the anxiety of time passing through imageries of withering plants, rotting apples, and burning candles. The theme of death is expressed through the river of styx and a feathered serpent.

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Status

Most of us aspire to or are expected to ascend in social status, yet reality sometimes keeps us on the ground like gravity does. The ability to control the direction of gravity is given to the player in this chapter to help them physically "ascend" in the game space.

Non-Euclidean stairscases are used to express the theme of this chapter.

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Where am I going

Many people experience existential crisis in the contemporary world. What are the choices we have under the given circumstances? Which of the choices would we choose?

At the end of the game-play, three choices that reflect our thoughts over the theme are presented. The player, with abilities acquired in the previous chapters, are able to make their choice.

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Images above are conceptual displays and pre-visualization created using Midjourney.

They will not appear in the actual game or used for any other purposes.

They do not indicate or represent the actual scenes in gameplay.

I do not claim any of the images "my own".