Dreams on a Pillow Deserves Your Support ► Ludology Now!

I mentioned Dreams on a Pillow a few issues back in the Recommendations section which appears at the end of every Ludology Now! column, but I’d like to speak a bit more about it here. Headed by Rasheed Abu-Eideh and currently (at the time of publication) only EIGHT days away from the end of its crowdfunding campaign on LaunchGood, Dreams on a Pillow is a video game experience about the 1948 Nakba. It is a uniquely Palestinian story, and – especially now – one which deserves to be told.

Crowdfunding games is not a new concept, and it’s been used to great effect by both independent developers and large companies. Usually you know what to expect when reading a project’s roadmap on their crowdfunding page: estimated time of pre- and post-production, a breakdown of what the money earned will be used for, stretch goals, concept art, things like that. Dreams on a Pillow’s page contains all these things, along with an important addition. “Additionally, a clear plan for the completion of the game has been put in place to ensure continuity in the case of Rasheeds’ disappearance, injury, or demise at the hand of the continuously expanding Israeli aggression in the West Bank.”

Palestinian Stories Need To Be Shared

That one sentence – a declaration of a fail-safe for the project against Rasheed’s death – should put everything into sharp relief. This genocide has been happening for so long now that it seems most people have accepted it as ordinary, commonplace, something that “just happens” because “that’s just how the world works.” This type of thinking infuriates me, but it also brings into question what I – what any one person – can do to stop it. 

Advocacy. Attention. Amplification of the people who do have the ability to make a change. These are very small things that I can do. That’s why I’m bringing Dreams on a Pillow back up this week – I am asking you, please, to donate to this project. At least share it with others. Even if you don’t like pseudo-3D stealth adventure games, other people do. And these stories need to be shared.

What We Know About Dreams on a Pillow’s Story

I don’t want to misrepresent Rasheed’s intentions, so much of the text in the following sections is pulled verbatim from Dreams on a Pillow’s LaunchGood page. The game will follow Omm, a young mother from an olive farmers’ family in al-Tantura, and is based on a historical Palestinian folk tale, described below:

Like all oral folktales, the story of Omm has numerous variations, however, all stories share the same fundamental elements: a young mother living in Palestine had her husband murdered by the Zionist invaders, and she ran to her home to retrieve her newborn child from the bed. She fled out of town in a panic, only to realize later that she had carried along a pillow instead of her child. The ending of the folktale differs wildly based on the audience – in most stories, the mother loses her mind – in others, she is murdered, or successfully avoids the roaming Zionist gangs and military groups to make it out of her homeland – not to return in her lifetime.

While attempting to escape towards Lebanon, players will travel through true historical events and stories of the Nakba genocide while also reliving Omm’s memories of Palestine in more peaceful times. It’s a unique Palestinian story, and one which deserves to be created. As you can see from the concept images included here, it also has a beautiful art style.

The Gameplay of Dreams on a Pillow

According to the game’s description, “Omm is not an action hero or a soldier – she is a scared civilian marked as collateral by ruthless Zionist brigades and gangs. While she is carrying her Pillow, she is further limited in her ability – while she can walk , she isn’t able to interact with most objects around her.” However, when she puts Pillow down, Omm then gains access to many more gameplay abilities, “including a jump, crawl, climbing ladders, and throwing rocks – but it triggers horrifying nightmares borne from the terrors she’s living through.”

Players will have to continue to complete their objectives while these nightmares are happening, a gameplay mechanic that anyone living in Ukraine, the Sudan, or indeed the West Bank may find all too familiar. The Western world at large remains woefully uneducated in such topics, and Dreams on a Pillow seeks to fix that. “As Omm travels from the massacre of al-Tantura to the concentration camps of Atlit, she will later encounter the campaign of terror that led to the fall of Haifa, the bioweapon poisoning of Acre, and the Zionist attacks on refugees towards the Lebanese border.”

Why You Haven’t Heard of Dreams on a Pillow

As stated on Dreams on a Pillow’s LaunchGood page, “popular crowdfunding platforms either do not recognize Palestine or have a history of withholding funding,” which is why LaunchGood was chosen in the first place. Dreams on a Pillow has also had very, very little press coverage – at the time of writing, only Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Eurogramer, Game Rant, and most recently Polygon have covered the game at all. 

Too many popular media organizations, content creators, and streamers have been silent on what’s been going on in Palestine. Too many people are afraid to take a stand on one side or the other, out of fear or greed or ignorance, or for a myriad of other reasons. It’s gross, and it’s sad, and honestly it’s not surprising, even though it should be. Caring about people, caring about history, doesn’t seem to be the priority anymore.

Why You Should Support Dreams on a Pillow

It’s only a bit of coincidence that this article is being published on January 6th, a date which used to mean quite little to most people in my country but now means very much. On this January 6th, 2025, I’m asking you to support Dreams on a Pillow because it’s the opposite of everything that horrible day stood for. I’m asking you to support Dreams on a Pillow because Palestinian stories need to be told, must be told, and told to as many people as possible. I’m asking you to support Rasheed, as well as Rami Ismail, Samer Abbas, Jules Merkle, Gada Jermy, Ahmad Mostafa, Omar Gilani, Salwa Najim, and Islam Alghbar, as well as anyone else who joins the project in the future.

Visit Dreams on a Pillow’s LaunchGood page. I didn’t include the link three times for no reason. Read more about the game from the developer’s mouths, not mine. Help them reach their goal. If you don’t have the ability to support monetarily, share their crowdfunding page. Share this article. Join Dreams on a Pillow’s Discord server. Do something, anything, more than just continuing to sit silently. I know I can’t anymore.

THIS WEEK’S RECOMMENDED MEDIA:

• For anyone who has ever wondered “How is that series so popular?” when a game franchise you’ve never even heard of before appears on a best-seller’s chart, I cannot recommend reading Felipe Pepe’s recent The Gentrification of Video Game History article highly enough. It’s an incredibly poignant, well-written piece that explores how the West has largely ignored major aspects of video game history, and is absolutely related to everything we previously discussed.
• There’s been a major breakthrough in the GoldenEye 007 speedrunning community, one which means Dam 00:51 might actually be possible. It takes a lot of explaining, so I’m just going to tell you to watch this Karl Jobst video instead.
• Statistically (14.5m+ views and counting at the time of writing) you may have already watched it already, but this Exposing the Honey Influencer Scam video from MegaLag is wild. Absolutely worth watching, and a good reminder to not download anything recommended to you from a stranger getting paid to recommend it to you.
• This column spent a lot of time at the end of 2024 discussing why Balatro and UFO 50 were my two games of the year, but I’m not the only writer on this website with an opinion. [Editor’s Note: Just the loudest.] See what our other team members thought by checking out Bonus Action Wrapped series, including their Best Games of 2024, their Best Tech & Accessories of 2024, and their Best Gaming Moments of 2024.
• This entire thread of pets leaving their mark on historical artifacts by Paul Cooper on Bluesky is terrific. Here’s a sample:

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Christopher J Teuton

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