Back in late 2024, Palestinian developer Rasheed Abueideh announced Dreams on a Pillow, a “pseudo-stealth adventure game.” It’s set during the Nakba, the 1948 ethnic cleansing that saw Israel violently displacing Palestinians and dispossessing their land and homes, serving as Abueideh’s emotional response to the attacks on Gaza that began in 2023. And now, as a second round of funding continues, a first look at gameplay has been offered up.
Dreams on a Pillow takes inspiration from a Palestinian folktale about a young woman called Khadra. In a panic following the massacre of her village, she attempts to flee her home with her new-born child, only to realise she mistakenly grabbed a pillow instead. Mechanically, as shown in the new trailer, this pillow is something she must take with her everywhere. Without it, the world turns nightmarish, clearly visually representing the traumatic events she’s experiencing, yet she also appears to be forced to do so in order to make her escape. The game won’t just depict the Nakba itself, but the lead up to it too. In the early hours, then contemporary Palestine is purposefully depicted as lush, colourful, and beautiful, showing what an average day in life would have been like.
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Over on the new crowdfunding page, Abueideh also provided an update on how development is going, explaining that full production has now started. “That means we have successfully assembled our core team across all disciplines and together we’ve established healthy production standards and pipelines.”
He continues, “As mentioned, we also have been working hard on creating and fine tuning the in-game gameplay loop. The Dreams on a Pillow gameplay loop mirrors Khadra’s dangerous journey through her escape from Palestine to the hope of safety in Southern Lebanon – shifting between the brutalities of Reality, the trauma-induced Nightmares, and her memories of her childhood in the Palestinian fisherman’s village of Al Tantura in her Dreams.”
Dreams on a Pillow doesn’t currently have a release date outside of a 2027 window, but you can support its development on LaunchGood. You can also wishlist it on Steam.
