At two years old, you don't realize that monsters don't exist. In fact, at two years old, anything or anyone looming over you, loud sounds and a sketchy atmosphere is enough to scare you, make you feel small, shake, cry or even hide and it's enough to make you believe that yes, monsters do exist, and yes, they're coming for you.
You play as a two-year old child, waking up alone in the middle of the night, disturbed by loud, ominous sounds booming down the hallways and through the vents, into your room. Curious, you climb out of your crib to investigate just where the sounds are coming from. A little creativity and you've managed your way out of the bedroom, down the first hall and into the laundry room to retrieve your teddy. Tucking him under your arm, you waddle down the stairs into what seems like an entirely new world.
Hallways and rooms turned askew by the darkness and a little imagination. It doesn't help it's storming outside, casting shadows from the flashes of lightning through the windows. The further you wander through the house, the more nightmarish the world becomes. Things once harmless in the daylight become horrifying creatures of the night and your only solace is the teddy bear you've used almost as your light in the darkness, a beacon of hope.
And as the night pushes on, it's not long before you come face-to-face with the monster terrorizing the house, or at least she looks like a monster in her drunken rage.
The Making of
The horror adventure game, Among the Sleep was created by a small game developer called Krillbites Studio. The game was created on the Unity engine and is available on Steam for $21.99 CDN ($16.49 USD, €14.73). They're located in Hamar, Norway and have been together since 2011. They met while studying graphic design in Hamar and decided to make Among the Sleep as a thesis project. When they realized the potential the game held, they decided to take it to the public to get the funding they needed to finish the project.
The team took to Kickstarter looking for $200,000 and with 6,539 backers from the crowdfunding site, they managed to exceed their goal, with a grand total of $201,709.
In a Q&A session about the game, the designer, Anders Ugland was asked where he'd gotten the inspiration for this game.
"This vision I had some five or six years ago, where I picture a child running from his room being chased by a monster; running down the stairs and then hiding underneath the stairs, watching the monster trample around looking for him. From there we just played around with the concept and I pitched it to the team and we started working on it as out thesis project in school and since then it's just been shaped by everyone on the team to turn it into what Among the Sleep is now."
Other members of the team mentioned they drew inspiration from their own childhood and places they grew up around. Places like their basements, under the beds, in the closets and the edge of scary looking forests they were around as children. They also pulled a lot of inspiration from their dreams, but mostly from their own experiences as children.
When asked why they would create a game from a toddlers perspective, they explained that since we've all been children, it's easy to relate to. Everything is big and scary and when it comes to applying that into a horror game, it's easy to take things that are common or natural and distort them to how a child might view them while scared. And because they created a nonviolent character, the child cannot fight, doubly so because they are only two years old. So, the only choice is to run and hide to make you feel helpless and weak against the monsters.
DLC and Oculus Rift
Not long after the games release they had put out free DLC (downloadable content) for the game. In this short titled Prologue, you play as the same toddler out with family at a cabin. It's the middle of night and the dead of winter. It's snowing heavily, your parents are nowhere to be found. Your window is wide open. There's a pile of snow on your floor and icicles forming around your room. You wake up, freezing, alone and scared and in the silence, you hear a voice. It's a new teddy begging for help and off you go to return warmth to the cold, abandoned cottage.
The team was also bombarded with questions, asking if the game would have Oculus Rift support. For those who are not familiar with the Rift, basically, it's a new virtual reality headset containing a display divided into two areas; one for each eye. The two displays work as your real eyes simulating depth and perspective. The Rift has a chip inside, used for rotational tracking or movement of your head, which makes it possible to look around as if you were actually inside the game.
When the team heard about the Rift for the first time, they knew it would be perfect for Among the Sleep since it's able to provide a sense of scale and depth that would allow the experience of the game to be heightened. With a little bit of fine tuning to the software of the Rift, they'd be able to make default settings for the Rift where things seem to tower over the child and make you feel even smaller than you really are.
So, in short, the game will support the Oculus Rift.
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