It Began With The Whales

! Press U on the keyboard to toggle rotation effect on dream destabilization to reduce motion sickness !

Learn the ancient secrets of lucid dreaming with the help of your whale companion while traveling between floating islands and hunting blue panthers.

The game studies the relationship between games with lucid dreams and implements specific mechanics to find how specific gameplay elements trigger lucid dreams in real life.

Set in dream land, each island is a different dream. Your whale companion helps you travel between islands. Inside the whale, you will find your way out.

Discover IBWW

IBWW is built in Unity, and works for PC and Android (coming soon!). The game is a 1st person simulator that incorporates elements suspected to help in triggering lucid dreams.

The game has a serene atmosphere meant to place the player in a relaxing mood, both with the music and with the gameplay.

• Psychedelic, a fever dream
• Incorporates actual lucid dream techniques, such as reality checks
• Ride flying whales between floating isles
• Go inside your whale
• Relaxing and zen meditative atmosphere
• No inventory - you only carry 1 item
• Minimal to no UI - immersive
• Chairs grow on trees and speakers grow in volcanos

Inspirations

Mechanics

• House Flipper
• Viscera Cleanup Detail

Graphics

• Paper Mario

Lucid Dreams and Dreams

• Superliminal
• Max Payne (dream sequences)

Inner workings

• influence the subconscious with the idea of the dream, while in a relaxed state
• perform repetitive reality checks, so it creates an automatism which you will perform inside the dream
• audio-visual cues to embed the idea of a dream inside your brain - messages of dreams appear everywhere
• a fish symbol to associate with the idea of a dream state
• sound puzzles to make you associate beats with the dream state

Over the years, there has been various research done on why video games trigger dreams, and some findings include the first person perspective and the ability to control a virtual character. Video games act by enhancing certain cognitive abilities developed in gamers. This experiment includes techniques specific to lucid dreams.

For the complete devlog follow: https://www.instagram.com/ibwwgame .

Keys

Action	Keyboard	Gamepad
Player
Move	WASD	left stick
Look	Mouse	right stick
Sprint	LShift	LTrigger
Jump	Space	A
Interact	E/Mouse	RTrigger
Scan	F	B
Reality Check	Q	X
Rotate Item	R	Y
Toggle UI	Enter	Start
Whale
Move	WASD	left stick
Look	Mouse	right stick
Sprint	LShift	LTrigger
Park	E/Mouse	RTrigger
Lucid Dream Puzzle
Interact	Q	X
Back	F	B

DISCLAIMER - this games intentionally induces the idea of dreams in your subconscious with the purpose of waking you up in your dreams; use with caution; may cause adverse effects such as motion sickness, nausea, or dizziness; do not use while driving or operating heavy machinery

Download the table below, and each day fill in another row, according to the example: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18-3bpHcZzZ6o9tpU56xStZJlC_A5qH-4_J-JS_tEGAI/edit?usp=sharing . You are not required to fill in any answers you are not comfortable with.

You are also invited to join the discord server, so we can keep in touch: https://discord.gg/wwQAz3jCwK .

You can help the study by filling in the following form: Google Form IBWW .

Credits:

• Game Creator, Design & Development - Florin Viorică

• Psychedelic Art - Maria Hodor 
• Sound Direction - Valentina Năstase 
• Design Input - Raluca Brâncoveanu 
• QA - Raluca Brâncoveanu,  Valentina Năstase,  Ștefan Nicu 
• VFX Consultant - Dragoș Dogioiu 
• Sound Consultant - Ștefan Damian,  Ștefan Rucăreanu 
• Development Consultant - Mara Chirașcu,  Grigore Burloiu
• Playtesting and Feedback - Morariu Alexandru,  Ștefania Tănase,  Daria Alexandrescu,  Daria Geagăn,  Gabi Stoiciu,  Maria Bucurenciu,  Andrei Nae

• Audiologs Via - Charlie Morley 
• Music Via - Mose & Natan Rabin,  Steve Roden

Coordinating professors:

• Maria Mandea
• Diana Dragomir

Created in the Art of Game Design Master’s Degree at Universitatea Națională de Artă Teatrală și Cinematografică "I.L. Caragiale" (UNATC), Bucharest.

https://unatc.ro/devunatc/departament/arta-designului-de-jocuri/