Among the Sleep

Among the Sleep
Cover artwork for Among the Sleep
Developer(s)	Krillbite Studio
Producer(s)	Ole Andreas Jordet
Designer(s)	Anders Ugland
Engine	Unity
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows OS X Linux PlayStation 4
Release date(s)	29 May 2014
Genre(s)	Survival horror, adventure
Mode(s)	Single-player
Distribution	Download

Among the Sleep is a first-person horror adventure video game developed by Krillbite Studio for Microsoft Windows, OS X, PlayStation 4 and Linux. It was released on 29 May 2014 in North America and Europe.

Story

The story begins as a toddler is having his birthday celebration at home with his mother. The celebration is interrupted by a visitor at the front door who is hidden from the player, but the story suggests it is the player's father, with whom the mother has divorced. The conversation is muffled and partly kept from the player as the mother raises her voice, refusing the father's request to see his son. The mother's angry tone frightens the toddler, whose fear is presented as blurred vision. Quickly, the mother returns with a gift, but the mother doesn't tell who the gift is from. Instead, she carries the child and gift upstairs to his room, a place of bright, warm colors and streaming sunlight. Before the present is opened, the telephone rings, and the mother leaves her son in his bedroom to play alone. The gift is revealed to be a sentient teddy bear. The bear introduces himself as Teddy. Teddy has a friendly, curious nature. After a few minutes playing together, they go into the closet, which turns out to be a large, dark room filled with long, black coats. Teddy says that if the boy gets scared in the dark, he can hug Teddy to feel more safe. The small adventure is ended by the mother finding them; she tells the child, gently, to "stop hiding from mommy" and puts the him to bed. The boy wakes in the night to find Teddy being taken by an unseen force. His crib becomes overturned, and the player escapes. He leaves the bedroom and rescues Teddy from a washing machine. The bear grunts that 'something is not right', and that they need to find mother.

The search translates into a journey through several surreal environments. Teddy instructs the player to find four memories the boy shared with his mother that will lead them to her. The memories take the forms of four objects: Her pendant from her necklace shown at the start of the game, the music box she plays to put him to sleep at night, a story book, and the boy's pink elephant. Throughout the search, the player is pursued by a large, shadowed monster.

After the last memory is found, the boy and Teddy are captured by the monster and in the ensuing struggle, Teddy's arm is torn off as the boy falls into a large, dark room. He follows his mother's voice as she keeps telling him to leave her alone. He sees her drinking from a bottle as she transforms into a large, black monster before disappearing. The boy is left alone in the dark, with light coming from cracks in a nearby door. It leads the boy back to his own room. He heads downstairs to find his mother crying in the kitchen, the damaged bear in one hand, an empty wine bottle in the other, which she drops. When the player attempts to retrieve the bear, the mother knocks him over and shouts at the player to leave her alone. She apologizes and tells the toddler she "didn't mean to", and that "it's too much". The toddler has the option of briefly comforting his mother should the player interact with her again.

There is a knock at the front door that the mother doesn't react to; instead, she continues crying. When the toddler goes to the door, it opens and reveals a glowing white light. The player's father is heard talking to the child, remarking on Teddy's broken arm, stating that he can fix him.

Development

Development of Among the Sleep began in 2011, and attracted 225,000 NOK (€28,000) on 27 May and 200,000 NOK (€25,000) on 28 October in 2011 in funding from the Norsk Film Institutt (Norwegian Film Institute) ^[1][2] The NFI awarded the company a supplementary 400,000 NOK (€50,000) on 1 March and another 820,000 NOK (€102,700) on 1 November in 2012.^[3][4]

Krillbite Studio also gained subsidies by launching a Kickstarter campaign^[5] at 18 April 2013, where they managed to pledge $248,358 of a $200,000 target. Achieved stretch goals included a commentary track, downloadable content developed in collaboration with backers, and support for the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset.

Reception

Reviews
Aggregate scores Aggregator Score GameRankings 61.52%[6] Metacritic 66/100[7] Review scores Publication Score Eurogamer 4/10[8] Game Informer 7.75/10[9] GameSpot 7/10[10] IGN 7.3/10[11] Joystiq [12] PC Gamer (US) 60/100[13] Polygon 7/10[14]

Among the Sleep was met with mixed to positive reviews, receiving 7/10 from both GameSpot^[10] and Polygon^[14] and accruing a Metascore of 66. ^[7]

As of March 7, 2015, over 100K copies of the game had been sold.^[15]

Notes

References

External links

• Official Among the Sleep website
• Official Krillbite Studio website