Palestinian developer raises more than $200,000 to make Dreams on a Pillow, a game about the horrors of the 1948 Nakba
Rasheed Abueideh, a Palestinian game developer whose previous release Liyla and The Shadows of War followed a young girl trying to survive amidst the horrors of the 2014 Gaza War, has raised more than $200,000 to support a new project called Dreams on a Pillow, «a pseudo-3D stealth adventure» based on a Palestinian folk tale that takes place during the 1948 Nakba.
The United Nations describes the Nakba—«the catastrophe»—as «the mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.»
«Before the Nakba, Palestine was a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society,» reads the UN's account. «However, the conflict between Arabs and Jews intensified in the 1930s with the increase of Jewish immigration, driven by persecution in Europe, and with the Zionist movement aiming to establish a Jewish state in Palestine.»
While the past 75 years have seen «countless» resolutions calling for the right of return for refugees, along with restitution and compensation, «the rights of the Palestinians continue to be denied,» the UN says. «Palestinians continue to be dispossessed and displaced by Israeli settlements, evictions, land confiscation and home demolitions.»
Lilya and the Shadows of War was acclaimed but Abueideh says he had trouble finding support for new projects, as publishers felt his subject matter was «too controversial.» He opened a nut roastery near his hometown of Nablus to support his family, but with Israel's ongoing assault on Gaza forcing him to abandon it, he decided to return to games, relying on crowdfunding to enable the development of Dreams on a Pillow.
Dreams on a Pillow tells the tale of a young mother named Omm, whose husband is murdered by Israeli invaders. She flees from her home in a panic, carrying her newborn child—only to realize later that she has not taken her child, but a pillow. In most versions of the story, the LaunchGood crowdfunding campaign page says, she goes mad; in some, she is murdered, and in others she is able
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