Palestinian developer Rasheed Abueideh has shared the first gameplay footage of Dreams on a Pillow, the pseudo-stealth adventure game he announced in late 2024, according to Rock Paper Shotgun. The reveal comes alongside a second round of funding for the project, giving potential backers their clearest look yet at what the game will actually play like.
Set during the Nakba of 1948 - the mass displacement of Palestinians from their land and homes during Israel's founding - the game carries serious historical weight. Abueideh has described it as an emotional response to the ongoing attacks on Gaza that began in 2023, channeling that grief and urgency into interactive form.
What we know about the gameplay
The footage paints a picture that lives up to the "pseudo-stealth" label Abueideh coined for it. Visually and mechanically, the game appears to lean into tension and quiet dread rather than action, which fits the subject matter - survival through evasion rather than confrontation. The aesthetic carries a poetic, deliberate quality that sets it apart from conventional stealth titles.
Games tackling real historical atrocities and ongoing conflicts remain relatively rare, and fewer still come from developers with direct cultural and personal connections to those events. Dreams on a Pillow sits in the same conversation as works like This War of Mine, but speaks from a perspective that the medium has largely left unrepresented.
Still in development and seeking support
With the second funding push now live, Abueideh is looking to bring the project to completion. The combination of a fresh gameplay reveal and an open funding window suggests the game is making real progress, even if a release window hasn't been pinned down yet.
Dreams on a Pillow is shaping up to be one of the more meaningful and politically charged indie games in the pipeline. Whether or not it lands with a wide audience, it's the kind of project that expands what games can say and who gets to say it.
