Finally Awake (somnogame)

Finally Awake is a 2048 multiplayer somnogame developed by Moodoo and published by Zhupao on November 27th 2048. Written and directed by Samuel Domian, Finally Awake was the launch title of the Reverie console and has been credited with the popularisation of somnogames.

Combining a roleplaying game (RPG) with elements of social deduction, Finally Awake tasks players with completing various puzzle rooms to reach the Demiurge, the being responsible for creating the game world. One team of players is secretly given the task to sabotage the others and turn the shared dream into a nightmare.

Finally Awake was a critical and commercial success upon release, with particular praise for its pioneering use of subjective dream logic. A recent update to the game added an artificial intelligence (AI) gamemaster called Mekhane, which was well-received by fans.

SettingPermalink

Finally Awake is set in a fantastical land that is being dreamed into existence by the Demiurge, a powerful being that is sleeping in the Throne Room. The objective of the game is to reach the Throne Room and keep the Demiurge asleep in order to safeguard the land, or wake it up if the dream has turned into a nightmare.

GameplayPermalink

The role of the Demiurge serves as the gamemaster and can be assumed by Moodoo staff or a custom artificial intelligence (AI) called Mekhane. Samuel Domian was known for organising sessions of Finally Awake where he acted as the Demiurge, which were some of the most popular and widely spectated games. After Domian’s departure as creative director, Moodoo launched Mekhane in May 2049 as a generative AI system trained on dream imaging data. ^[1] Mekhane was well-received by players, with some claiming that Moodoo has “recaptured the magic of Domian’s finest games.”

TeamsPermalink

When the game starts, players are randomly and secretly assigned to two different teams: Fantasies and Fears, with Fantasies typically outnumbering Fears by two to three players. Fantasies can only see their own team affiliation while Fears are aware of each other’s identities. The main objective of each team is to complete a series of puzzle rooms known as Tracks while losing as few members as possible.

TracksPermalink

Tracks are puzzle rooms that players have to collaboratively solve before progressing. They obey dream logic and often contain one or more deadly elements, which can eliminate players who can then choose to spectate or wake up. ^[2] Once a Track has been started, progression to the next Track is blocked until all remaining players have reached the end of the current Track.

Players can choose a total of three to six Tracks per game, with each Track selected from a fixed rotation. Tracks can contain environmental obstacles, interactive objects, and non-player characters (NPCs). Most elements in a Track are visible to all players, but some only appear to specific players based on their role or the Track’s puzzle. Players must complete each Track before the timer runs out at risk of elimination.

In order to catalogue Tracks by their themes and challenges, the Finally Awake community started giving them names based on French bands or songs, which Domian has called out as “immensely flattering.” ^[3] Example Tracks include:

• The Supermen Lovers, a Track that sees players jumping from one airplane to another, with only half of them wearing a parachute.
• Le Monde est Stone, a Track set in a sculpture museum, with players having to sneak through by adopting static poses to fool the guards.
• Chicken Sonata, a Track where players run across a giant piano while being pursued by a chicken, which must be guided into playing a melody that at least two players recognise.

Throne RoomPermalink

After each Track has been completed, players reach the Throne Room, which contains no challenge or puzzle. Players instead proceed to a voting round to decide whether they want to wake up the Demiurge or keep it asleep. If the Fears outnumber the Fantasies, the Demiurge is secretly switched to its Nightmare state. Otherwise, it remains in the default Dream state.

The Fantasies win if the Demiurge is kept in its Dream or awakened from its Nightmare, while the Fears win if the Demiurge is kept in its Nightmare or awakened from its Dream. In the case of a tie, players are free to eliminate each other until a majority is reached. ^[4]

Roles and abilitiesPermalink

Depending on their team, each player is randomly assigned a hidden role with a unique ability. No two players can have the same role, but not all roles might be present in a single game.

FantasiesPermalink

FearsPermalink

MasksPermalink

After roles are assigned, players choose an animal mask that their avatar will wear during the game. Players have started to introduce themselves using the namesake of their mask followed by a sentence alluding to their secret role. Someone claiming to be a Muse might present themselves as “a crafty little fox with tricks up their sleeve,” while a player posing as a Concubus might say they’re “a scruffy alley cat, tired of being a loner.” Some masks are reserved for Moodoo staff members, such as Domian’s iconic mask of a perpetually screaming opossum. ^[5]

DevelopmentPermalink

Image

The first version of Finally Awake was drafted by Domian and Inès Seghir in August 2042. While Seghir refined her method to influence lucid dreams via targeted neurostimulation, Domian focused on the design of a multiplayer game that would take advantage of the mental models and personal experiences of each player. ^[6]

In May 2043, Domian and Seghir debuted Finally Awake at that year’s A Maze festival in Berlin, Germany. The game did not include fully functional Tracks at that point, and relied heavily on Domian’s presence as a gamemaster to adapt puzzles to the actions of players. Seghir was responsible for monitoring players and waking them up if there was any kind of emergency.

After receiving positive player feedback and press coverage, Domian and Seghir founded Moodoo and began production on Finally Awake as the launch title for the Reverie somnogame console. The game’s development was delayed multiple times due to issues that were attributed to “practices coming from the traditional videogame industry, which turned out to be unsuitable for the new paradigm of somnogames”. ^[7]

According to Seghir, the early prototypes of the Reverie were “full of potential, but also prone to inscrutable issues you only encounter when using the human mind as an undocumented game engine”. Seghir often cited the “Schrödinger’s Nope” bug, which saw players waking up from games despite choosing to spectate. It took Seghir several months to discover that players were intentionally using the option to wake up without retaining any memories from doing so. ^[2]

2049 tournamentPermalink

In September 2049, Moodoo announced the first official Finally Awake tournament to take place on the night of October 9th 2049. In the announcement video, Seghir revealed that the tournament would be run by Mekhane as “a demonstration of its newfound potential.” ^[8] At the start of the tournament on October 9th 2049, Seghir posted a list of players, including several celebrities and influencers, as well as their masks and role allusions.

The tournament ended at 04:30 PT on October 10th 2049 with a victory for the Fear team. The participants traversed six new Tracks before reaching the Throne Room, with each Track designed and adapted live by Mekhane. After confirming their victory in the Throne Room, Waite seemingly used the active White Lady ability to shatter the ground, allowing them to fall out of bounds. This unexpected behaviour triggered Mekhane to generate a seventh Track, even though there were no players left to clear it. Moodoo’s official stream of the tournament featured the seventh Track for a few minutes before being interrupted by the victory of the Fear team.

During the event, the community held a popular vote to choose a name for each newly generated Track. ^[9] Camacho described the tournament’s Tracks as being “of a quality on par with Domian’s finest work. You could really feel the emotion in it, as if Mekhane was struggling to tell you something but could only speak in nightmares.” Earlybird praised the sportsmanship between contestants and “everyone’s mastery of the game, especially Waite’s, even though they only played the original prototype a few times.”

ControversyPermalink

After the success of Finally Awake‘s initial launch, the game became notorious for the troubled status of Domian, which culminated in several public outbursts. As a result of Domian’s behaviour, players began to report that the Demiurge had become “increasingly spiteful.” During a game that he was managing in March 2049, Domian verbally abused a player and intentionally trapped them in an endless fall for six hours, which led to calls for him to step down. The player was later identified as Sam Shepard, a member of Second Advent.

On April 11th 2049, Domian announced that he had “involuntarily departed” Moodoo and his role as creative director of Finally Awake. In an accompanying statement, Zhupao called Domian “a victim of his own circumstances,” making reference to his history of substance abuse and mental instability.

Domian’s fanbase reacted to his departure by boycotting Finally Awake and harassing Moodoo employees, which intensified when Moodoo announced the launch of Mekhane in May 2049. Domian was repeatedly criticised for refusing to intervene in the harassment campaign.

See alsoPermalink

• Samuel Domian
• Moodoo

ReferencesPermalink