Curtain rises on Insomnia: Theater in the Head

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

Point-and-click psychological puzzle game available now to download on Steam for Windows PC

A sleepless night can be a torturous thing, our minds racing as we jump through all sorts of mental hoops to trick ourselves into feeling sleepy. Now imagine those mind games manifested in game form, and you'll have a good idea of what to expect of Perfect Day Studio's newly released Insomnia: Theater in the Head.

The game stars a restless young woman who can't get to sleep late one night, tormented by her many anxieties. And so the "show" in her head begins playing, increasingly embodying ever more thoughts and ideas swirling around in her head. Whether the "annoying elf, countless sheep, floating furniture pieces" or other fantastical images, one after another a series of "quirky dramas" appear out of thin air and must now be dealt with to drive them away. But doing so first requires figuring out where they come from; only by "constantly searching for her inner self and exploring the cause of her insomnia" will the girl be able to "face the source of her pressures and embrace a brighter dawn."

Insomnia is presented in a vivid hand-painted art style, the screen split between images of the poor protagonist struggling to sleep on one side, and the "crazy, original, interesting, artistic theaters appearing in the main character's head" on the other. The point-and-click gameplay involves solving a variety of surreal puzzles that are meant to be "relaxing" to the player, if anything but for the exhausted young woman whose psyche is plagued by them.

Intended to be a relatively short experience, Insomnia: Theater in the Head is budget-priced accordingly and is available now at a further discounted price on Steam for Windows PC.