Awakeness: YALDA Night

Awakeness – Steam Description (Revised)

Awakeness is a first-person psychological horror game set within Barzakh — a higher layer of reality that exists between states of being, where familiar spaces obey unfamiliar rules.

You awaken as Yalda, alone inside an immense, distorted environment that feels unsettlingly close to reality, yet fundamentally wrong. There are no explanations, no guidance, and no certainty that escape is possible. Your only goal is simple: find a way out.

Barzakh: A Reality That Feels Like a Dream

Barzakh resembles the logic of dreams, but it is not one.
It is a place where space folds inward, memory leaves physical traces, and emotions take form.

The world appears as a vast, decaying, house-like structure — endless corridors, repeated rooms, and doors that lead to places that should not exist. Paths loop back on themselves. Gravity shifts without warning. The environment subtly reacts to your presence, as if aware that you do not belong.

Exploration Through Unease

Awakeness does not follow traditional levels.
The world is semi-linear, built from interconnected spaces that gradually unlock as you explore, observe, and understand Barzakh’s rules.

Progression is driven by environmental and perception-based puzzles — interpreting space, symbols, movement, and cause-and-effect within a reality that resists logic. Familiar rooms may change when revisited, and solutions are rarely explicit.

Key features include:

• Endless corridors that distort direction and distance

• Rooms that reset or subtly alter over time

• Shifting gravity and disorienting movement

• Dark, claustrophobic spaces where light is scarce

• Rare mirrored areas that never reflect the same truth twice

Isolation and Presence

You are completely alone — or so it seems.

There is no combat, no allies, and no dialogue to rely on. Deep within Barzakh exists a hostile presence, bound to the structure itself. Avoidance, careful movement, and light are your only defenses.

At a critical moment, survival depends on stealing something valuable from this presence and escaping unseen. Failure does not mean death — it means being trapped, lost within endless darkness.

A Player-Driven Psychological Experience

Yalda is intentionally undefined.
Her fear, hesitation, and resolve are shaped entirely by the player’s actions. Awakeness avoids direct exposition, allowing meaning to emerge through atmosphere, sound design, environmental storytelling, and emotional tension.

Awakeness is about discomfort, solitude, and the quiet terror of being awake in a place that should not exist.