Mbombo: Dream Echoes is a video game conceptualised by artist Sondi that explores the radical potential of rest and dreaming as forms of resistance. Set in an unfolding, vibrant dreamscape the game raises profound questions about the potentiality of the dreamscape as a collective refuge. What becomes possible when we rest? What do our dreams unravel?
A figure in a pastel puffer suit is called forth to meander across chimerical plains and revel in the rosebud sweetness of each inhale, the soaring wings of exhale.
Mbombo: Dream Echoes attempts to render Black bodies beyond extraction— with play, pleasure and discovery as newly forged tools of liberation. Each experience, each encounter sheds a layer, heals a wound and in so doing reveals wisdom and ways of knowing that were once obscured and repressed in the name of capitalism, colonialism and slavery.
Mbombo: Dream Echoes reaches beyond bloodthirsty battles for glory in favour of idle wandering, playful curiosity and deep connection, abandoning traditional video game conventions of extraction, accumulation, and productivity in exchange for reward. In the tradition of visionary fiction, Sondi offers a way to practice the future; one that reclaims stolen imaginations, normalises slow wanderings, and encourages a probing of our dreamspaces as otherwise sites of possibility.
Credits:
Lead Artist, Creative Director, Character Design, Environment Design, Concept: Sondi
Research and Narrative Support: Marly Pierre-Louis
3D Asset Design: Pleun Gremmen, Eusebi jucglà & Sondi
Unreal Engine Game Development: Eusebi jucglà
Sound Design: Arjuna Vlasbloom
Sound Consultant: Luis Lecea Romera
Graphic Design: Mika Schalks
Game Consultant: Iyo Bisseck
Whispers Voice: Chloe Batchelor
Additional Voice: Emma Prins
A game commission by Het HEM for The Couch with the support of the Creative Industrie Fund NL