I practiced for this. Breathe in. Visualize the arc. The entry. The burst of orange and red life, ready to dance. Breathe out. Visualize the seeds of the future you planted blooming. The hero who saves those in need. The flower back from extinction. Someone’s sexy nemesis. The drought-less tomorrow. Breathe in. Aim…

An hour and a half before taking my final aim at the ceremonial chalice in Many Nights A Whisper, I didn’t imagine I’d be so engrossed that I’d hold my breath when firing my slingshot. However, what first appeared as a game focused on mastering a single archery shot quickly became a tense meditation on what it means to shoulder the weight of wishes, expectations, and a realized future. 

You play as the Dreamer, who was chosen for their role as a teenager, as they prepare to slingshot fire into a massive chalice. The outcome of this once-a-decade ritual will determine if the wishes made by local townsfolk will come true. While no one will perceive whether or not their wish has come true, reality will undoubtedly change. Making the shot can mean anything from letting a person be awake forever, to turning a family’s dog immortal, to even turning the sky red. All that stands between you and making the impossible real is being able to hit a target.

This would be an easy enough task if it weren’t for the fact that the chalice is pretty far away. And that you have no cursor to aim, making you completely dependent on self-guided practice. And that the strength of your slingshot is directly proportional to the amount of wishes you accept, meaning rejecting too many wishes might leave you underpowered to even reach the chalice. And that you likely don’t readily know how to respond to wishes on religion or gender or invisible pink cats, despite the existence of them all being solely in your hands. And that you have no save data. And that you have only one shot.   

I realized that the weight of this one shot was getting to me when my breathing became manual during the training. In the days leading up to the ritual, the game lets you practice your shots for as long as you’d like before hearing wishes at nighttime. The distance to the big chalice is littered with smaller ones that I used to understand how powerful my slingshot was at a given moment, how I should line up the Dreamer’s hand, and how to breathe so my mouse would stay steady.

For as grateful as I was for the limitless practice time, each day felt bittersweet. A new day usually meant more power to reach the chalice, as several townsfolk had wishes I was more than willing to accept, and an opportunity to hone my skill. But a new day also meant I was closer to the final shot and needed to readjust to more power. It meant constantly missing targets I had hit with no problem just minutes ago. It meant sticking around on a given day would eventually become moot considering I’d have to change tactics tomorrow. While there is an overarching promise of a malleable future, the game’s mechanics frequently ushered me into a new present. Subtly but surely, it created a cycle of renewal where yesterday’s angle no longer worked for today’s goals.  

However, this is more reflective of the Dreamer’s day-to-day than the town’s. As people came to state their wish each night, it became clear how stuck many of these folks felt. They weren’t unhappy per se, but they wanted something fulfilled. They wanted change enough to grow out their hair for the decade the protagonist trained, for a wish they won’t even be able to perceive coming true. This stipulation made my choices feel even stranger, because none of these wishes would make these people “happier” because they wouldn’t really be the same people. But regardless, they would still be people affected by my choices, so I took each wish seriously. 

After all, while several wishes were sillier than others, the implications of each one were enormous. For example, on the one hand, giving a kid an invisible pink cat is so ridiculous that I want to say yes for the fun of it. On the other hand, it feels wrong to create an entire new species, one that can only be perceived by a child who was already denied a pet once, for the fun of it. This process did not get easier as I had to imagine what would happen if I granted wishes like making someone’s crush fall in love with them, or changing the world’s relationship with labor, or ensuring that not only does someone go to Hell, but also that Hell exists at all. And no matter whose hair I decided to cut off as a sign of accepting their wish, turning their desire-driven patience into my strength, it’d all be for naught if I didn’t make the shot. 

Despite the numerous responsibilities weighing on the Dreamer and their slingshot, the part of Many Nights A Whisper that continues to tug at my heart days after completing it is how the Dreamer felt after firing the final shot. 10 years of training. Several reality-changing wishes. One shot that only takes seconds to hit or miss its target. And then it’s just over. The Dreamer is no longer a person with the universe in their hands. They are now just someone who can no longer be the person they were moments ago. I only walked in their shoes for a little over a hour and a half, yet the tension released from my body was profound. I can only imagine what the release of a 10-year tension does to someone, although the glimpse the game gave me felt like a punch to the throat.

In those moments before the credits roll, it became clear why the Dreamer’s Mentor spent so much of the lead-up to this monumental action telling them that no matter what happens, they should appreciate the outcome. Because once you fire your slingshot, only one thing is for certain in the brief moment before fate is decided and the years after it’s sealed. The only thing that was ever certain from the moment Many Nights A Whisper started: you will no longer be the Dreamer. After 10 years, you will start over with the consequences of your actions. You will change. A new you will be in the future. 

….and release. Oh no. No, it’s too far right. Too eager to dip. I have failed. I have fa- No, wait, where is it? What’s that light? Wait. Did I just make it? Oh, I made it. I made it! Breathe out! Breathe in the future! Breathe out. Breathe in. Oh. The future.