Many Nights a Whisper

I was barely one year old when the 1992 Barcelona Olympics took place, and so I didn’t get to see it live, but I’ve watched this video from the opening ceremony many times since. It’s the coolest thing.

I couldn’t help but wonder what it felt like, both for the archer and for people watching it live, too. Must’ve been nerve-racking, right? What if he missed? I’m not that naïve, it was surely all planned out, but still!

Eventually I learned more about it. The shot didn’t actually land in the cauldron–it flew right over it. This was by design. The six square meters vessel was emitting gas, ensuring that the passing arrow would set it ablaze with Olympic flame before landing within roped off area outside of the stadium. Still, making this work required a lot of preparation and training. Antonio Rebollo was one of two hundred archers considered, eventually picked from the final four candidates mere two hours before the event. He had one spare arrow in case the first shot didn’t work out.^[src]

”There was no fear. I was practically a robot,” he said in an interview after the ceremony. ”I was focused on my positioning and reaching the target.”^[src]

What if the stakes were higher, though?

What if there were no spare arrows?
What if the cauldron was further away?
What if there was no gas and it had to be a direct hit?
What if…missing the shot meant the immediate cancellation of the entire event. Athletes at their peak, each prepared to give their best and compete for the highest prize only for that opportunity to disappear for the rest of their career.

What if?

In Many Nights a Whisper you play as a Dreamer, chosen ten years ago to perform a ritual. Your task: to hit an impossibly distant shot and change lives of a generation. The game takes place on a terrace overlooking a sea. Your mentor is the only other person here, and apparently the only person you’ve been able to talk to for an entire decade. Most of your training so far seems to have been just that—discussions with your mentor. The task ahead is more of a mental challenge, than a physical one. It is only during these final days leading up to the ritual where you learn to master your slingshot.

Scattered around the terrace, as well as further out in the sea below are chalices, each serving as a practice target. Direct hit sets them alight with a satisfying roar. At the very start, though, you won’t be able to hit anything outside of the courtyard not for the lack of skill, but simply because the slingshot is physically incapable of it.


Towering in the unreachable distance, taunting you, is the only target that matters.

I love projectile weapons in games. They’re incredibly satisfying to land a shot with, because first you have to predict it. We have this built-in physics sense and so after a few shots, you already get a decent idea of projectile speed and drop and whatnot. When your prediction lines up with the result, it feels amazing. Slingshot in Many Nights a Whisper is really interesting. Unlike bows and similar weapons in other games, where you have very granular control over their power, this one is chunky. As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, at the start your slingshot is very limited, and so the only two states it has are basically “drawn” and “not drawn”. Later on, you’ll be able to make it better, but you’ll discover that there are still these discrete power levels as you draw it back, with very clear feedback.

But the best thing about it is absence of a reticle. It turns something that would be almost completely trivial into a genuine challenge. I find this kind of setup more interesting than granular power + crosshair would be here. With static targets and no real time pressure, it makes sense. Still, when I started playing and getting used to it, I was a bit shocked by how well it worked and how invested it made me in every shot. As your mentor keeps reminding you, you need to pay attention to your body. Slingshot should be an extension of your arm, shooting it a second nature. I probably spent way too long doubting myself, making sure that I got it right, looking for visual cues to help me line it up just-so when the big moment comes.

I thought I knew what this game was…and then the sun set

The responsibility placed upon you during these final days in not just about mastering the slingshot. After you’re done practicing for the day, you take a moment for yourself to enjoy dinner and relax, before you head to the confession wall. One precise shot will make dreams of a generation come true. Dreams are dangerous, though. As a dreamer, you’re not just the one to take that shot—you’re the arbiter of dreams. Every night, people come to the wall, but you never see them and are not allowed to talk to them. A decade-long braid appears through a hole in the wall, followed shortly after by a single wish. Only one, once every ten years. Right then and there, you have to decide: will you cut the braid and grant them their wish, or will you let them leave without a word?

This was excruciating. Every wish was a conundrum, moral or otherwise. Requests ranged from genuinely world-altering to completely banal and absurd, and almost none of them were easy for me to decide upon. Even the silly ones—especially silly ones!—made me go a little crazy. “No way they waited ten years to ask for this. No shot!” I thought. It seems harmless, but it’s also such a waste. Should I deny them just on principle, to teach them a lesson?

Every night you don’t just make a moral choice, but a practical one, too. See, these braids are what makes your slingshot more powerful. Every morning, your mentor will weave them in, extending the slingshot’s range. Eventually, you’ll able to shoot all the way across the sea to hit that furthest chalice. You don’t know how many braids are needed, though, nor how many days are left until the ritual. Consider that the next time you head to the confession wall. Mentor said that I could grant every wish, and in fact one of the previous dreamers did just that. “That was quite a decade”, as they put it. Another thing to consider is that if you miss a shot, not only you don’t make people’s dreams come true, you will in fact guarantee that they won’t. It’s just not a possibility anymore. That’s the real weight of what’s happening.

With all of that in mind, simply practicing a shot—that distant, insane, impossible shot—feels almost relaxing. No ethical quandaries, no alternate realities to consider. I mean, it’s literally just sport! Find that perfect angle, draw the slingshot just so and let go. It’s repetition and routine, every direct hit a boost to your confidence. Until you miss. How did it miss? How?! I did everything the exact same way, at least I thought so. Suddenly, the pressure is on again. Can you really do this? Should you even do this? Are you sure? You release another fiery shot, watching it in anticipation as it slowly cuts through sky.

Dreamer has a tight deadline, but you as the player do not. You have all the time you want to obsess over every single wish. It’s up to you to decide how much training is enough.

I played Many Nights a Whisper days before the end of the year—in fact I’m writing these words in the final minutes of 2025. It’s been a weird year for me. Disappointing, in a way. A huge weight lifted off my shoulders at the beginning, only to be replaced by an even heavier burden later on. I’ve failed to meet my own expectations and I keep thinking what others might have expected of me. Whatever it is that I did this year, it was not enough. Twelve whole months had passed and I still don’t feel ready for whatever is ahead. There are people depending on me, now, or in the future, but I’m tired of being responsible for even my own damn self. Even this incredibly late into the year, here I was still hoping that I would, somehow, fulfill at least one of my goals.

This short but tense experience all about expectations and pressure was the exact thing that I needed. It helped me reassess my own situation and come to terms with my so-called failures. My goals shouldn’t be the sole source of self-worth, whether I reach them (especially if I do!) or not.
All I can do is to try my best.