Balance: Umbilical Wake

Balance: Umbilical Wake is a surreal physics-based game about the human need to control life, birth, and what comes after.

You play as a fisherman trapped in a recurring nightmare that follows him through different stages of life. In the dream, he lives on a levitating platform between the clouds, connected to a large mechanical box through an umbilical cord feeding into it.

Each time he returns, the weight of what occupies him leaks into the nightmare and changes its world.

Do Not Fall

Release and retract the umbilical cord from your navel to control the box, shift both weights across the platform, and restore balance before the platform tilts too far.

Fight the Catch

Use the rod’s winding mechanism to pull fish from the devouring mud below the platform. Wind the reel, release the handle, and react in time before the fish is dragged deeper. Every catch is a physical struggle of tension, timing, and control.

Before the Catch

The nightmare follows its own logic. Learn how the world responds, then do what it demands. Each puzzle, reaction, and required step is part of a process that eventually makes fishing possible.

A Child Appears

The nightmare begins to grow around a new weight. What once belonged only to you is now a world shared with another life.

The Way Out

Inject the fish into your navel and pass into a waking trance that opens a way out of the dream.

You will keep returning, keep balancing, and each return will ask something different of you.

*Inspired by my deep admiration for the 1989 animated short film Balance by Wolfgang and Christoph Lauenstein.