Cycle Game: My Terrible Sleep Cycle

My Terrible Sleep Cycle

This cycle story comes from my experience struggling from the infamous "revenge bedtime procrastination", a deeply relatable and recurring experience.  I intended to use the structure of the cycle to show how seemingly insignificant habits—like scrolling through your phone or taking a nap—can become part of self-defeating loop.So, this loop captures how a single night of poor sleep circles into a repetitive, disorienting routine that is inescapable.

The element of fabulism that I include in this story is very subtle and attempts to blur the line between reality and the possibility that the protagonist may actually be trapped in a literal time loop, but too exhausted to notice or question it. I aimed to maintain the story's realism while gently suggesting that the protagonist's lack of sleep has distorted their sense of time, leaving space for interpretation.

Initially, the earlier version of this story used for the playtest was much shorter and each passage was more explicitly explanatory rather than unfolding it like a narrative. I learned from feedback that the run through experience would have been more engaging if told in the form of a narrative, which I applied to make this final product. Conversely, a positive feedback I got was that the repetitiveness could feel more intentional if it further emphasized a sense of déjà vu. Based on this, I adjusted the dialogue and certain descriptions to suggested subtle changes in the wording or tone when readers go through the cycle a second time or more.