How to play

The Game is a story set in your own town, a long lifetime from now, after the power and the phones and the engines went dark. Your character woke not long ago with no memory: not their name for this place, not the year, not what happened. One body, in one place at a time. Your own feet grow their map: they can go wherever you have stood.

The map is the game

Everything happens over the map.

• Tap your character to think as them: ask yourself things, talk it through, say what you do.
• Tap someone else’s character when you are both at the same place, to talk with them.
• Tap a place to see what is known of it and to send your character there.
• The Book (on the left) keeps who you are, what you know, your places, and your Days: what happened, letters and talk, day by day. Your character's name at the top finds it on the map and opens its page; its figure on the map opens its talk. The compass opens How to play, Settings, and Sign out.
• The band at the top is the real sun and moon over your character, with the daylight left. Real storms, freezes and floods show there too, and they come to the Quiet.

Always doing something

The bar at the bottom always shows what your character is doing, how long they have been at it, and how long is left. Tap it to talk; Stop ends it, by the share done.

Left alone, they live: they sleep from dark to first light, drink and eat when they need to, keep wood for the fire, and otherwise do what their own nature leads them to. A word from you wakes them, groggy, in the dark.

Saying what to do

Say it in your own words in the box, or with your phone’s dictation.

• Do something. “I dig for water at the low bend of the draw.” Anything long or risky is told back first, with how long it takes and what could go wrong; say Go ahead. Only what is really there can be had.
• Go somewhere. “Go to the old depot and see if there is water.” If you have stood there, or they can see it from where they are, you get the walk and the times. A trip is three steps: the walk there, the task there, the walk back.
• Say when. “At first light, I walk down to the ditch.” It is booked with its real time and shows as Next on the bar (Call off there if you change your mind); it starts on its own, even with you away.
• Lay out a plan. Two or more steps for the hours ahead or tomorrow; agreed plans are kept while you are away, in daylight, resting when they must.
• Leave word for while you are away. “While I’m gone, never trade away the knife.” Your character holds to it with anyone it meets until you let it go (in the Book).
• Ask, think aloud, object. Your character thinks it through from what they know. If you say the world got something wrong and you are right, it is set right for everyone.

Steps, and setting things aside

Longer jobs go in stages you can see (“Lashing the frame, 2 of 3”). Between steps your character takes stock and decides what is next: go on, stay, do something more pressing first, or let it go.

Ask for something new in the middle of a job and they will tell you it means setting the job aside. Afterwards they decide whether to pick it back up where they left it. Only the share of the work actually done counts.

Where your character can go

Standing at a real place yourself, tap Show the way here: your character learns the way there. Mark this spot does the same for water or a camp close by. They can be sent only to places you have stood at, places they can see from where they stand (about half a mile), places they found on their own ground, and their own camp.

They know only what reached them: what they saw or found, what they read, and what others told them. What they were told can be wrong; going to see is how to find out.

A trail your character marks (cairns, blazes) makes the walk between two known places quicker, and others may see where it starts. Where it ends stays unknown until someone has walked it and stood at the end. Trails exist only in the Quiet; they are never real paths.

Camps

There is no home but what you build. Say “I make camp here” and the ground becomes their camp. A roof and three nights under it make it a homestead, yours by use. Buildings can be added to within real limits: a room, a porch, a lean-to against a wall. Real water you find becomes a place on your map.

You can name your camp. Others know the name only if you tell them or read it there. Other people’s camps are hidden until found.

Any place can have a name of your own: “I’ll call this the Low Bend.” Your character’s map and talk use it; everyone else keeps the map’s name.

Things left at places

Anything carried can be left at a place, in plain sight or hidden in a spot you describe, and marked for someone. Paper and boards can carry writing. Hidden things are found by looking deeper, by luck, or by someone who was told where. Taking what was not left for you can be seen.

Other people

You talk with another person’s character only when both bodies are at the same place at the same time. Then “Say to” appears above the box in your character’s talk: pick them, and what you type is said aloud to them. Their character answers as themselves; both of you keep the exchange in your own talk. People nearby may see what you do.

Asking someone to come along, to help with work, or to share a camp waits for their player’s word, in their talk and on their home page. Yes does it at once: a meeting books both of you to be there at that time; helping with a job here makes it go faster with two (and slower again if one leaves off); sharing a camp means one fire, one roof, and what is kept there is for both.

Everyday things can change hands on the spot; tools, money, and meetings at a set time wait for their player. A promise is kept when the thing changes hands, and broken if the day passes. Once you know someone’s name you can write them a letter; the rider carries it, and they learn yours from the signature. Writing takes paper and something to write with: a pencil, or a charred stick from the fire.

The peddler walks the town with his cart. What things cost, you learn from him, or from a sign.

Ruins and building

Every real landmark stands as a ruin with its true history. Nothing works unless people living there have made or mended it, and people go on foot. Real hours of work clear a place, roof it, and keep it, and what is built stays on the map for everyone after.

Mornings

A letter comes in the morning when something happened worth telling, and stays to read until the next one. You can ask for a notice on your phone when it comes; nothing else is ever sent.

The real world and the Quiet

The map is the real world, and the Quiet is drawn over it. You walk the real one; your character walks the Quiet. When you walk somewhere yourself, keep to public streets and paths.

Letting a character go

From the menu you can let your character go. It cannot be undone: they go on living where they are, keeping their routine, and others may meet them; you start again with someone new.

What is private

The game never tracks where you go. It uses your position only at the moment you show your character the way, mark a spot, or look around. Where you started is kept only as a rough area. Phone numbers, emails, and street addresses are never passed to another player.