A mobile tycoon in which one woman builds the whole technology of cinema by hand, from a clay lamp and a linen sheet to a picture palace showing her own films.
One verb, five instruments. Arrange a sequence of images, then show it to someone. A shadow play, a slide set, a zoetrope strip, a plate battery and a film reel are the same record with a different instrument. The factory exists to supply the instrument, and the show is the only thing that opens the next district.
Eras 1 to 4, up to Silver Quay's open gate: she plays Clay bank, Potter's pit, Shadow stage. Once the heron has worn thin the ferry takes her across to Flax shallows, Sesame patch, Charcoal burn, Goat pen, Oil press, Loom, Puppet bench, Dye pot, Camera obscura hut, where she cuts and dyes new puppets for the strip, weaves the linen her stage hangs, presses the oil its lamp burns and builds the obscura hut. The hut's show, with the wonder met, opens the gate, and the causeway takes her to the Glassmakers' Slip: Sand spit, Kelp line, Copper scree, Limestone cut, Ash kiln, Glass furnace, Lens grinder, Slide cutter, Brass foundry, Lime kiln, Colour grinder, Painter's studio, Lantern workshop, Lantern tent, Phantasmagoria room. There furnaces burn charcoal and starve, glass becomes lenses for Beatriz and slides she paints, and a magic lantern plays her six slides to the fairground crowd in the tent, then on wheels behind gauze in the phantasmagoria room. The room's show, with the wonder met, opens the Slip's gate, and the path takes her up to Clockwork Lane: Rag heap, Iron seam, Coal drift, Smithy, Gear cutter, Spring winder, Paper mill, Print shop, Drawing desk, Mirror bench, Toy workshop, Belt yard, Praxinoscope theatre. There rags become paper and iron becomes gears and springs; she draws cels of a motion, sets twelve in order in the print shop and sells the strips as zoetropes, fits mirrors into a praxinoscope, and loops a strip for the guild in the praxinoscope theatre, where a stutter pays less. Belts carry goods between stations with no one walking. The theatre's show, with the wonder met, opens the Lane's gate, and the steps take her up to Silver Quay:Silver seam, Salt pans, Bone yard, Silver refinery, Chemist's bench, Iodine retort, Gelatin works, Plate works, Camera workshop, Darkroom, Fixer bench, Trip-wire rig, Portrait studio, Zoopraxiscope gallery. There silver, iodine and gelatin make live plates that fog as they age. She takes a gentry sitter's portrait in the studio before the sitter fidgets and the plate dies, and beats the walk with the Quay's belts, a dark tent pitched by the camera, and Nenna, who runs a plate for a coin. A trip-wire rig of twelve cameras takes a horse at the gallop, the plates are set in order on a disc, and the zoopraxiscope gallery's show, with the wonder met, opens the Quay's gate on to the Arcade, seen, not played.
A change that breaks one of these is wrong.
The first thing she makes is a flame, not a plank. Each era upgrades the light: oil, condensed lamp, limelight, daylight and magnesium, electric arc. Light is what audiences pay for, and in the last era it stops being dangerous.
Arrange a sequence of images, then show it to someone. A shadow play, a slide set, a zoetrope strip, a plate battery and a film reel are the same record with a different instrument. That is why the screening is not a mode bolted on at the end.
Every route is walked by hand for two or three minutes before its helper becomes affordable. The player is always doing the newest job themselves while everything older runs itself.
Coins come from products and never decay. Wonder comes only from shows, decays as audiences get used to a trick, and is the only thing that opens a district. Invention is the business.
Basics, then heat and recipes, then sequence, then timers and spoilage, then fire. No district is a reskin of the one before it.
Building, buying and upgrading happen by standing on a tile in the world. The only screen that is not the world is the one where frames are put in order, and that screen is the game.
She and everyone around her pass through every era unchanged in face, changed in clothes and in trade. Nothing explains it and no character remarks on it. Losing someone is always a choice somebody made.
No lecture, no unlock text. The player learns why cinema happened in this order because they had to grind the lens before they could sensitise the plate. Info cards exist, sit behind one tap, and are never in the way.
Later districts draw on earlier ones, so the map grows into a single machine and no ground is ever abandoned.
| From | To | What crosses |
|---|---|---|
| Era 1 | Era 2 | Flax from the Reedbank becomes the linen screen every venue needs. |
| Era 1 | Era 4 | Clay becomes the chemist trays on Silver Quay. |
| Era 2 | Era 3 | Glass blanks become the mirror drum of the praxinoscope. |
| Era 2 | Era 4 | Kelp burned for soda ash also yields the iodine that sensitises a plate. |
| Era 2 | Era 5 | Lenses ground on the Slip are the lens of every camera and projector. |
| Era 3 | Era 5 | Gears and springs from Clockwork Lane become the intermittent movement. |
| Era 4 | Era 5 | Silver salts and gelatin coat the film as they coated the plate. |
| Era 1 | Era 5 | The oil press still runs. Old light sells to people who cannot afford new light. |
| Station | Second job |
|---|---|
| Shadow stage | Rehearsal room where performers are trained for later venues |
| Puppet bench | Costume and prop shop for the glass-roof studio |
| Lantern tent | Where projectionists are hired from, in every later era |
| Portrait studio | Where camera operators are hired from, and where actors are found |
| Toy workshop | Souvenir trade outside the picture palace |
The repo rule, applied here: nothing is on screen until the player did something that gives a reason to look at it.
| On screen | A dark riverbank, a woman, and one clay bank that glints |
|---|---|
| First action | Walk to the clay. She digs without being told to. |
| Then revealed | The potter's pit outline appears, because she is now carrying something that fits it. |
| Never | Currencies she has not earned, buttons for systems she has not met, any tutorial text over her body |