Only the marked one can see it.
Something is walking towards one of you. Only the marked one can see it - a tall, silent thing that never stops and opens every door on its way. Everyone else sees an empty street. Slap a friend and the mark is theirs. They can't slap it back for ten seconds.
THE MARK. Whoever carries it sees the Walker, hears its steps and their own heartbeat. Everyone else has to read the signs: its wet footprints appearing on the road, crows bursting into the air, an owl on a pole slowly turning its head to watch an empty street, the dog barking at nothing.
THE DRAG. When it reaches you, it drags you by the leg towards an open grave at the cemetery. Your friends can grab your hands and pull - a tug of war with something they cannot see. Once you are in the grave, somebody has to pull you out.
THE DOLL. The cursed doll is always locked away. The crowbar opens boarded-up doors, the stone tomb at the cemetery and the old chest in the barn - loudly. The house key opens the house with the light on and the locked flats. Blast door B7, at the very bottom of the bunker, opens only once you start the generator somewhere on the way down. Listen: the doll whispers in the dark - the marked one hears it from far away, everyone else only nearby. Pick it up and the mark is yours - and while you hold it, nobody can take the mark from you. The fire by the van won't take it before midnight, so keep it alive until the bell. While it burns, the thing walks straight for the fire: stand in its way, or it pulls the doll out and carries it off.
THE HOSPITAL. At the end of a road on the edge of the village - north one night, east or west another - stands the old hospital, and every floor has its own tenant. Inside, the stairs are in different rooms every night, and on the second floor the way up and the way down are never in the same room. On the ground floor something moves only while no one is looking at it. Upstairs, in the children's ward, babies crawl after you, giggling - the more of you there are, the more of them: one climbs onto your face, the next covers your ears, the third grabs your leg - and the fourth puts out the lights. Shine your flashlight on a baby and it sobs and is gone - for a while. Wind the music box and they all sit down to listen to the lullaby. On the third floor the chief doctor walks his rounds; when he catches you, you wake up on another floor. The key to the morgue is on his desk. Down in the morgue it is darker, your flashlight flickers - and the dead don't always stay down.
THE BUNKER. Under a red lamp by the barn, a concrete shelter goes down two or three levels into bunks, lockers and a dead radio - new every night, stairs and all. Something there hunts by sound and follows you up and down the stairs. It can't see you. Crouch and it barely hears you; a fast rattle means it heard - freeze, then sneak away.
THE MISSING. People hang in sacks in the barn and the bunker. Untie one and lead them slowly to the van, with a light: in the dark they stop and sob, and the man with the sack or the blind one comes to hang them back up. Leave them and they scream. The crew is paid for each.
A DIFFERENT RULE EVERY NIGHT. One night it runs while you look at it. Another night it is fast in the dark. It may hear running feet, or follow exactly the path you walked, or be blind and walk to wherever it last heard you. It may give the mark to whoever screams into voice chat. Or the mark may jump from one of you to another on its own.
MIDNIGHT. Halfway through the night a distant bell tolls twelve times. While it tolls, everyone can see the thing - and it walks faster.
FOG, THUNDER, SNOW. Every night has its own weather. In the fog your flashlight hits a wall of milk - you see less, and so does the man with the sack. In a thunderstorm the rain drowns your footsteps, and every flash of lightning shows the whole village for a heartbeat - and the thing only the marked one can see, to everyone. Sometimes there is someone else standing in the field, who isn't there when the light is gone. On a snowy night everything is quiet and every step carries - and the snow keeps prints: your friends', the man with the sack's, and the bare feet of the thing only one of you can see.
THE VAN. You start in a fenced camp by your van. For the first minute the gate stays shut and the night holds its breath: spend the crew's money at the van. A compass that points to the nearest crowbar or key. Bigger lungs and a second wind. Firecrackers that stun the man with the sack up close and lure whatever hunts by sound. Flares the Walker won't cross before midnight. Every night brings two tasks - ring the chapel bell, take three warm eggs from under the hens (they will scream), start the bunker generator - and every reward goes into one purse for the whole crew.
A NEW TOWN EVERY NIGHT. Streets, lanes, hills and a cemetery on a hill - built anew every night, and the bunker and the hospital with them. Every house has its own roof, porch and fence; grey four-storey blocks of flats stand among them - climb the stairwell and find the door that opens. Some towns have a chapel, an abandoned gas station or a bus lying in the ditch; some are deep in autumn, some are snowed in. Some nights the moon rises red, and everything that hunts you is faster and sharper. Your friends join the host's town.
THE BELL. If your town has a chapel, its bell tolls midnight from the tower - and someone lit the candles inside. When they gutter, the Walker is close. Pull the bell rope and the whole village hears it. So does the man with the sack: he comes to the sound. Use it to lead him away from a friend - and don't be there when he arrives. The bus in the ditch has a horn too - and its battery has three honks left.
THE LOCALS. Sleepwalkers wander the streets - slap one and the Walker goes after them instead. Geese at the pond hate anyone who runs: the gander bites, and you drop whatever you were carrying. A magpie steals the doll if you leave it on the ground - scream at it and it lets go. Hens sleep in the henhouses behind the houses - walk too close and they burst out in a panic of feathers, loud enough for the man with the sack. A lamplighter in a tall hat rings his handbell through the streets and comes for whoever he sees standing still in the dark. Garden gnomes and scarecrows turn to face you whenever you look away. And the man with the sack still walks the streets, listening.
PRANKS. Your friends are the easiest prey in the village. Drop a banana peel in a doorway, set a mousetrap by the stairs, rig a firecracker on a door, wind up a jack-in-the-box, prop a wardrobe shut with a friend inside. Sneak up behind them and shout boo! - or wait in a wardrobe and step out when they come close. Tie their laces together, click your torch on in their face, jam a bucket over their head. Breathe in a helium balloon and everyone hears you squeak - over the walkie-talkies too, and the thing that copies your voices remembers it. Beer makes you hiccup, cigarettes make you cough, fizzy soda makes you burp - and the man with the sack hears every bit of it.
HE IS CLOSE. The man with the sack knocks before he comes in - and sometimes he stops at a window and looks inside. When he is chasing someone, the lights around him flicker. The thing that copies your voices calls you with a friend's voice from a dark house - sometimes from right behind a closed door. And in an empty wardrobe, sometimes, something breathes.
TOGETHER OR ALONE. 1-4 players with proximity voice chat. Alone, a dog keeps you company and barks when it comes near, the sleepwalkers can take the mark off your back, and you can climb out of the grave yourself.
SILLY HATS for doing silly things - slap the gander, make the magpie drop the doll, burn five dolls. A wheel of gestures: wave, point, whistle, dance, laugh, applaud, sit down - or slap a friend on the backside and carry them in your arms. See your friends' names over their heads; die, and you watch the rest of the night over your friends' shoulders; and at the end of the night - awards for the night's heroes and fools.
FEATURES
- 1-4 players; play alone or with friends
- A curse you pass on by slapping - and an invisible hunter only the marked one can see
- Tug of war with the invisible: pull your friend out of its hands
- An old hospital with a different horror on every floor and a morgue below - its place and its stairs change from night to night
- A blind thing that hunts by sound in a bunker two or three levels deep, new every night - crouch, freeze, sneak away
- Rescue the missing and walk them to the van - slow, scared of the dark, and loud if you leave them
- A different rule every night, and a new town every night - with its own houses, blocks of flats, special places (a chapel, a gas station, a bus in the ditch) and sometimes autumn, snow or a blood moon
- A fenced camp by the van: a shop with a compass, firecrackers, flares and walkie-talkies, two tasks a night and one purse for the crew
- A bell rope and a dying bus horn that lure the man with the sack wherever you want him
- Proximity voice chat - screaming can matter
- Pranks: banana peels, mousetraps, a rigged door, boo! from behind or out of a wardrobe, tied laces, a bucket over the head, helium voices and beer hiccups - every one loud enough for the man with the sack
- A playground at night: swings, a merry-go-round and a slide
- Walkie-talkies: talk across the village - but whatever stands near your friend hears it too, and near the doll the static whispers
- A map you draw by walking - stand next to a friend to compare maps
- Notes that tell the story of the village, the bunker and the hospital - every one you find is kept between games
- A curse run: five nights in a row, each one harder - two rules at once, a blood moon - and a last night that ends at the van
- Dead, but not silent: the living hear you over their walkie-talkies - and you can make the lights by the doll flicker, send a chill down a friend's back, slam a door or set a swing rocking next to them
- Open lobbies: find other players, or keep the night to your friends
- The missing villagers have voices - in all 15 languages
- Sleepwalkers, a dog, geese and a magpie that all have their own ideas
- Midnight: the bell tolls, and everyone can see it
- Fog, thunderstorms and snow that change who sees and hears whom - and footprints in the snow, even of the thing nobody else can see
- Garden gnomes and scarecrows that turn to face you when you look away
- A gesture wheel, names over heads, spectating after death and end-of-night awards
- A wardrobe to unlock: hats, jackets, scarves, torches, flippers and worse
- Moonlight, fog and flashlight beams cutting through it - and a PS1-era mode in the settings: low resolution, trembling vertices
