Cards and time

Only a few cards in front of you

Along the bottom of the screen sit a handful of action cards, and they change with where you are. The bedroom lets you sleep, the kitchen lets you go through the cupboards, the temple lets you cast the moon blocks. All you do is decide what the next stretch of time gets spent on.

Opening one drawer and walking down ten flights of stairs are not the same errand. The lift doesn't work, because there's no power. An older body takes longer over the same walk than a young one, and longer still when it can barely stand.

Time is the only genuinely scarce thing here. Your body will not wait for you.

Status and weather

What you're up against isn't a who. It's eight numbers going down

• Health
• Fullness
• Thirst
• Energy
• Body temperature
• Injury
• Mood
• Hygiene

Each falls at its own pace, and none of them is a case of higher is better: eating until you're stuffed is as much a problem as passing out from hunger. Every one has its own comfortable range.

The seasons and the weather follow the odds of a real Taiwanese year. Cold nights after warm days, rain that settles in for days, a typhoon that arrives without warning. Whatever you wake up to is the weather you get. When it rains, the drops run down the lens.

When it's cold, a down jacket is worth far more than a can of pineapple.

Character

You decide who you are in the opening minutes

At the moment you wash your face and look in the bathroom mirror: young, adult or older, male or female. Six combinations, six different starting points. A strong body carries more in one go. A lucky one turns things up in drawers more easily.

You get stronger after that. Carrying things, walking a long way, forcing yourself to stay awake: anything you do might build up some part of you a little.

Who you turn into depends on what you have actually done these last few days.

Supplies

What you can carry, and what you can't

Supplies have weight, and you have two hands, one backpack, and perhaps a cart. What to take and what to leave behind is a trade-off you are forced into at every turn.

There are cans in the kitchen cupboard, but you'll need to find the can opener first. Until then a can is just a sealed tin.

That raincoat won't make you warm. What it guarantees is that you won't get soaked through.

Heng-hô Temple

Moon blocks

Heng-hô Temple is still standing. There's nobody inside, but the moon blocks are still on the altar.

Carry a peace charm and some joss paper, and you can cast the blocks there, asking the god to bless the charm. It takes three siūⁿ-poe in a row: a yes, a yes, a yes. A single laughing pair or a single no means the god has said no this time, and that charm can't ask again today.

Where the blessing lands and how much it gives is up to the god.

Notes

There is nobody to ask

There are no NPCs in this game. From beginning to end, the only voice you hear is the protagonist talking to themself.

Hidden in the rooms are note fragments, and the only way to turn one up is to search. They tell how this war got to where it is: the announcements, the notices, the days that were once entirely unremarkable. Every place you've been stays in your notes too, one instant photo at a time.

None of it affects whether you survive. You can go a whole playthrough without finding a single one and still get through every day.

But the fragments are the only way you'll come to know any of them.