The Tuning¶

Civilization

A city where it is always night, and at midnight everyone falls asleep but you.

At a glance
Kind of world	Civilization
Serum in the arrival Box	2 ampoules
Native Serum stand-in	None: bring spare Serum
Quests	Yes: see your Traveler's Guide

Screenshot comingthe-tuning-arrival

Midnight Square at night: the clock tower, wet asphalt under street lamps, neon signs, and a payphone ringing on the corner

What happens when you arrive¶

The Box opens on Midnight Square, in a city where it is always night. A clock tower looms overhead, the asphalt is wet under the street lamps, and on the corner a payphone is ringing. It is for you. Answer it.

The city is a slab of streets floating in the dark. Past its brick wall there is a ledge of bare rock, and then nothing at all. Nobody here can tell you how to get to Shell Point, though everyone remembers going.

The rule: midnight¶

The city's clock turns while anyone is in it. One whole night lasts 10 minutes, and its last 2 minutes are midnight. Your first midnight comes about 4 minutes after you arrive, which is time to answer the phone and find Doctor Hollis. The clock stops while nobody is in the city, so you never come back to find a hundred midnights gone.

At midnight, in order:

The bells. The clock tower strikes twelve, a second apart. On the last bell, every resident falls asleep where they stand, and so does any player who has nothing keeping them awake. The Serum keeps you awake, and so does the Memory Locket.
The Pale Men rise. Tall, bald men in long black coats come up out of the pavement round whoever is still awake (up to 12 of them), whispering together.
The city tunes. Nearby buildings sink away, a layer at a time, and new ones rise out of the ground in their place. Up to 8 lots near the players change each night (never one anyone is standing in). Meanwhile the Pale Men walk among the sleepers and inject them with new lives.
The Pale Men leave, shortly before the end.
The city wakes. The baker is a nurse now, and her husband has never met her. Syringes lie where they fell.

Screenshot comingthe-tuning-midnight

Pale Men in long coats walking among sleeping residents in the street while a building twists and rises behind them

Danger	What it does	How to deal with it
Falling asleep	Without the Serum or the locket, you sleep through midnight and wake on the pavement with a stranger's memory.	Keep your Serum topped up, or wear the Memory Locket.
Pale Men	They see 32 blocks. Anyone they find awake is "the anomaly": they chase you, raise walls out of the street to cut you off, and inject you with somebody else's memory.	Hide, or crouch perfectly still for 2 seconds: you pass for a sleeper.
Raised walls	Street stone that rises in your path.	It sinks back into the street after 12 seconds.
Mr. Hand	A Pale Man who took a killer's memories to hunt you. Once someone has seen the edge of the city, he comes at every midnight. Lying still does not fool him, he senses you from 64 blocks and raises walls almost twice as often.	Fight him. See the quest.

No monsters spawn here. Midnight is the only danger.

Borrowed memories¶

A Memory Syringe holds what is left of somebody's life. Use it on yourself and you live a little of it (with a moment's dizziness). Use it on a resident and they wake up as someone else. Being injected by a Pale Man, or sleeping through midnight, gives you one too.

Memory	What you get
A cab driver's city	Speed II and Night Vision for 3 minutes.
A baker's recipe	Food appears in your pocket: 3 bread, 2 pumpkin pies or 6 cookies.
A clerk's prices	Hero of the Village for 5 minutes.
Somebody's grief	Slowness for a minute, and 30 experience.
A killer's nerve	Strength II and Speed for 2 minutes.
A sleepwalker's knack	Invisibility for 2 minutes.
Shell Point	Regeneration II for 30 seconds.

Your quest: Wake Up, Shell Point¶

Step	What to do	Who
1	Answer the ringing payphone in Midnight Square.	Doctor Hollis, on the line
2	Go to Doctor Hollis's clinic, north of the square. He gives you your first Memory Syringe.	Doctor Hollis
3	Stay awake through a midnight without being caught.
4	Bring Doctor Hollis 3 Memory Syringes.	Doctor Hollis
5	Read the 4 Shell Point postcards on the postcard racks round the city (at the Automat, the Hotel Arcadia, the station and the Bijou).	Inspector Wexler
6	Every postcard points east down Canal Street. Tear down the billboard at the end of it.
7	Mr. Hand is coming for you. Kill him and take his Pale Shard.
8	Bring the Pale Shard to Doctor Hollis. He makes it into The Tuning, a glove.	Doctor Hollis
9	Take The Tuning down the shaft under Hollis's floor to the engine.	Mr. Book

Hollis limps, gasps, mixes memories for the Pale Men and hates them. Inspector Wexler of Precinct Twelve has drawn a map of the city every night for a year and never got it right twice.

Screenshot comingthe-tuning-billboard

The end of Canal Street: the Shell Point billboard on the city wall, and behind it, after it falls, a rock ledge and stars

The edge, and the engine (spoilers)

Behind the billboard the wall falls away, and there is nothing behind it: a ledge of rock, and stars below as well as above. The billboard only comes down for someone the postcards sent.

Push the Pale Gate over the shaft under the clinic with The Tuning and it falls apart. Down in the Pale Men's chamber, Mr. Book, the oldest of them, keeps the engine that turns the city, and offers it to you. You choose:

Choice	What happens
Sunrise	The night ends for good. For the first time, the city wakes up in the morning, and Shell Point is built past the east wall: a gate opens at the end of the east road onto a sand beach, a pier and a lighthouse on a rock.
The Tuner	You take the Pale Men's place. Midnight comes when you lay a hand on the engine, the Pale Men never hunt you, and The Tuning moves 5 by 5 squares of wall instead of 3 by 3.

Side quest: Strangers¶

Vera Lune sings at the Neptune Club. Her husband Walter poured her coffee last week and asked her name: he works at the Automat now, and has always, he is quite sure, poured the coffee.

Step	What to do
1	Talk to Vera.
2	Ask Doctor Hollis for Walter's Memory. He kept it.
3	Give Walter his memory back. He keeps to the Automat.
4	Back with Vera, he keeps to the Neptune Club now. Vera gives you her mother's Memory Locket.

The Memory Locket is worn as a charm and keeps you awake through the bells with no Serum needed.

The city¶

Every building can be entered and climbed. A ladder in a back corner runs up through every floor to the roof, so a chase can go over the rooftops.
Offices, flats, hotel rooms, lobbies and storerooms are furnished in walnut, oxblood leather, brass and green glass.
Household chests on ground floors hold Memory Syringes, bread, cookies, milk, paper, candles, gold nuggets, a clock or a book.
The landmarks (the square, the clinic, the Neptune Club, the Automat and the rest) never change. Everything else can be a different building after each midnight.
Twenty-four residents walk the streets round the square, each doing whatever job the Pale Men last gave them.

What to bring home¶

Find	How	Why it's worth it
The Tuning	Hollis makes it from Mr. Hand's shard.	Use on a wall to push a 3 by 3 square one block away; sneak to pull it toward you. Anything standing there is shoved along. It won't move unbreakable blocks, containers, doors or beds.
Memory Locket	Vera's reward.	Stay awake at midnight without Serum.
Memory Syringe	Chests, and the street after midnight.	Short, strong buffs.
City blocks	The streets.	Soot and cream brick, ashlar, deco concrete, neon, street lamps and lots of furniture.

➜2

Street Lamp (Crafting Table)

➜

4

Hanging Bulb (Crafting Table)

➜

4

Lit Window (Crafting Table)

➜

3

Lamp Post (Crafting Table)

Serum and getting home¶

The arrival Box's cache holds 2 Serum Ampoules.
There is no native Serum ingredient.
The Serum does double duty here: it is your way home and what keeps you awake at midnight. If it runs out at the wrong moment, you sleep through the next midnight with everyone else.

Tips¶

Answer the phone and head straight north to Hollis. Your first midnight comes quickly.
When the bells start, get indoors or up on a roof, then crouch and keep still if a Pale Man comes near.
Don't try lying still for Mr. Hand. Find a corner and fight.
Walls the Pale Men raise are temporary. If you're boxed in, wait 12 seconds.
Do the Strangers side quest early: the locket frees you from watching your Serum timer at midnight.

The traveler's tape¶

Every arrival Box has a chest by its door holding a cassette: the last traveler reading their journal of this world aloud. This is what they say. It gives a lot away.

Read the journal (spoilers)

The Box opened on a square in a city at night, under a clock tower, and a payphone on the corner was ringing. It was for me. A man called Hollis, who breathes like a broken bellows, told me to keep the Serum in my blood and watch what happens at midnight. So I watched. The clock struck twelve and every person in the street lay down where they stood. Then tall white men in long coats came up out of the pavement, whispering together, and the buildings bent and rose and became other buildings. They put needles into the sleepers. In the morning, which is still night, the baker was a nurse and her husband had never met her. Nobody here can tell me how to get to Shell Point, though everyone remembers going. I was awake for all of it, and they saw me. When you have seen enough, step back into the Box with the Serum still in you and shut the door.