Hold Out
Everyone here has already agreed. You have not. Reach the ones they have taken — every one you touch comes back to themselves.
How it goes
Move with the arrow keys or WASD; on a phone, swipe or drag anywhere on the floor. P or Esc stops everything where it stands, and the button above the room does the same — nothing moves and no clock runs until you go on.
Free everyone in the room to open the way on. The taken stand still until you reach them.
They walk themselves out. Everyone you reach makes their own way back to the door. Only the ones who get there are counted — so keep the way clear ahead of them.
Hold one off with a pulse — space, or the button below the room. It fires down the corridor you are facing and stops a watcher where it stands for a few seconds. You start with three and earn one more for each room you clear, never holding more than five. Every fifth room keeps two spare ones at the back of it, a bolt in a ring on the floor, for anyone who goes that far to look. Make sure the pulse is aimed the way you mean before you fire — the arrow at the top of the room shows where it would go, and a pulse sent down an empty corridor is gone. It will not fire into the wall beside you: the arrow goes red, the pulse is kept, and a moment later — once you have turned the corner you asked for — it goes.
Do not settle in. Something paces the pit below the room, and it is down there from the moment you walk in. Stay in one room about a minute and a half — a minute in the first room — and it opens the floor and comes up after you — and it does not patrol, it hunts. Anyone walking themselves out who meets it is lost, and they do not come back. It takes two pulses to put it down: the first only angers it. Clearing the room is the surer answer.
Keep clear of the watchers. They patrol, and they come straight for you down an open corridor. Each one that reaches you costs you a measure of resolve and puts you back at the door. Lose all three and you are one of them.
Play it in the dark. The room is nearly black with the walls lit along their top edge, and it reads far better in dark mode — the moon switch at the top of the page turns it on for the whole site.
or press Enter