Turbo Pudding

Tomorrow AgoScreenshot Saturday

Six snapshots of things that won’t come down

· The Turbo Pudding team · 4 min read

Brenna Bridge at night in the stopped minute: the river behind the stone parapet has stopped in glassy gray ridges, and the chimneys of the Crane and Sons works stand on the far bank under dark mountains; on the bridge, Old Ottilie, an old woman wrapped in a purple shawl and a mustard blanket, sits knitting beside her little shop with a striped awning, cords on nails, tags reading NAME, PLACE and TIME, a glowing red ball of thread and a sign that says OTTILIE, THREAD, WOOL, KNOTS READ; on the right Mira, in her teal coat and rust scarf, stands with Tik, the brass pocket-watch robot, while snowflakes hang in the air and a lamp glows on the left

At 11:47 on the night of 21 December 1927, every clock in Glimmerau stops, and nothing in town gets to finish what it started. Whatever was in the air stays in the air: snow, sparks, paper, even a river. For this Screenshot Saturday, Mira and Tik walked through chapter 1 and stopped in front of six things that won’t come down.

The picture at the top is Brenna Bridge. The river has stopped in glassy ridges, and the spray from the weir hangs over it. Mira’s first words there: “The river’s stopped. Not a sound.” Up close, it’s worse: “The splashes are hanging like beads. No sound at all. That’s the worst part.” Then she spots the one thing on the bridge that is moving: “...Somebody’s knitting.” Tik: “Moving. Like us.”

The workshop: snow in the window

It starts at home, in Grandpa’s workshop. Mira has just wound the regulator, the far bells ring, the floor shakes, and then she sees it: “...The snow. It isn’t falling. It’s just... hanging there.” She looks around the room: “The pendulums. The fire. Every clock in the shop is holding its breath.”

From the great arched window, it’s even clearer: “The flakes hang in the air like someone pinned them there.” Ask Tik why the snow hangs, and he answers in three words: “Time. Holding breath.”

Grandpa’s workshop in the stopped minute, drained to gray: Mira, a girl with auburn hair, brass goggles pushed up on her head, a deep teal coat, a rust scarf and a brown satchel, stands with her mouth open in surprise in the middle of a round rug; beside her stands Tik, a little walking pocket watch with a brass case and one big lens eye; behind them a tall arched window shows snowflakes hanging still over the roofs and the lit dial of the Great Clock, a wall of clocks, a tall clock with its pendulum stopped to one side, a cuckoo clock, a workbench with a lamp and gears, and a stove whose fire stands still as a white flame, with a staircase up to a gallery on the left
Searched “point and click adventure snow.” It isn’t falling.

Clockmaker’s Lane: feathers that can’t decide

Out the front door is Clockmaker’s Lane. The whole town went to the square for the Great Winding, so the lane is half empty, and whoever is still in it stopped mid-step. Upstairs at the bakery, Frau Lutz is shaking out her feather bed, and the feathers, Mira says, “are just... staying up. Like snow that can’t decide.” Downstairs, even the smell of fresh bread is stuck: “I can smell it and I can’t have it. Torture.”

The lane also teaches the rule for the whole night. Take something out of the air, let go, and it stays exactly where you put it. Tik sums it up: “Mira moves. World stays moved.”

Clockmaker’s Lane at night, in shades of gray and lamplight gold: Mira in her teal coat and rust scarf stands in the snowy street looking surprised, with Tik, the brass pocket-watch robot, beside her; behind them are the Lutz bakery with loaves in the window and a cat caught mid-leap in front of it, Frau Lutz upstairs leaning out of her window over a big white feather bed, Brandl and Sons with a window full of clocks and a bowler hat hanging in the air, a gentleman frozen mid-sneeze with a handkerchief, the arched Stair Passage to the Upper Terrace, the Kessel toy shop and a figure in a cap stopped mid-stride on the right, with a big clock face on a gable above the roofs
Typed “mystery game with a cat.” This one is mid-leap.

The market square: sparks as cold as buttons

Tram No. 1 never reached its stop. It stopped halfway round the bend in front of the tower, and under its rear wheels sits a fan of sparks. “I could pick one out like a sequin,” Mira says. Look up, and there’s a blue flash where the pole jumped off the wire: “The tram was already in trouble before time stopped.”

Touch a spark, and it’s “as cold as a button.” Mira’s verdict: “A spark that isn’t hot. That’s the wrongest thing I’ve seen tonight, and I’ve seen a man sneezing for ten minutes.”

The market square of Glimmerau in the stopped minute: tram No. 1, a dark red tram with GLIMMERAU on its side and silhouetted passengers in hats at the windows, stands tilted on the bend with a bright burst of sparks hanging under its rear wheels; in front of it Mira, in her teal coat and rust scarf, stands in the snow beside Tik, the brass pocket-watch robot; behind them rise a tall Christmas tree with glowing orange baubles and a bright star, the statue of Hesper Lind on a stone base, a gingerbread stall with a couple under its lights and a newspaper seller holding up the Courier on the right, with tall snowy houses all around
Search: “hand-drawn adventure game tram.” Mind the sparks.

The Provost’s office: a blizzard of minutes

Upstairs in the Guild Hall, Provost Crane has dropped his papers, and in the held minute a dropped thing stays where it was let go. So the office is full of sheets hanging at knee height, all around the wingback chair. Mira calls it “a blizzard of minutes.” She plucks one out: “Memorandum: on the correct length of a Guild cloak.” Six pages. She lets it go, and it stays put. “Unlike the Provost’s dignity.” Crane, it turns out, can hear her.

The Provost’s office at night, in dark red and shadow: Provost Crane, a bald old man with white tufts of hair in a long wine-red dressing gown, stands on a round rug in the middle of the room, and loose sheets of paper hang in the air all around him at knee height; Mira, in her teal coat with goggles on her head, stands to the left with a sly little smile, and Tik, the brass pocket-watch robot, stands behind her with a sheet of paper frozen in front of his face; behind them are a tall bookcase, a cork board with notes, a tall window onto the snowy town, a wall clock, a framed cutaway drawing of the clock tower and a desk under stacks of folders with a lamp glowing on it
People also ask: is there a game where paperwork floats?

The tower: one drop, halfway down

At the foot of the Great Clock, the stopped minute gets quiet and small. A drop of water from the roof has stopped halfway to the floor. Mira: “Halfway down. Not falling.” Tik: “Drop. Not dropping.”

The lift has frozen too. Its iron counterweights, “big as barrels,” stopped mid-slide, and Mira would rather not stand under them: “If they move while I’m under them, I’ll be very flat and very surprised.”

Inside the foot of the clock tower, in cold blue gray: Mira, in her teal coat and rust scarf, stands looking up in surprise next to Tik, the brass pocket-watch robot, near a dark stone stair that climbs the wall; above them a single drop of water hangs in midair under a little spout; on the right stands the Long Wheel lift, an open cage with a lit amber lamp, a round gauge, a brass lock plate and a CLOCK and HAND lever, hung on heavy chains, and on the left an open door shows snow and a lamp outside
Search history: “escape game,” then “why won’t the drop fall.”

Tomorrow Ago is free to play in your browser at tomorrowago.com, and all six of these places are in chapter 1. More about the game is on its Tomorrow Ago page.

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