"Someone must have been telling lies about the tenant of Room 4, for he was arrested one morning without having done anything wrong."

Prague, 1913. You wake in a rented room on Golden Lane to find a Notice of Verdict slid under the door. You have been found guilty. The offence will be determined at a later date.

To appeal, you must submit Form 27-B to the Chamber of Provisional Innocence, bearing a stamp and four attachments:

  • I — Proof of name. You may not write your own name.
  • II — A witness signature. From someone who has never laid eyes on you.
  • III — A valid timestamp. Stamped at the thirteenth hour. There are twelve hours.
  • IV — A statement of the offence. The Bureau does not disclose the offence.

Each requirement is impossible in exactly one way, and each has exactly one door out of it.

Seven scenes. A rented room, a stairwell that leans in a direction the architect did not intend, Charles Bridge in fog, the Astronomical Clock, the Bureau of Interior Correspondence, the Old Jewish Cemetery, and a gate that was never locked.

Five puzzles, every one of them an argument with a rule rather than a test of dexterity. The Orloj really did run on Old Bohemian hours, in which the day begins at sunset. Type really is set in reverse, because it prints in mirror. A regulation really can be read the other way round by the person it was written against.

Three endings. None of them is the wrong one.

Playing

  • Click anything — objects, people, doorways.
  • To use an item, click it in the tray, then click the thing in the world. Click two items together to combine them.
  • The Dossier (top right, or J) tracks your four attachments and every scrap of evidence you have gathered.
  • The beetle follows you from room to room. It is not a metaphor. Click it when you are stuck and it will give you a hint, reluctantly.
  • Esc backs out of anything. The game autosaves.

Mouse and a desktop browser. About half an hour.

Free. There is a donate button on the ending screen and nowhere else.

Stamped in triplicate. Do not fold.

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