Until this week a building was a shape on the map you walked around. Now you stand at the door and step in, and that changes what the street means. Outside is where things can see you and hear you. Inside, they can’t.
The deal
Inside, zombies on the street can’t reach you. Your steps don’t carry. Nobody outside can see you. But the wall works both ways, and right now it works completely: you hear nothing of what’s out there. A crowd can gather at the door while you’re going through the shelves and the first you’ll know of it is when you step out. A building is a refuge and a blind spot at the same time. I like that it’s a hard trade, and I’m not sure total silence is the right version of it.
Inside is not a floor you walk on. It’s a list, as the plan said it would be. You’re in the building, you see who is on your floor, you see what’s lying there, and you take it. The game is about what you hear and what you carry, and I don’t want to spend the interior of every house on corridors nobody cares about.
Buildings have floors, and each floor is its own place. Going up costs energy and puts you on a separate floor from whoever is downstairs: you only see, and share what’s lying there with, the people on your own floor. Buildings also have types. A house, a store, a hospital, a police station, a warehouse: each holds different things, and stepping in tells you what kind of place it is.
The way in
A building has doors and windows around its edge, and each one is open, closed, locked or broken. An open door you walk through. A locked one stops you until you break it, and breaking it is loud, so getting in means being heard. A broken window is a way in that nobody has to open, but you cut yourself climbing through. A building with one door is a different building from one with a door and three windows, and I want people to look at a place and count the ways in before they choose it.
I’m not sure the list is enough. Standing in a room and picking from a menu is quiet in the wrong way. It might turn out the inside needs to be a place too. For now it’s a list, and I want to see how it feels before I decide.