Your ship crashed on a strange planet where things exist because they have names. People speak a language you don't know yet, and a grey fog called the Hush is eating the names of things.
Chapter 1 · Emberwick at Dusk
A strange planet where a stranded space traveller comes down. It has bread, bridges, keys and cats, so almost everything looks familiar, and every word you learn there works at home too. But the world isn't quite right. Magic works here, and something in this world makes things forget much faster than they should.
On Amnelle a thing exists because it has a name, and because someone uses it and says it. Say the name and the thing stays solid. Forget it and the thing turns grey, then slowly fades away.
The Hush is a grey fog that eats names. It is a force of nature, like winter or the tide, and people live with it the way they live with weather. Hushfall is what Amnelle is struggling against: the slow fall of everything into silence.
Hushers are greyish ghosts that drift in the fog. They steal words from travellers and make things forget what they are. They are spirits of this world, not monsters, and nobody quite knows what they are. They hate lamplight.
Lamps keep the fog and the Hushers away. They run on light spirits, small, fluffy, living sparks of light that fly into a lamp with a bright flash. Lamps have to be kept fed; without them people quickly fall into forgetting.
An old order whose work was to keep the lamps of Amnelle lit and the names of things alive. Their workshops sent light out to every corner of a town. The order has dwindled, the lamps have gone dim, and the Hush is spreading. Along the way you become a Lamplighter yourself: a job you take up for a while, but can't simply walk away from.
A Lamplighter's workshop is full of tools, cogs and cranks. At its heart is a wheel, and in the wheel lives the Hamster. It looks like a giant hamster but is much cleverer. It never speaks: it says what it means with looks and gestures. It hoards names the way other hamsters hoard grain, and names are what drive its wheel.
When the Hamster runs, the wheel drives a machine that sends light spirits out to the lamps. When it naps, the wheel slows, the lamps dim and the Hush creeps closer. When you give a thing its name back, a light spirit carries the name for a moment, and that helps Bolt understand.
Master Quill, a clockmaker, keeps the workshop. He looks after the machine and the Hamster, and tells you what each place needs before the workshop can move on. Where the workshop goes, he goes.
You are a space traveller whose ship crashed on Amnelle. The ship is badly damaged and you don't speak the local language, so learning it is how you get by. Along the road, people will ask you to be a detective, a scientist, a treasure hunter or an agent.
Bolt is your pocket robot. Its translation chip cracked in the crash, so it only understands words you have learned on Amnelle. It gives you the gist of what people say in your own language, and it understands more as you learn more.
Warm and dangerous at once. Cosy clutter, kind strangers, a silent Hamster at its wheel. Lamplit streets, grey ghosts and real stakes. Humour yes, cruelty no. Nobody dies on Amnelle: things fade, and you can bring them back. There are no points and no streaks; the reason to come back is that something you care about is fading.
| Chapter | You are | Language focus | Level | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Emberwick at Dusk | Stranded traveller | Food, home, colours, sizes | A1 | Playable |
| The Brass Market | Detective | People, clothes, questions, past tense | A2 | Planned |
| The Glasshouse Isles | Mad scientist | Nature, quantities, instructions | A2 | Planned |
| The Skyroad | Treasure hunter | Travel, directions, weather | A2–B1 | Planned |
| Lowlight | Secret agent | Conversation, politeness, city life | B1 | Planned |
Each journey happens in one language. Places, characters and puzzles look the same in every language, and everything a character says comes from one set of lines per language. Start another language and you start a new adventure. This prototype speaks Swedish, Spanish, German, French and English.
The Hamster runs, every lamp in Emberwick burns bright, and the road out of town is lit. Master Quill has packed his tools, and the workshop carries you on.