UNDERFED

UNDERFED

You wake up in a concrete cell somewhere inside a facility with ten floors and no exit. Once a day a platform loaded with food descends through the shaft in the middle of the building. It stops at the top floor first. Whatever is left continues down.

By the time it reaches the bottom, there is usually nothing left.

THE RULE

At nine o'clock every night the heat comes on. If you are not inside a bunk when it does, you die. Each floor has exactly two bunks. There is no third space, no corner to hide in, no waiting it out in the vents.

So when you climb to the floor above you, you are not looking for an empty bed. You are looking at two people who have one.

GETTING UP THERE

The shaft cannot be climbed. The only way between floors is a maintenance duct sealed behind bolted grates. From inside the duct you can break the bolts with a hammer, four seconds each, loud enough that everyone nearby hears it. From the floor side, the person living there can unscrew them quietly and put them back.

Each floor has two entrances. One person cannot watch both.

THE FACILITY WORKS AGAINST YOU

A generator powers your floor and it only has enough output for two systems. Lights, workbench, water pump, electric cage locks, recycling unit. Pick two. It breaks most mornings and fuel is not guaranteed.

Somebody below you can reach the junction box from inside the duct and cut your power without ever entering your floor. You will not know it happened until the lights go out.

WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT

Scavenge the service wing for metal, pipe, cloth, batteries and fuel. Build a spear that reaches through the grate. Build a hammer, a torch, a molotov, a noise trap. Everything takes a slot, and you only have five.

Food cannot be stored. It is eaten on the platform or it is gone. Hunger carries over from one day to the next, so eating half a portion buys you three days and then kills you.

EVERYONE CAN HEAR YOU

Proximity voice carries through corridors, through grates, up and down the duct. Sound is the only information you have. A hammer two floors down means someone is coming. Silence means they are already here.

Talk your way into an alliance. Promise the floor below they will get something and then eat it in front of them. Scream when the bolts start going.

FEATURES

• Ten floors and up to twenty players in a persistent public facility, or bring your friends into a private run scaled to your group size

• Proximity voice chat with full occlusion through walls, doors and grates

• No monsters, no scripted scares. Every threat in the building is another player

• Rotating floor assignments every three days, with everything in your bag staying yours

• A bottom level that can only be reached together