Kettle Basin · 20 August · 15:00 A survival game

The last valley where the Ice Age never ended

Living
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Mammoths in the meadow. Bison at the pool. One human, a knife, and a night coming.

They brought the animals back.Twenty years of work put the Ice Age beasts of western North America back into one sealed valley, ringed by cliffs, with a single gated pass.

Then the keepers stopped coming.Seven years ago. Nobody knows why. Out there, the world is quietly coming apart.

Today a helicopter set you down.A pack, a knife, twelve matches and a cooking pot. A survey job. A week, they said.

It is not coming back.

I · The cast

Everything here
should be extinct

Every animal in Kettle Basin is extinct everywhere else. Here they graze, flee, charge and watch you. They are your food, your materials, and your danger.

Four Columbian mammoths, a calf among them, grazing a meadow Drag to turn

Columbian
mammoth

Mammuthus columbi

Gone for about 12,000 years

At ten in the morning on the second day, the ground starts to shake. A bull, two cows and a calf walk in from the edge of the basin and graze the far meadow until noon. You cannot touch them yet. You can only climb to the ridge, and watch.

  • 4 in the herd
  • footfalls carry 260 m
  • seen from 200 m
  • the long goal: a calf of your own
An ancient bison inside the target ring, a spear in its flank, the hunter a few metres off Drag to turn

Ancient
bison

Bison antiquus

Gone for about 10,000 years

Six of them graze 65 to 80 metres from camp. They smell you inside a 40 degree cone downwind. They hear how fast you move. Wound a cow and the bull turns on you: nine metres a second, slow in the turn. Sidestep at five metres, or be gored.

  • 6 in the herd
  • charge 9 m/s
  • hit odds 0.92 at 8 m
  • 0.12 at 30 m
Drag to turn

Dwarf
pronghorn

Capromeryx

Gone for about 11,000 years

Small, quick, and the first thing in the valley to teach you that walking is loud. Walk straight at one and it hears you before you are close enough to matter. Crouch, crawl, or come at it from downwind.

  • seen from 80 m
  • a walk is heard
  • crouch to track
Drag to turn

Ancient
rabbit

Palaeolagus

Gone for over 20 million years

Each one walks a loop of five points around its form, and nothing grows on a run: that worn path is the sign you learn to read. A snare goes there at dusk. By first light it may hold one. Lean meat, 340 kilocalories: a tenth of a working day.

  • 6 at the warren
  • best at dusk and dawn
  • robbed at night

Still in the dark

And the ones
you have not met

Every one of these is already built and waiting. Drag any of them round.

Dire wolf, the game's model on a turntableDrag to turn

Dire wolf

Aenocyon dirus

A pack that circles camp at dusk and tests the edge of the firelight. A pup that might, one day, follow you.

Coming
Sabretooth, the game's model on a turntableDrag to turn

Sabretooth

Smilodon fatalis

An ambush at the water, at dusk and at dawn.

Coming
Short faced bear, the game's model on a turntableDrag to turn

Short faced bear

Arctodus simus

Robs carcasses and snares, and bluff charges anyone who argues.

Coming
Teratorn, the game's model on a turntableDrag to turn

Teratorn

Teratornis merriami

A huge bird circling overhead: the sign that something lies dead below.

Coming
Western horse, the game's model on a turntableDrag to turn

Western horse

Equus occidentalis

Hunted from the herd, or raised from a foal to carry your loads.

Coming
Western camel, the game's model on a turntableDrag to turn

Western camel

Camelops hesternus

Herd prey, hunted like the bison. A week of food, if you can take one.

Coming
Ground sloth, the game's model on a turntableDrag to turn

Ground sloth

Paramylodon harlani

A giant browser, slow and enormous.

Later
American lion, the game's model on a turntableDrag to turn

American lion

Panthera atrox

Waiting in the older valley over the pass.

Later
American mastodon, the game's model on a turntableDrag to turn

American mastodon

Mammut americanum

The mammoth's forest cousin, in the far timber.

Later

II · Your hands

Nothing in
the kit kills

There is no spear in your pack. If you want to hunt, you make one, from stone, wood and sinew, at the fire, in real game time. Walk away halfway and you lose nothing: materials are spent only when the work is done. The rabbit you snare gives the sinew, the sinew binds the stone, and the spear is what lets you face the bison.

Close up: the survivor crouched by the fire, striking one stone with another
You strike one stone with the other until a sharp flake comes away.
Close up: the survivor turning a pole over the coals
You scrape a point on the pole and turn it slowly over the coals.
Close up: the survivor twisting sinew into a tie
You chew the sinew soft and twist it into a tie.
Close up: the survivor binding a stone flake into the spear tip
You split the spear's tip, seat the flake in it and bind it tight.
Close up: the survivor standing at the fire with the finished spear
The light will not hold. Nothing here is coming to you.

Time at the fire 0 min

  • Stone flake
  • Hardened spear
  • Sinew tie
  • Stone tipped spear
  1. Knap2 min
  2. Harden15 min
  3. Twist4 min
  4. Haft5 min
  5. Huntready
Make · Stone, wood and sinew. Lay out what a make needs within reach, then work it.
Close up: the survivor lashing branches across a pole
You lash two branches across the pole into a frame for the back.
Lash10 minutes

III · The hunt

A week of food.
It can kill you.

Try it: drag or tap to stalk

Close the
distance

The herd, the wind and the odds below run on the game's own numbers. Get inside a throw without walking into their scent. Then throw, and be ready for the bull.

A wounded bison inside the target ring, the hunter close by

Drag or tap to move · keep out of the wind

Nothing lies within reach.

0.00the chance a spear strikes, by the game's own sum

The herd is

Odds are 0.92 inside 8 metres, falling straight to 0.12 at 30; three quarters of that against a walking animal and a third against a running one. Downwind, inside 40 degrees of the wind's line, they smell you. A charging bull runs at 9 metres a second and turns at 0.4 radians a second. Lines in quotes are the game's own.

Find them.
Stay downwind.

They smell you inside a 40 degree cone downwind. Circle round before you close in.

Crouch.

A walk is heard. A crouch, or a crawl, gets you inside a throw.

Throw.

0.92 at eight metres. 0.12 at thirty. A stone tip bleeds the animal out in half the time.

Then move.

A wounded herd has a bull. Nine metres a second. Sidestep at five metres, or be gored.
A wounded bison inside the target ring, a spear in its flank, blood on the grass, the hunter close by
Within a throw · wounded bison, 4 m, a long throw.
The game rings your target and tells you the odds in words. Thunk!
The bull inside the ring after its charge, the hunter thrown aside 9 m/s
“The bull's horns throw you down. You are badly winded.”
The survivor beside a snare set across a rabbit run

IV · Dusk

Dusk is
the decision

Your body burns 75 kilocalories an hour just staying awake. By the first morning you are hungry. By the second afternoon you are weak, and every job costs more.

So at dusk you choose: one more trip, or fire, food and shelter before the dark. Carry a branch to the warren. Break it into two sticks. Set the snare across a run. Walk home in the last of the light.

Close up: the survivor kneeling to skin and joint the rabbit
First light · 10 minutesButcherIf the snare holds one, and nothing found it first: you skin and joint the rabbit; meat, skin and sinew go into the pack.
Rabbit meat on a green stick over a small fire
990 secondsCookCooked on a good dry fire. Leave it 890 seconds more and it burns.
The survivor beside brown and red capped mushrooms
The brown ones are safe. The red ones, three to seven metres away, are not. The game will never tell you which.
Retching
The survivor at the cloudy shallow pool, bison grazing nearby
Cloudy water needs a long boil. Stay by the pot.
Two minutes leaves it nearly as bad as drinking it raw. Ten minutes makes it safe.

V · The basin

One square
kilometre

Every place in the basin is measured from the world itself, not drawn by hand. Tap a place. Times are from camp, at a jog and at a walk; one real second is twelve in the valley.

N 50 metres
Ridge lookout, a frame from the game

Ridge lookout

The ground is drawn from the measured coordinates of the shipped world. The places, distances and walk times are the game's own.

VI · The night

The cold
adds up

Cold is a dose. Every hour your core spends below 35 °C counts against you, degree by degree, and warmth pays it back. A dry night costs you sleep. A wet night, with no fire and no shelter, takes you before dawn.

You are shivering. Warmth comes before anything else.The game, after midnight

Try it: make camp, then sleep

Will you see
the morning?

Rain in the evening, the survivor lying in the open

The sky

Your camp

Your day

Cold dose: hours below 35 °C, counted by the degree

Choose the sky, your camp and your day, then sleep. Every card that comes up is a real one from the game.

That is the whole end card: a cause and a time. Begin again and the world is new, but your field log survives every death.

VII · The second morning

Far off, something heavy is moving. The high ground to the south-west would show it.10:00, day two

Mammoths.

A herd of them, a calf among them, grazing the meadow below.

The field log page for the Ancient rabbit: seen and tracked earned, trapped and trained not yet

A log that
outlives you

Every animal you meet gets a page. You earn its stars by what you do: seen, tracked, trapped or hunted, trained. Tracked means creeping close while it keeps grazing, and that only happens crouched, crawling or downwind.

The log is written the moment you earn a star. It survives every death and every new run. It pays out nothing. It is simply the record of what you managed, out here.

Try it: turn the pages

The valley so far

Five builds
in, it is alive

The mammoth herd from the ridgeThe first giants
Knapping a flake at the fireThe first tools
The end card after collapsing from coldThe night can be lost
A wounded bison inside the ringThe first hunt
A snare at duskThe first snare
Meat over a small fireThe first meal
The bull after its chargeThe bull answers
The survivor with a finished spearA spear of your own

VIII · What comes next

Something is
circling

The first big hunt

The carcass is a clock

Bring down a bison, a horse or a camel and you have a week of food and the hide for a blanket. Butchering it takes hours. Teratorns start to circle. At dusk, the dire wolves come.

Predators and the fire

The dark has teeth

A pack that tests the edge of your firelight. A bear that robs your snares. A sabretooth that waits at the water when the light goes.

The long game

Make one of them yours

A dire wolf pup taken at a price. A foal raised to carry. And one day, a mammoth calf that grows up to haul your timber.

Over the pass

Find out why nobody came

The keepers left stations behind: notes whose dates stop, collars, a radio that only hisses. At the far ridge, one last choice.

Get back
to the fire.

The reels

Every build, uncut

Five · stone, wood and sinewA spear made from nothing, then the herd.
Four · hunger and the first snareA snare at dusk, a meal at dawn, the mammoths.
Three · hands on the controlsZoom, a stalk, two throws, a wet night.
Two · the night can be lostOne night lost, one survived.
One · walk the basinThe valley, and the light going.