Dead Weight: Too Slow

The Flying Rat lost your savings on the market, and now his ghost is at the window asking his favourite question: "Can you fly?" On the Spectral Plane the screen cuts to black and white, his eye flares amber, and you have a fraction of a second. Strike in the window and he bursts into banknotes. Miss, and the verdict is plain: too soon, or too slow.

Four roommates share a room with no power above a failing comedy club. The Mongoose runs the projectors at an art deco cinema, katana on his back; the Girl works its lobby and tries stand-up at night. The Vampire and the Robot are partners at the 47th Precinct, an underfunded squad for supernatural cases. The Manager lets them have the room and judges every set, and the bodega's neon across the street is their only light.

You play the whole household. By day you work two of three one-button shifts: film changeovers in the projection booth, tickets in the lobby, reports to stamp, a suspect's tell to catch. In the evening you land the Girl's punchlines in the pause after each setup. At night you choose who sits with whom on the floor, and when to answer and when to stay quiet. Then the ghost comes to the window and the duel begins: STRIKE for the Mongoose's teleporting slash, JOKE for the Girl's line, PARRY for the Vampire's sword, BOOTS for the Robot to lift everyone over a wave.

Everything runs on one verb: wait, then act. A cue appears, a window opens, and the game shows honestly where your press fell. Even silence is an input. The ghost feeds on regrets, and any regret the household leaves unsettled at night becomes one of his attacks in the duel, so a quiet talk on the floor is how you get stronger. Nobody wins alone: the Girl's joke opens his guard, the Mongoose lands the finisher, and the haunting cannot touch the Robot.

The show's Pilot is a ten-minute prologue, followed by nine more episodes of Season One at 30 to 40 minutes each, from Help Wanted to the finale, Too Slow. Each adds a scene of its own, such as a tea ceremony or an inspection by a vampire delegation. It is a single-player game of five to six hours.

What the household earns goes into the room: a kettle for one more talk a night, a mattress, a desk lamp, and at last the power bill that turns the bulb on. Every episode ends on a printed statement with a rank, from Bag holder to Spectral whale, that you can send to a friend, and after the finale Reruns lets you replay any episode for a better one. Nothing decays while you are away, and captions are always on.

Dead Weight is an adult animated comedy whose Pilot plays on its own website as a scroll film, with six small games between the chapters. The game keeps their verbs, the amber cue and the printed statement, and the show's rules: the jokes aim at the Rat and the market, never at the poor, the homeless, migrants or workers, and the strongest word stays bleeped.

Dead Weight: Too Slow is a complete game design for PC. Development has not started. A phone version may follow.