Wishtide

You are an ancient well. The villagers lower their wishes to you in letters. Grant one, refuse another — every answer changes a life, and changes what you are.

In the middle of a village, you are a well with a mouth of stone and nothing to say.

For centuries you have listened to wishes. One asks for a bucket of water. Another asks that a dying child be spared. The paper is lowered on a rope, left in the dark, and an answer is waited for. You are the answer.

THE LETTERS COME. THE JUDGEMENT IS YOURS Every letter is a person at their most desperate hour. You have five replies: grant the wish fully, grant half of it, refuse it, stay silent, or send them the wrong way. There are no hints and no correct option. There is only your conscience.

WHAT YOU ANSWER COMES BACK You do not see the consequences at once. Days later another letter falls: whether the wheat held, whether the child lived, what became of whom. Some kindnesses grow into a grief you never foresaw. Some refusals save a life.

THE VILLAGERS REMEMBER YOU Hide a wish from someone twice and they will know. The way they write to you changes, and their trust never returns to where it was. Each of the eighteen villagers has their own voice, their own story, their own ending.

TWO PEOPLE, ONE WATER Sometimes two wishes arrive together and you can hold only one. The one you choose is saved. The other writes to you as well — knowing they were not.

YOUR POWER IS FINITE A well is not bottomless. Kindness costs power and power gathers slowly, while refusal costs nothing at all. The gap between what you wish to give and what you can give is the real question of this game.

A village that moves with real time. Hundreds of hand-written letters. Fully translated into seven languages. No internet required.

A wish has fallen into the well. What will you do?