- Pace63.4 · in between
- Cards fall on the oilcloth at a set tempo (one every 0.95 s, down to 0.6 s), and you have to slap fast when the rule calls for it. Each round ends in a silent pause where you watch the light move across the table: there are reflexes, but no constant race.
- Difficulty54.8 · in between
- When you run out of cards, you lose the round and start it over, about a minute and a half lost. The hands across the table react in 450 to 650 ms depending on the round, and a wrong slap costs two cards. After three losses in the same round, they hesitate a little more, without the game saying so.
- Tone68.4 · rather unsettling
- The hands across the table are not right. The ring changes finger, the skin changes age, there is one finger too many, and sometimes they slap at nothing. You never see whose they are. The ending keeps a doubt instead of reassuring everything away.
- Story27 · rather silent
- There are six inscriptions to read in all, all part of the scene: Mum's note under the magnet ("The neighbour's coming to watch you. Be good. Mum, 6 pm"), the kitchen clock, the chalk scoreboard, and a single line written on the back of a card at the end. Everything else passes through the cards, which are family drawings.
- Scale22.4 · rather intimate
- Everything happens on a kitchen table seen from above, with two pairs of hands, a deck of cards and one Wednesday afternoon between 4 and 6 pm. You only ever see the rectangle of the table and the window reflected in it.
- Form63.8 · in between
- The base is familiar: Egyptian Ratscrew, you slap when two identical cards fall in a row. Each round adds a rule nobody states, which you learn by watching the hands slap before you: the sandwich, the card that looks at you, the clock you must never touch, then a round where the cards fall face down and you slap by ear.
- Look31.6 · rather spare
- Three colours: the cream linen of the oilcloth, the plum of the card backs and the hands, the ochre of the window light. Flat colour, lots of empty tablecloth, and only the parallelogram of sun moves, shrinking from round to round.
The theme
An October Wednesday, from 4 to 6 pm. A child alone at home plays Egyptian Ratscrew at the kitchen table with "the neighbour" who is minding them. All you ever see of her are her hands, and they change from one round to the next. The light from the window crosses the table and slowly fades. At 6, the key turns in the door.
The mechanics
Simplified Egyptian Ratscrew, seen from above. Cards fall onto the pile in turn, at a set tempo; you slap (tap, click or space) when a rule is met, and the pile is yours. A wrong slap costs two cards. Eighteen cards each: you win the round when the hands run out, you replay it when you do. Each round adds a rule the hands show without saying it: the double, the sandwich, the card that looks at you, the clock you never slap (but the card after it, yes), then face-down cards you slap by ear.
Palette
Oilcloth linen #ece4d0, plum #4a2a3f, window-light ochre #d39a3a. Flat colour, a patch of sun that shrinks. DM Serif Display for the title and card values, Caveat for Mum's note and the last line. Calm, domestic, slightly wrong.
