WICK
A long brick dipping hall at night, racks of wooden match splints and iron wax troughs lit by a single match.

Tallow Works · 1974

Don’t run.

The factory is dark. You have one lit match. Standing still lets you see the room. Moving fast spends the flame. The last box on the packing floor still holds fifty.

Wishlist the box Read the notice

50 matches in the box you found

The only rule

Motion costs light.

Tallow Works dipped its last batch in March 1974 and locked the doors with the racks still wet. You are inside with whatever is left in the box. There is no torch. There is no second floor of emergency lighting. If the match dies, you strike another, until the box is empty.

Drying racks packed with thousands of unlabelled wooden match splints, the nearest rack catching match-light.

Found, packing floor

The wood is still waiting to be heads.

They left the splints in the racks. Phosphorus is in the vault. Wax is in the troughs. The strike strip on the wall still takes a head if you drag it slow. Drag it fast and it shrugs you off.

The house

Four floors. One match at a time.

01

The Dip

Enter

Iron troughs of wax. The hall is longer than the flame.

 02

The Racks

Enter

Thousands of unheaded splints. They sound like rain if you brush them.

 03

The Strike

Enter

The phosphorus vault. The walls are stained the colour of a used matchbox.

 04

The Yard

Enter

Monsoon on the corrugated roof. One window still taking the match.

The Box

Put your name on the sleeve.

WICK is coming to Steam, PlayStation and Xbox. The list is the only way we send a date.

Open the box