● REC · TAB-02 · REC 1987
The World
Balkan-Anatolian horror-comedy with a 1987 VHS soul. The hub is always sunny and warm; the sea and the tapes are cold and full of static.
Story
What's on the tape?
CH.01
1987. The Recording Transmitter.
The Company — a holding run by the greediest industrial bosses in the Balkans — buys a giant video recorder at an Eastern Bloc trade fair. It records abandoned factories, villages and forests onto VHS. Play the tape and the recorded place rises as a real island in the middle of the sea.
CH.02
Scrap Master
The best scrap dealer and mechanic in the industrial zone, and deep in debt to the Company — shop, pier and ship all bought on promissory notes. He went into the first tape himself: twenty minutes inside, three days outside. He never set foot in a tape again. Instead, he builds robots out of his shop's junk.
CH.03
Model G
A exploded, B ran away, C only swears, D loves tea too much, E thinks it's a fridge, and F's head is now on G's body. G is the first model that works — mostly. The players are those robots.
CH.04
The Recorded
Whatever lived in the recorded places got taped too. The creatures realised the tape is their prison — and noticed that the robots can go in and come back out.
The sea = broadcast range
The farther from the hub
The fog, storms and weather at sea are really signal interference. Islands spawn ahead of the ship and vanish behind it; the farther from the hub, the richer and deadlier. Pass 6 km and the vortex calls you home.
| Ring | Distance | Island | Cellar | Sea |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0.8–1.5 km | Small | 3–5 rooms | Floating scrap, fish schools |
| 2 | 1.5–2.5 km | Medium | 6–9 rooms | Sharks, raiders |
| 3 | 2.5–3.5 km | Large | 10+ rooms + boss | Giant octopus, tsunami |
Procedural islands
Every tape is a different place
Islands are generated from a seed: shoreline, rocks, roads, scrap piles and cellar rooms below the hatch. The same seed builds the same island for every player, so late joiners catch up. On truck islands, the truck rolls off the deck to load up.
Island generation test
Weather system
30 weathers, all gameplay
Weather is rolled per voyage from the seed and has real effects on visibility, wind, footing, health and stamina. The red ones are outright hazards.
- Clear
- Sunny
- Cloudy
- Overcast
- Fog
- Mist
- Drizzle
- Rain
- Thunderstorm
- Snow
- Blizzard
- Sandstorm
- Dust storm
- Acid rain
- Windy
- Gale
- Heatwave
- Hail
- Sleet
- Freezing rain
- Tornado
- Ashfall
- Smog
- Aurora
- Rainbow
- Meteor shower
- Eclipse
- Night
- Blackout
Shelter
Rock, canopy or roof over your head stops rain and acid. A wall upwind blocks the gale.
Tornado
A roaming funnel that drags you to its core. Only an enclosed room or a heavy boulder saves you.
Blackout
No moon. Your flashlight is the only light. The tensest night there is.
Deep sea
The sea is alive too
Nut-bodied sardines, saw-toothed piranhas, armored sharks and the Crane Octopus reaching over your deck. The sea has its own enemies — and also a goat.