In the Pause Between the Ringing
Released Apr 2019
In the Pause between the Ringing is a rumination about completion, about territorial margins and about the haunting of bodies and memories that are translated across borders. It is an adaption of an unpublished story written by Mir Umar Hassan for the editor of the Malwa Chronicle in the July of 1958.
82% positive · 130 reviews
Done
All announced content has been released
High confidence
Done
All announced content has been released
High confidence
Where to get it
Free on Steam
Evaluation
In the Pause Between the Ringing is a free-to-play short story experience set in the world of Somewhere, released on April 23, 2019 by Studio Oleomingus. The store description explicitly frames it as "a short story" — a self-contained, finite narrative about an inventor named Iqbal and the history of the telephone in India. There is no DLC, no post-launch update history, no roadmap, and no developer communication indicating any plans for additional content. The game was released as a complete, finished product and has remained so since launch.
Evidence
The store description explicitly describes the game as 'a short story from the world of Somewhere' — a self-contained narrative with no indication of planned expansions or additional content.
The short description frames the experience as an adaptation of a single specific unpublished story, reinforcing its nature as a complete, standalone work with no further content implied.
Media
Details
Developer
Publisher
Studio Oleomingus
Achievements
—
Platform
Windows, macOS, Linux
Controller
partial support
Steam Deck
Not rated
Players
Single-player
About this game
In the Pause Between the Ringing is a short story from the world of Somewhere.
The story of an inventor called Iqbal and of the first telephone mines in India.
In a country stitched with telephone wires, it is not surprising to discover that a history of the telephone was first written in a book of Geology. The telephone is after all a noticeable fixture of the Indian landscape. And it's sonorous ringing has long heralded sudden and momentous changes in the minute destinies of its people.
The instrument can be found, amplifying the terrifying horns of Babur's army from the ragged edge of Chenab. Or clattering with the shouts of Chalukya craftsmen, that once echoed along the Badami temples.
It is even heard across time, like the chiseling of Ashoka's inscriptions that would manifest as an unresolved ringing in the inner ear of James Prinsep. Or when William Brooke O'Shaughnessy believed that, much like cholera riddled veins, these telegraph cables would let him pump restoratives straight into the heart of a troubled nation.
In this country of telephones and wires, phone directories become genealogies, telephone exchanges become places of pilgrimage and the ringing, clicking drone of its machinery - a metronome of the sporadic history of this land.
Our story is told amidst this tangle of cables and time. It is told when Iqubal awaits a telephone call and his perpetual pause forces a recollection of the terrifying history of the telephone in India.
The story of an inventor called Iqbal and of the first telephone mines in India.
In a country stitched with telephone wires, it is not surprising to discover that a history of the telephone was first written in a book of Geology. The telephone is after all a noticeable fixture of the Indian landscape. And it's sonorous ringing has long heralded sudden and momentous changes in the minute destinies of its people.
The instrument can be found, amplifying the terrifying horns of Babur's army from the ragged edge of Chenab. Or clattering with the shouts of Chalukya craftsmen, that once echoed along the Badami temples.
It is even heard across time, like the chiseling of Ashoka's inscriptions that would manifest as an unresolved ringing in the inner ear of James Prinsep. Or when William Brooke O'Shaughnessy believed that, much like cholera riddled veins, these telegraph cables would let him pump restoratives straight into the heart of a troubled nation.
In this country of telephones and wires, phone directories become genealogies, telephone exchanges become places of pilgrimage and the ringing, clicking drone of its machinery - a metronome of the sporadic history of this land.
Our story is told amidst this tangle of cables and time. It is told when Iqubal awaits a telephone call and his perpetual pause forces a recollection of the terrifying history of the telephone in India.
Are these done yet?
Last evaluated Jun 26, 2026
Something about this evaluation looks wrong Report illegal or harmful content