PENCILS DOWN™
It is 1999. You are seated in Room 44 for a standardized test that knows you. Wager your confidence, guard your erasers, and keep your pencil DOWN when the proctor walks the rows. The questions are about history, science, and what you did three minutes ago.
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Details
About this game
The Standardized Assessment for Continued Existence
Pass mark: 70%. Pencils ready.
PENCILS DOWN is an analog horror exam roguelike. One sitting is 44 questions across four sections. You wager 1-5 confidence chips on every answer, win them back or lose them. Erasers are your lives. Questions printed in red ink stake an eraser. And the proctor, heard but never seen, is walking the rows.
The Exam Studies You Back
From Section C onward, it asks about you:
- Which of your earlier answers was a guess?
- How many times have you erased?
- What did the chalkboard say during the break?
Every one of these is generated live from how you actually took the test. There is nothing to look up. There is no wiki. There is only what you remember.
Features
- Pencils down means pencils down. When the shadow crosses your desk, stop working, or it notices.
- Look up (TAB), if you must. The clock is on the wall. Sometimes other things are too.
- The ink does not wait. On harder forms, slow readers watch questions rot on the page. And check your bubbles before you lock. The sheet moves.
- Three examination forms: Standard Administration, Honors Track, and the District Protocol, where the test misbehaves and question 45 of 44 is waiting.
- Five endings with secrets to uncover.
- 400+ period-accurate 1999 questions.
- School Store meta-progression, where every study aid is a blessing and a curse.
Personalization
Optionally, the exam may know your name. You can deny this request in Settings. The District notes all denials.
