Last Orders

The Last Orders is a London pub with a forty-year lease and days left on it. Crane & Marlow, the brewery, hold the debt and want the building back. Ray Hollis, who has kept the place since his father, does not intend to hand it over. You cannot see him right on wages. What the pub has is a back room, a revolver, and regulars willing to sit down. What you are playing for — Every chip given, in every pub, everywhere, goes to one side or the other, and the paper on the wall keeps the score. When the lease runs out — Sunday 27 September 2026, eleven at night, London time — it runs out for everybody at once. The side that put in more takes the building, and its backers are paid out of the losing side's chest, in proportion to what each of them risked. So a night's takings can be banked, or left behind the bar. That is the game: you are not playing for chips, you are playing for the deed, and every night ends with you deciding whether tonight's money is yours or Ray's. Nor does it finish there. From Monday 5 October the war runs in seasons of four weeks, and the bar changes hands when a season is lost. A night at the table One live round goes into six chambers, in front of everybody. Then the gun goes round the table. On your go you can point it at yourself for free — a click, and you go again. Point it at somebody else and you down a shot first, because in here aggression costs sobriety. Drunk hands slip, and the barrel doesn't always find who you meant. Nobody re-spins between pulls, so the whole table can count. Three blanks gone, three chambers left, one live: everyone in the room can do that sum, and everyone is watching you do it. Survive the round and your tab doubles. Then the landlord calls last orders, and your hand answers before your mouth does. Off home with what you've got, or one more round? The chair you leave empty tightens the odds for everyone who stayed. [Image] Eleven ways to cheat the odds • Coffee to sober up. • A shot to put somebody else under. • Crisps to peek at the chamber. • A beer mat to spin it. • The bell to turn the table round. • The bouncer on your door. • Scratchings for whoever's next. • A slate on somebody's tab. • A round for the house. • A chaser. • A dart to say where the gun goes next. And the pub has a say of its own: a power cut, the old bill at the door, the jukebox, Brenda coming round with the tray. The regulars Six of them, always in, each with their own nerve. Kev shoots first and thinks later. Gran goes home at four hundred whatever's happening. Big Dave never leaves. They fill any empty chair, they hold a grudge from one night to the next, and on your first night they've already made their minds up about you. The rest of the house A hall of records with the best nights chalked on the wall. A dartboard. A fruit machine. Ron taking bets from the bar. Terry selling colours. And a landlord whose lease runs out on the 27th of September. Four to six at the table. However many of you turn up, the regulars take the rest of the chairs. A night runs about five minutes. Just the one, then. Made for the s&box Game Jam III. Built on assets published on sbox.game. Thanks to: Facepunch · Rod (rodlopt) via gnomefig · Dingus Games · The Box · Baik · SubZero Studios · Poly Haven · garymax · ambientCG via publicdomainmats · Alex · Semxy · Vidya Games · Open Sound · KlibatoCorp · Kenney. Full list in the game's credits panel. [Image]