Wordless Manual

About the game

You fall asleep in a vast flat-pack showroom and wake after closing, when the floor arrows loop forever. Your only guide is a wordless assembly manual whose pictograms describe rooms, exits and people. Assemble, disassemble and cleverly misread its diagrams to find a way out, and to find out what happened to the night staff who never clocked out. Wordless Manual is in development for iPhone and Android phones. In version 0.2.0 the whole campaign plays from start to finish, with the rooms in a simple placeholder style and placeholder story pictures; the final pixel art, characters and the animated opening are being made now. The screenshots are real captures from version 0.2.0; the concept art shows the intended final look.

Features

Forty room kits in four showroom departments: Kitchens, Bedrooms, Lighting and the Warehouse.
Read the wordless manual page, then edit the room: rotate, attach, remove and swap pieces, or wait, and walk the visitor through the door.
No fail state: undo, restart the kit and step-by-step hints are always free.
Story pages, secrets and rescues that slowly tell what happened to the night staff, told in pictures without words.
Strict black-and-white pixel art, landscape on phones, playable by touch, gamepad or keyboard.

Concept art

Concept art explores the intended look; it is separate from captured gameplay.

Concept art: four isometric empty showroom rooms for a kitchen, a bedroom, a lighting department and a warehouse. — Concept artFour showroom departments. Not a gameplay screenshot.

Concept art: a sheet of bordered pictogram tiles showing actions such as rotate, attach, wait, undo and exit. — Concept artManual pictograms. Not a gameplay screenshot.

Concept art: a small hooded visitor with a lanyard shown walking from the front, back and side. — Concept artThe visitor. Not a gameplay screenshot.

Gameplay screenshots

Screenshots are captured from the current version of the game.

Title screen in black and white pixel art: a showroom at night with rows of hanging lamps and a band of floor arrows; on the right a manual page with three pictogram buttons for kits, settings and about. — Gameplay screenshotActual device capture, version 0.2.0, iPhone. The title screen: the showroom after closing, and the manual that is your only guide.Version 0.2.0 · iPhone

Opening card: a white card with two pictograms, an eye and a door. — Gameplay screenshotActual device capture, version 0.2.0, iPhone. The first manual page: look, then find the door. A placeholder card; final story art is in progress.Version 0.2.0 · iPhone

Kitchens kit K01 at the start: an isometric grey-box room on a tiled floor with a small figure and a door gap, a pause and a hint button above, a row of action buttons and a tray below, and the manual page on the right with an eye, a door, an attach arrow and a walking figure. — Gameplay screenshotActual device capture, version 0.2.0, iPhone. The first kit: the room, the tray of pieces and the manual page that says what to do. Rooms are shown in placeholder style.Version 0.2.0 · iPhone

Kit complete card over the K01 room: a large tick, a black button with an arrow to continue and a button with the kit cabinet icon. — Gameplay screenshotActual device capture, version 0.2.0, iPhone. A kit is done: carry on, or go back to the kit cabinet.Version 0.2.0 · iPhone

Pause menu over a dithered room: Paused, with buttons Resume, Start the kit again, Settings, Kit cabinet, Title screen and Narrate glyphs. — Gameplay screenshotActual device capture, version 0.2.0, iPhone. The pause menu. System screens carry short labels; the kits themselves have no words.Version 0.2.0 · iPhone

Bedrooms kit B05 after two steps: an isometric grey-box room with a raised level and stairs, a figure on the upper level, and the manual page showing a move arrow, a stair pictogram and a walking figure. — Gameplay screenshotActual device capture, version 0.2.0, iPhone. A Bedrooms kit halfway through: pieces moved, stairs in place, the visitor up on the raised floor. Placeholder room style.Version 0.2.0 · iPhone

Lighting kit L05 at the start: a dark dithered isometric room with wall lamps, a figure under a ceiling lamp, and a tray of lamp, door, rotate and figure pieces. — Gameplay screenshotActual device capture, version 0.2.0, iPhone. A Lighting kit: the room is dark until the lamps are placed. Placeholder room style.Version 0.2.0 · iPhone

Warehouse kit W10 at the start: an isometric room with crate stacks, several figures and a door, and the manual page showing a door, a move arrow, an exit and a group of figures. — Gameplay screenshotActual device capture, version 0.2.0, iPhone. The last Warehouse kit. Placeholder room style.Version 0.2.0 · iPhone

Kit cabinet on a fresh save: a back button and five department tabs, a progress strip, and ten kit boxes of which two are open and eight locked. — Gameplay screenshotActual device capture, version 0.2.0, iPhone. The kit cabinet: forty kits in four departments, opened one after another.Version 0.2.0 · iPhone

Story

A showroom after closing time. The arrows on the floor lead back to where you started, and the only guide is a booklet with no words. Its pictograms describe furniture, then walls and doors, and then the people who work here.

Manuscript

The opening

The game opens without a word spoken. These lines exist only as optional captions for players who turn on narration. The showroom closes. The lights go out, one aisle at a time. Someone is still asleep on the sofa. Follow the arrows. They lead back to where you started. An instruction booklet falls open. It has no words. Look. Door. Person. The rest of the story is told in pictures, one manual page at a time.

Art direction

Strict one-bit black and white pixel art. Grey exists only as dither patterns. The world reads like an assembly manual that became a place: pictograms, dotted assembly lines and isometric rooms.