The Stack

As The Watchmaker progresses, it becomes less about the public face of the castle, with its cast of characters, and more about its secret, abandoned, and forbidden spaces: the old wing, the sealed clock tower, the tunnels under the cistern. The hidden chambers and compartments accessible within these places, opened by puzzle-mechanisms. This is a much easier place for an adventure game to reside, and more the sort of thing I was expecting when I purchased a game titled “The Watchmaker”.

As a result, it’s also becoming more about the past, and about time, and about clocks. I’m learning more about the history of the device I’m looking for. Its creator, the watchmaker of the title, didn’t build it for the purpose of ending the world. Rather, it’s somehow capable of stopping time for people at a cellular level, rendering them immortal. A select group of twenty-four people had their souls bound to this clock a century or two back, and cannot die until its pendulum is made to start swinging again. Apparently they’re more or less ruling the world in secret now. I’m starting to consider the possibility that I’ve been lied to, that the Knights of the Apocalypse aren’t trying to end the world, but rather, to end the reign of this illuminati. But then, I have to remind myself that this isn’t Metal Gear.

Now, that mausoleum with the chessboard in it was built for a girl named Anna, who died in her teens. It’s been clear for some time that Anna was going to become relevant to the backstory. I was anticipating some sort of tale of grief-driven madness: “The world has taken away my beloved daughter, and so I will build a device to destroy the world!” But that doesn’t jibe with what I’ve learned. I’ve found a note written by Anna’s father, who complained that she was spending far too much time around the watchmaker. And yet, the watchmaker’s own diary doesn’t mention her at all. Where is this story going? Perhaps constructing the device required a human sacrifice.