You signed with Mr Belphégor. All of you. Bottom right, where the print was small.
Couch co-op for one to four players · In development
- Cook
- Deliver
- Fight
- Repay
- Repeat
The deal
He does not want your soul
The founder of Chaos & Sons died leaving two things behind: a six-figure slate, and a partnership contract signed with something that introduces itself as “Mr Belphégor, consultant in restructuring and land management”.
He wants his money. That is worse. A soul you negotiate once. A debt you repay every month.
You cannot shut the company down — the dissolution clause needs the debt cleared first. You cannot file for bankruptcy either: Belphégor ranks first on the liquidation, and he declines. So you work. He places you. This week that counter, next month that shop. You own nothing you cook in.
Article 7
The clause he wrote himself
The contract exists in six copies. He keeps one; his five associates hold the others. While a single copy exists, you belong to him.
But whoever holds a copy cannot refuse a challenge. At his place. At his trade. In front of his customers.
Nobody before you had read that far.
The run
Five districts, five copies
Each district is a new trade you have never done, a boss who holds a copy, and a service you have to survive in his own shop. The sixth copy is on Belphégor.
- 01Les HallesSalads and drinksMarc Mitton
- 02La PériphérieFloristRoxane Lafleur
- 03Le FournilBakeryJean-Beure Bon
- 04Les HautsSoups and stewsKlaus Lemalicieux
- 05La ZoneSandwich counterCommandant Croque
- 06La TourRestructuring and land managementMr Belphégor
On the road
What isn’t loaded doesn’t go out
Footfall drops. Belphégor redeploys you: from now on you deliver. He thinks he is punishing you by putting you on the road. He is handing you the keys to the city.
“I note that you spend a great deal of time on the road. I note equally that equipment regularly goes missing from the sites you leave. I am not drawing a link. I am noting.”
Load, drive, drop. Then five stops in an imposed order with the sorting done en route, then orders that land while you are still driving and have to be assembled in the back. The boot is not a menu — whatever slides around in the corners is the service you are about to run.
Back at the shop the pantry is finite. Your storage furniture caps what you can hold, and floor given to stock is floor not given to tables. Restocking happens after closing, out of your own till: a supply run you rushed on Tuesday is a dish you cannot serve on Wednesday.
Handbrake, drift, and a city that gives way. Lampposts tear out and fall — and throw a real arc on the way down. Trees take the hit, lean, and keep some of the lean. Pedestrians roll and get back up. None of it is asked of you. All of it costs you time.
The last night
No more paper. No more rules.
You take back five copies. The sixth is his, and he does not hand it over — the man who spent the whole game defending procedure tears up his own Article 7. The lights go out in the hall, the storm walks in, and rank by rank his workforce takes formation.
You fight the way you have always worked: with a frying pan.
The council chamber becomes the floor, and the waves replay the entire escalation of the story in one night. He falls, gets up behind a red two-horned mask, falls again, gets up behind a black one under a crown of eight horns. Three phases, no new mechanic — each form simply bigger, faster, and longer to take apart.
The workforce
One more rank, every episode
Every chapter puts one more kind of them in the room — in the hall, in the corridor, at the cellar doors — and not one line of dialogue ever mentions it. By the last night they are all there at once.
01The underling
Ordinary service.
02Elite skeleton
On the door. He is bringing in reinforcements.
03Zombie
Loose in the cellar corridor. The old stock is coming back up.
04Dead cop
Nobody asks who used to keep the peace around here.
05Machine
Behind the throne. He has seized Klaus’ equipment.
06Machine-skeleton
Drawn up in a line. The army is ready.
Two counters
One is suffered, one is chosen
The debt
It falls on its own, contract after contract, and you never touch it. Belphégor reads it out at every briefing, itemised. It is a barometer, not a bill.
The till
Your share. Small. It buys and repairs the plots that are actually yours — the only thing on the board you decide.
You never choose between repaying and building. The two never compete for the same coin.
The payroll
Nobody here is qualified
The ginger cat
Longest-serving employee. He was here before the founder. Nobody knows who hired him, nobody has found his contract, and nobody dares ask. He refuses to wear anything but his green waistcoat.
The cat in a tuxedo
Chief executive. Promoted because he was the only one in the room when the will was read. He does not speak. He pushes things off tables.
The astronaut
Does not work here. He turned up one day, he stayed, and the moment to ask him to leave has passed. He never takes the helmet off. He is an excellent cook, which makes no sense at all.
One to four players, one screen, keyboard or gamepad. In the city everyone holds the wheel at once — that part is deliberate.
In development · Odran Husson