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The Lantern Tree has gone out. One bear sits on the dark bridge and waits for a morning that is not coming.

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How to play

Gumdrop Hollow runs on the Lantern Tree, and the Tree is going out. The only magic left is beyond the Seam, a rip in the candy sky, and beyond it is a nightmare: a family house you are 0.42 m tall in, the Under-house beneath it, and the caves beneath that. Your crew of teddy bears goes through, carries magical things back to the cairn (the stone circle on the front path) and feeds them to the Tree. Every third expedition is the Feeding: bring the Tree its quota or the Hollow rots a step (two if you bring less than half). Four steps and it goes dark.

Controls

WASD / arrows	Waddle · Shift run (the loudest thing you own) · C sneak (silent, fits under tables) · Space jump
E / left click	Grab or drop · carry a fallen friend's husk · flip Mister Pins · unlock a gate with a Gaol Key · hold at the cairn to go home
G / right click	Throw what you are holding (fragile things break; a thrown teacup pulls the Matron)
X	Use what you hold: wind the Music Box (a 20 s decoy), wish on a Wishbone at the cairn, break the Hourglass (4 s when nothing moves) · with the Needle, restitch a husk · with the Bell Jar and empty paws, a silent ping that marks the last creature you heard
R	Sniff out nearby loot and what it is worth
F	Lamp on / off. The wick burns only while it is lit
Q	Ping a spot for the crew (bears squeak; it carries)
Enter / T	Chat · Tab crew · Esc menu · M mute

The rules of the house

• The Matron sleeps in her chair in the nursery and hums. Noise fills her up: running, dropping things, breaking things, Mister Pins' rattle. Awake, she walks the halls by candle and sees anything that moves in its light; freeze and she may pass. Up close she sees everything. A lamp pointed at her makes her suspicious. Forty quiet seconds and she goes back to her chair.
• Porcelain is a knee-high doll that only moves when no bear has it in view. Keep eyes on it and back out facing it. It goes under tables. A touch is the end.
• Mister Pins is a rattling ball of needles that wanders from the sewing table. It bumps bears (it hurts, and the Matron hears the rattle) and swallows small loot. Flip it (E) and it spills everything.
• The Mothlight is a flutter that gets louder. It flies to the brightest lamp it can see and clings to it, making noise the Matron hears. Lamp off and hold still for three seconds and it lets go; or a friend shines theirs to pass it on.
• The Wardrobe Thing breathes inside the tall furniture. It grabs any bear who walks past without looking at it. Glance at every wardrobe and grandfather clock before you pass; it cannot grab what is watching it.
• The Unstuffed is a hollow bear in your crew's colours. It never hurts the living; it wants your dead. It carries a husk to a wall and eats it in eight seconds, and that bear comes home Lost. Any lit lamp makes it flee and drop the husk. Retrieve your fallen first.
• The Seam-stalker arrives at mark 4 when the Hollow is bleeding (or from cycle 4). It walks to the cairn dragging chains, ignores light and noise, and stands there until the Lantern dies; a touch is the end. Leave before it arrives, or bank something cheap: it steps aside for six seconds.
• Creaky rugs make noise under any bear; sneaking helps. Windows are boarded or show a sky you would rather not see.

The rules of the Under-house

• The Warden is blind and walks the wide halls listening; it goes to the loudest thing it heard, and within 2 m it feels you if you are quick or noisy. You hear its stomps from anywhere. Crouch-walk and drop nothing; a raised dais is a breather, not a hiding place.
• The Gaoler's Eye hangs from the hooks and screams at any bear whose lit lamp stares at it, and the scream calls the Warden. Lamp down under the hooks and glance, never stare; anything thrown past it blinds it for ten seconds.
• Locked cells hold the best loot. Carry a Gaol Key to the bars and press E. The portcullis drops for twenty seconds when something breaks nearby; no key lifts it.
• Hanging chains rattle when you brush them, crouched or not. Puddles slow you, double the sound of your steps, and anything dropped in one loses more.

The rules of the Hollow Under the Hollow

• The Threadworm only moves in the dark: while a lit lamp (or something glowing) is on it, it cannot move at all. Hold your lamp on it, and never let every wick in the crew run out at once.
• The False Crystal looks like any Glimmer Crystal but ticks, a glass note and a wrong one. Listen before you grab; throw something at it from a distance and it springs harmlessly.
• Mother is huge, blind and deaf, and smells Glimmer: the richer your paws, the further she smells you. Drop it and she loses you, then stops to eat what you dropped.
• Squeezes are low rock passages only a crouching bear fits through. The cave is damp: your wick burns a quarter faster. A Pocket Sun glows while held and for a few seconds after: worms freeze in it, and Mother feels it from far off.

The wick

• Your lamp burns 240 s of wick at full light. As it burns down the beam dims and narrows; at nothing it goes out. It recharges fast inside the cairn's circle and slowly within 2 m of any glow (a nightlight, a candle, the television, a crystal vein, an awake Pocket Sun). In the cave the damp burns it a quarter faster. Switch it off (F) when you can see by other light.
• At mark 4 "the Lantern gutters": the Matron wakes half again as easily. At mark 5 the Seam turns red. At the sixth mark (5:00 on the clock; 6:00 with Spare Sand) the Lantern dies: bears in the circle go home, anyone outside is left behind and whatever they carried is gone.

Stuffing, husks and the Loom

• Stuffing is your health. At zero you tear: a puff of stuffing, and you leave a husk where you fell. You can watch the crew while you wait.
• A friend can carry your husk (3 kg: it slows them and they cannot run) to the cairn: you are restitched for free and start the next expedition at 60. Left behind, you come home threadbare (one eye, max 80) for an expedition, or until the Loom is paid. If something eats the husk you come home Lost (grey patchwork, max 60) until the Loom (60 ✦) or a Wishbone.
• While the Hollow is Bright the Kitchen is open and every bear starts the expedition full. From Dim on it is shut: you start with the stuffing you came home with (at least 40).
• If the whole crew tears, the night ends: banked loot is safe, carried loot is gone, every bear is threadbare.

Extraction and banking

• Anything that reaches the centre of the cairn goes through the Seam and counts for the Hearth. Throw cheap things in from the path; carry the breakable ones.
• To leave early, every living bear stands inside the circle and one holds E. The countdown is exposure: 10 s with a crew, 3 s alone, longer when the Hollow is bleeding.

Tips

• Loot loses value when it hits things. A 1 m drop is free; a thrown snow globe is not. Cotton Padding halves the loss.
• Heavy things (the portrait, the rocking horse) drag slowly alone. Two bears carry them at a trot.
• The Pocket Watch ticks and the Marionette giggles while carried. The Music Box sounds for 8 s every time it lands. Cursed loot is worth more for a reason.
• Banked loot is not money: it all goes to the Tree. Only what you feed it past the quota comes back as Glimmer to spend. At rot 1 or more the shop sells Mend: one step of the Hollow back. A banked Rainbow Shard does the same for free.