Mocha's Story
Our hero is Mocha, an adventurer rabbit. One day Mocha found two things in grandpa's old bag: a treasure map with no drawn ending, and a pocket watch with stopped hands.
The map pointed not up but down. Down, and down, and down. Stranger still was the pocket watch — as the burrow deepened, its hands began to turn backward.
Mocha packed a heap of carrots and set off. The destination: the legendary golden carrot field, said to lie at the very bottom. The crystals glowing here and there in the burrow are rumored to be markers left by adventurers who went down before.
The secret of the backward-turning watch and the truth of the golden carrot field — nobody knows yet. That's a story Mocha can only find by digging deeper.
What kind of rabbit is Mocha?
Mocha isn't a particularly brave rabbit. The dark is frightening, and falling from a height is just as alarming as it would be for anyone. What Mocha can't do is leave a question alone. Opening that bag was never really one of two options.
Almost nothing in the story says what the grandfather was like. All that's left is a map and a watch, so that's all Mocha knows too. Which makes this both a treasure hunt and an attempt to retrace how far someone else got. If the rumor is true — that the crystals set into the walls are markers left by earlier travelers — then some of them may be his.
Three things in the bag
Mocha packs light. But all three items do something real once you're in the game.
- A treasure map with no ending drawn
- The bottom is simply blank. Either whoever drew it never got further, or there is no further to get. That's why this game has no finish line.
- A stopped pocket watch
- The deeper the burrow goes, the more the hands turn backward. Picking one up in-game slows time for a moment — the thought being that a rabbit carrying a stopped watch could plausibly hold time back a little.
- A sack of carrots
- It runs out on the way down. Which is why you gather carrots in the burrow — they're score, food, and a reason to take another step, all at once.
What you meet down there
The burrow isn't empty. What blocks Mocha and what helps both have reasons.
- Moles
- The burrow's actual residents. They aren't out to hurt anyone — they just don't love a guest tunneling through their home, so they pop up briefly and drop back down.
- Roots and rocks
- Roots sent this far down by the trees above, and stone that collapsed a long time ago. Both are evidence of how old the burrow is.
- Mushrooms and fireflies
- Things that grew where light never reached. Mushrooms bounce you when stepped on; fireflies light the way ahead. They're the only things down there on Mocha's side.
- Crystals
- The deeper you go, the more crystal appears in the walls — the basis for the rumor that someone marked this route before you.
Still unanswered
Why the watch runs backward, whether the golden carrot field exists, whether the burrow has a bottom at all — none of it is settled. Deciding the answers in advance would end the burrow.
Instead the clues accumulate in the game itself: the markers that appear when you beat your depth record, the way the walls differ between burrows, the things that only fall in one of them. It's a story Mocha finds out by going deeper.