Wickbound

A reading hall after dark. Readers come to the lecterns by the hour, each with their own times, and a lectern without light at its hour is a night lost.

Set the candles before the night begins. A tall candle throws light two cells around it and lasts; as it burns down its circle shrinks to one, and then it is out. The window has a draught on a schedule that blows out a whole column for an hour unless a screen stands in the way. Tallow candles cost half but smoke the cells beside them. On even hours you may light one more from your reserve. Mirrors carry a candle's light two cells further. The wax is measured, and there is just enough.

- 60 nights across five chapters, each adding one rule: wicks and lecterns, the draught and the screen, tallow and soot, relighting by the hour, and mirrors
- Wax budgets are minimums found by exhaustive search; at most six arrangements fit inside any of them
- Every window, tallow candle, relight and mirror is checked to matter — remove it and the cheapest night changes
- Tallow Night, the same 60 nights with nothing but tallow to burn, unlocked at 36
- A night a day from the date, with a chain of nights to keep lit
- 24 candlesticks to collect, each the silhouette of an arrangement you set
- A third star for a night in which no candle burned out before dawn

No clock runs while you set the table. Preview any hour before you light the first wick.

It never goes online and never asks for anything: you make no account, see no adverts, are not measured, cannot buy a thing, and grant no permission. Your nights are kept on the device.