Battano Windmill

Kruirad puts you on the gallery of a Dutch corn windmill as its miller. The name is the capstan wheel at the tail of the mill: the wheel a miller cranks to swing the cap and sails into the wind.

Every shift is a new weather day. Read the wind strip: the compass shows where the wind comes from and where your cap is pointing, the Beaufort figure tells you how hard it blows, and the next gust, shower front or wind shift slides in from the edge before it arrives.

Drag the kruirad round until the sails face the wind. Hold the vang to stop the sails, then set the cloth on the sail that hangs at the gallery: vol zeil (full sail), eerste reef (first reef), zwaard (sword point) or dolk (dagger point). Only the lowest sail can be reached, so to dress all four you ease the vang and bring each one down in turn, just as on a real mill.

Lift the vang, pour grain into the hopper and put the stones to work. Speed is counted the Dutch way, in enden per minuut, and the gauge carries a green band. Too slow and the meal comes out coarse. Too fast and the stones run hot and the cloth strains. When a shower swings the wind round behind the sails, the wind is "in de staart" and you have seconds to turn the cap or brake before the mill takes damage.

The order book looks a week ahead: Bakkerij Verhoef wants wholemeal wheat, the dairy farm wants coarse feed, the pancake house wants buckwheat and the mill shop takes whatever you grind. Hang up to three orders on the peg. Deliver and you earn guilders and reputation; miss a deadline and the village remembers.

Every shift wears the mill. Re-dress the millstones, lace in new sail cloth, fit new brake blocks, grease the neck bearing and tar the tail, each with its own hands-on task. What you neglect shows up in the next shift: a vang that slips in a strong wind, torn cloth that will not carry full sail.

At night you park the sails in a resting position, and the village reads it: korte rust, lange rust, the vreugdestand for a wedding or the rouwstand for a death. Some days the village asks for one.

The Molenboek keeps every shift, the four sail signals with their meaning, and the three mills that open up as your name grows: a tall stellingmolen in a village, a thatched grondzeiler in the polder and a beltmolen on its mound. Photograph a real mill you visit on Nationale Molendag and Kruirad turns it into a silhouette postcard for your album.

The weather is generated on your device and all play happens offline. The coins are play money; nothing in Kruirad can be bought.