PENCILS DOWN™

The Standardized Assessment for Continued Existence

Pass mark: 70%. Pencils ready.

PENCILS DOWN is an analog horror exam roguelike. One sitting is 44 questions across four sections. You wager 1-5 confidence chips on every answer, win them back or lose them. Erasers are your lives. Questions printed in red ink stake an eraser. And the proctor, heard long before it is seen, is walking the rows.

You May Leave Your Seat

Room 44 is a room you can stand up in. When your pencil goes dull, you cross the room to the wall sharpener in first person while the section clock keeps running. The door opens onto the New Wing, and what you see out there can turn up on the exam. Stay up too long and the proctor comes for you. It only moves when you are not looking. Do not look too long, either. When it comes for you, sit down.

The Exam Studies You Back

From Section C onward, it asks about you:

Which of your earlier answers was a guess? How many times have you erased? What did the chalkboard say during the break?

Every one of these is generated live from how you actually took the test. There is nothing to look up. There is no wiki. There is only what you remember.

Features

Pencils down means pencils down. When the shadow crosses your desk, stop working, or it notices. Look up (TAB), if you must. The clock is on the wall. Sometimes other things are too. The ink does not wait. On harder forms, slow readers watch questions rot on the page. And check your bubbles before you lock. The sheet moves. Out of your seat: Room 44 and the New Wing in first person, at night, with the lights failing one section at a time. You can switch it off in Settings. Four examination forms: Standard Administration, Honors Track, the District Protocol, where the test misbehaves and question 45 of 44 is waiting, and every October, THE OCTOBER ADMINISTRATION. Five endings with secrets to uncover. 800+ period-accurate 1999 questions, plus mathematics printed fresh every sitting. School Store meta-progression, where every study aid is a blessing and a curse.

Personalization

Optionally, the exam may know your name. You can deny this request in Settings. The District notes all denials.