The Setting

1987 — the year of the city

Hold Still is not a history textbook, but it lives inside a real year. This page separates the history from our fiction.

The history (public record)

The Kowloon Walled City sat on the southeastern edge of the Kowloon Peninsula — a place all three governments had claims to but none truly governed. Before clearance it was a vertical maze: tens of thousands of residents in dense interconnected blocks, rooftop paths, lightless alleys, water pipes and power lines woven into one mass. In January 1987 the UK and Chinese governments announced the city's clearance; relocation proceeded over the following years and demolition completed in 1994. The site is a park today.

Exact population and building counts and every alley's story — anything we can't verify goes unsaid here; official archives win.

The fiction (our game)

Hold Still takes place on one night in 1987, after the demolition notice reaches the city: police seal the walls over a murder case, the exits close one by one, and everyone trapped inside must choose a path before dawn. The game's five districts, the three clocks (pager / TV time signal / shop clock) and the old "gates at ten" rule all exist to tell this story — carrying the texture of history without claiming its authority.

Why 1987?

Because that year, "this city is ending" stopped being a rumour. A community guarding a city already sentenced to demolition — every one of them answering the same question: in a place no one governs, what binds people together? That question is the game's whole spine.