Porchlight

Two worlds, one street

Saturday, June 21, 1997: the longest day of the year in Calloway County, Ohio. Thirteen-year-old Wes Harlan finds his grandfather's old steel flashlight in the garage, and at dusk, shining it into the porch light opens a door. On the other side is Calloway again, only it's Callowmere: a storybook kingdom of stone keeps, thatched hamlets, knights and dragons, laid out exactly like the county. Wes's cul-de-sac is a village green. Downtown is a castle town. The county fair is a tourney field, and the quarry is a mine with a sick dragon at the bottom of it.

Relight the lamps

Every place's oldest light is a door between the worlds, and someone is putting the lamps out. When one goes dark, the Grey spreads on both sides at once: lawns turn the color of slate, music goes flat, and people stop caring. Cross back and forth, solve puzzles that need both worlds, and relight the lamps one town at a time, from the village green to the dark between the worlds.

Four friends, two sets of gear

• Wes (13), the Lightbearer: Grandpa's flashlight becomes the Beacon, a sword whose blade is light.
  
• Della (16), the Windcaller: her walkie-talkie becomes the Calling Horn, for wind and song.
  
• Book (19), the Guardian: the hammer from his uncle's hardware store becomes a stone warhammer.
  
• Junie (14), the Skystriker: her softball and glove become a sling of glowing star-stones.

On the road they meet Sir Tamsin, a squire who has never left the kingdom (in Ohio his armor turns into hockey pads, and he thinks the vending machine is a shrine). And Grandpa Hal talks them through it over the CB radio in his garage, though he won't say why he stopped crossing in 1957.

A small-town summer, and a long way from home

Eight chapters, each a real place and its twin: the cul-de-sac and the hamlet, Main Street and the castle, the fairgrounds and the tourney, the lake port and the harbor of sea-knights, and on to the observatory, the power plant and the place where the two worlds overlap. Big-hearted, funny, and clean enough for the whole family.

Key features

• Two mirrored worlds: every chapter pairs a 1997 Ohio place with its twin in Callowmere, same layout, different world, and what you do on one side changes the other.
  
• Everyday gear turned heroic: a flashlight, a walkie-talkie, a hammer and a softball become a sword of light, a brass horn-staff, a stone warhammer and a sling of star-stones each time the party crosses; 173 pieces of gear in all, each with its everyday and its storybook form.
  
• Turn-based battles you can see coming: monsters walk the map (no random battles), weak ones run from a stronger party, and a hero knocked to 0 HP gets one last move, the Afterglow. 118 kinds of monster and 40 boss and mini-boss fights.
  
• Puzzles that need both worlds: move something in Callowmere to open a way in Ohio, carry an ordinary thing from 1997 to fix a fantastic problem; workbenches and forges on both sides; diner food and tavern food that heal.
  
• Bring the color back: relight a town's lamp and watch the color sweep back over both sides of the door.
  
• Music in two styles: each town has a 90s small-town band sound on the Ohio side and a storybook orchestra in Callowmere.
  
• 150 Lamp Sparks to find, growth boards for every hero, and 49 side jobs for the neighbors on both sides.