Texas Hillel
Stu ferries pans between the Topfer door and the Hill Country Kosher Catering van. Tali texts. The clock starts.
Austin, Texas · Friday, September 8, 2006 · 15 Elul 5766
Shtick City
A free, fifteen-minute open-world comedy game. One Friday afternoon in West Campus: three pranks on the Hillel director, a shuttle to Far West, and candle lighting at 7:21.
- Free
- About 15 minutes
- No account, no ads
- Computers, phones & tablets
- Mac app · Apple silicon + Intel
San Antonio Street, below 21st
Stu has been cooking since noon.
You start on the east sidewalk of San Antonio, facing Texas Hillel, with a backpack and a terrible idea. Rabbi Stu, the director, is carrying pans of challah rolls from the caterer's van to a kitchen that has to feed 140 by sundown. Tali wants you to make him laugh, and then come back for dinner.
Collect three supplies. Pull three pranks on Stu. Sit down at Tali's table before candle lighting. Everything else on the map is optional, and most of it is a detour worth taking: the rabbis working 21st Street, a basement with a guitar in it, a bathroom legend, a shuttle to the hills.
5 h 21 mof Friday, 2:00 to 7:21 PM. About eleven minutes of real time, or twenty-one if you take your time.
3 + 3pranks on Stu, and three optional ways to slow down the kollel rabbis.
140for dinner, and you can bring guests: up to nineteen, if you make friends.
Tali
Stu has been cooking since noon. Please make him laugh. Then come back for dinner.
Tali
can you spare six minutes for the room? i have been folding napkins since one.
ReplyOptions
2:00 → 7:21Hour by hour
The afternoon keeps moving.
26th & University
The FW's only campus stop. The ride to Far West takes eighteen minutes off your clock.
Northwest Hills
Far West Boulevard climbs past the strip centers. The ground follows the real hills.
Village Center H-E-B
Challah and a brisket from the kosher counter, which closes at four.
The Drag
The 1 and the 101 to North Lamar, Ohio State fans in red, the scalper, the shofar man by the kollel stairs.
21st Street
The rabbis make a last approach at 6:42. At 6:51 they check their watches at the same moment and head home to light.
Everyone heads in
The corner of 21st and San Antonio fills. Tali saves you a seat, if you earned one.
Candle lighting
Sundown does not negotiate. How the evening ends depends on what you landed, who you brought and who you helped.
Two neighborhoods, one shuttle
Every building, from the city's survey.
West Campus from MLK to 29th and Leon to Wichita. Far West from Murchison Middle School to MoPac. Every footprint comes from the City of Austin's spring 2006 survey, on the street grid of the time, jogs and all. Pick a place.
01 · West Campus
Texas Hillel
The Topfer Center, 2105 San Antonio
1,516buildings across the two neighborhoods, 1,515 of them surveyed footprints
4,857street and yard trees: live oak, pecan, crepe myrtle, cedar elm
8bus routes on their fall 2006 paths, 25 stops
17rooms behind nine street doors
74West Campus intersections, 15 of them with signals
60 mof relief in Northwest Hills, from the city's 2003 contours
2:19 → 6:15Every eight or nine minutes, in fall 2006
Eighteen minutes up MoPac.
The UT shuttle leaves its one campus stop at 26th & University and runs out Guadalupe, 38th and 35th to MoPac and Far West Boulevard, then loops Wood Hollow, Greystone, Hart and North Hills. The ride costs eighteen minutes of your Friday; the 19 Bull Creek from 24th and Pearl takes twenty-four. On arrival: “Northwest Hills smells like cedar and parking lots.”
Kosher before fourChallah and a brisket from the H-E-B kosher counter on Village Center Drive. Six minutes.
Eight chairs from the JThe Dell Jewish Community Campus lends Hillel folding chairs, before six. Five minutes.
A trim before ShabbosSupercuts, the last unit of the Far West Center before Wendy’s. Five minutes, and your standing with the rabbis goes up.
The study hall on Hart LaneWhere the kollel actually sits and learns. Your name is on the sign-up sheet, with a question mark.
FW Far West · stops
- 26th & UniversityThe only campus stop
- Guadalupe · 38th · 35th · MoPac
- Far West Boulevard
- Wood Hollow / Greystone
- Greystone / Hart · The J
- Hart / Far West
- North Hills / Village Center · H-E-B
- Wood Hollow / North Hillsand back to campus
CastEveryone on the block today
The people you'll run into.
Every character is fictional, written the way a particular Friday in West Campus sounded. Some want something from you. Some will chase you. One is a frog.
Rabbi StuHillel director · the target
Where do 140 people even SIT.
Carries pans between the Topfer door and the caterer's van all afternoon. Notices nothing.
Texts youTaliHillel · the dinner tables
can you spare six minutes for the room? i have been folding napkins since one.
Asks the favor, saves the seat, and is the last person you see.
Rabbi ShragaKollel rabbi · 21st Street
I have watched you cross this street four times. That is not walking. That is searching.
Catch his eye and the Schmooze card opens. He remembers your excuses.
Glasses, grey beardRabbi DovKollel rabbi · the north side
The Rambam says a man in a hurry is running from an idea. Which idea?
Walks the north side of 21st after six. The rabbis compare notes.
After your second prankRabbi MendyKollel rabbi · on rollerblades
I have eleven pamphlets and a quota of forty. Help me help you.
Called in from Dallas unless you wrapped the kollel van. Overshoots sharp turns.
Floor managerChanaHillel · clipboard and beeper
Name tags. Alphabetical. Two Sarahs, be careful.
Guards the office. Asks whether you've seen Deborah, who has the van keys.
The shofar manThe Drag · by the kollel stairs
Shofars. Genuine. Kudu, ram, one I am not certain about.
Rosh Hashanah is in fourteen days. When he blows one, the rabbis look over.
The scalperThe Drag · east side
Tickets? Buying? Selling? Breathing?
It is four times face value. You can't afford it either way.
Here for the gameThe visitorsOhio State fans · 21st & Guadalupe
Three of them, in scarlet, pacing the corner a day early.
No. 1 plays No. 2 tomorrow night at DKR.
The cousin21st, between Nueces and San Antonio
COUSIN! It has been what, since the bar mitzvah?
Comes to dinner whether or not you're related.
MarisaThe West Mall entrance
YOU FOUND IT. I could cry. I AM crying.
Lost her ACL wristband. Find it and she comes to dinner, with company.
PriyaOutside the Texas Union
EIGHT?! On MY phone?!
Holds the Snake score on her Nokia. Beat it and she brings her roommates.
The DJ kid23rd Street Renaissance Market
You know music? Find me three songs.
Hands you an iPod mini and a deadline.
The busker21st & Guadalupe
A dollar in the case gets you “Walking the Cow,” and your breath back.
It also resets the frog.
21st & GuadalupeJeremiahThe frog · Daniel Johnston, 1993
Hi, How Are You
On the Baja Fresh wall. Say hi back and the rabbis look the other way for thirty seconds. The frog is real.
The basement guyAEPi temp house · downstairs
♪ We live behind the Federation / temporary nation ♪
Making it up as he goes. Beer pong is upstairs.
The open micUnion Underground
One earnest original about a girl named Autumn.
The sign says Thursdays. He knows it's Friday.
Hillel kitchenHectorKugel, and a donut run
Cold glaze builds character.
Text him OMW on the RAZR, then get a pink box from Ken's back in eighty seconds.
The albino squirrelThe South Mall
On the lawn below the Tower, if you look.
Spot it and your bluffs land more often for the rest of the day.
The challah thiefThe West Mall
It has an entire challah. A whole one. It is winning.
Not your problem. Hard to look away from.
Seven restroomsThe custodianThe man at the sinks
Three times. Nobody gets three. Go eat something, tzadik.
Talk to him enough and he gives you the staff key.
How it playsA mission that survives being sidetracked
The list keeps you moving. The block keeps you busy.
Walk anywhere, go into seventeen rooms, ride every bus. The clock stops while your notebook, phone or map is open, and the neighborhood keeps offering you reasons to be late.
Friday StoryThe original deadline: three pranks, then dinner, before 7:21.
Campus AfternoonFree play. The rabbis never spot you and the light only changes when you say so.
Daily FridayThe day's run is seeded by the date, so everyone plays the same Friday today.
One moreFinish any Friday and a secret way to play it unlocks.
Three pranks on Stu
Pick up supplies on the Drag and in the co-ops, then work the Hillel building from the outside in.
- Saran-wrap the CamryTap as a cursor crosses the band, three clean passes, while the band narrows and speeds up. A miss squeals and draws the rabbis. “The Camry is now a burrito.”
- Balloon-flood the officeFive water balloons through the director's window from San Antonio, past a box fan that defends its rabbi. “His office is 60% balloon by volume.”
- The cushion on his chairHold still for three seconds while Chana can't see you. The floorboards creak.
- BonusGoogly eyes from the Toy Joy prank kit, on the challah tray. Forty loaves watch the room.
Schmoozed
The kollel rabbis patrol 21st, San Antonio and the Drag. Get spotted and the Schmooze card opens: a solo pitch, a double team, an Elul quiz, or two rabbis arguing about the Ohr Somayach position.
- Talk your way outHear the pitch, bluff that you're on the Shabbat-dinner setup crew, ask where the halachic date line falls (a sure thing once you hold two pamphlets), or wrap tefillin for ninety seconds of peace. The odds are on the buttons, and so are the strikes.
- They rememberEach prank makes the rabbis faster and sharper-eyed. Excuses get compared. Three schmoozes and the Friday ends in a dinner invitation you actually accept.
- Or slow them downWrap their van, seal their pamphlet table, or swap their pamphlets for ones promising half-price whoopee cushions.
Get sidetracked
Some of the best material lives off the list.
- AEPi temp houseSix-cup beer pong upstairs. A couch and a guitar downstairs.
- Union LanesAim, then power. Eight pins puts your name on the chalkboard.
- Snake IIEight apples on Priya's Nokia.
- DJ dutyFind Lecha Dodi, King Without a Crown and Hava Nagila on a click wheel.
- The CoilerSeven restrooms, twelve kinds of stall, one legend per restroom. “Three. Nobody gets three.”
- AIM and the News FeedFind Deborah through her away message on a dorm CRT. Read a Facebook that is three days into News Feed.
- The donor emailPick five sections for the fall campaign letter. It gets graded.
- Ken's runMulti-tap OMW to Hector, then a pink box from Ken's in eighty seconds.
Getting around
- Walk or sprintSprinting spends stamina. A can of Big Red from the Longhorn Mini Mart buys it back.
- ScootersThree of them, “borrowed, in the West Campus sense.” Twice walking speed.
- BusesCapital Metro 1, 101, 3, 5, 19 and 21, and UT's WC and FW. Board at the front door; get off at any stop.
How it ends
Land all three pranks and make it to dinner, or don't. Four endings, epilogues that remember what you did and who you brought, and a rank.
TZADIK OF 21ST STREETA REAL MENSCHNU, NOT BADOY VEY
The Shtick Book keeps 29 finds across every Friday you play, from The Shrink-Wrapped Camry to The Study Hall on Hart Lane.
Controls
| WASD | Walk |
| Shift | Sprint |
| E | Act, talk, board |
| J P X | Notebook, phone, map |
| C M Esc | Camera, mute, pause |
| Touch | Thumb stick, ACT and RUN |
Settings for pace, larger reading size, reduced motion, captions and four graphics levels. The game pauses when you switch tabs.
FilmsEvery frame is the game, filmed in its own engine
One Friday.
Hillel at two, the FW into the hills, the kosher counter at four, and everyone walking to dinner at dusk. Told straight, in the game’s own light.
The recordAustin, Texas · Friday, September 8, 2006Sources and methods
What is realBuilt from the record, with fiction on top
Specific enough to argue with.
Shtick City is drawn from public records of the neighborhood as it stood in 2006. Where the record runs out, the game says so. The sources are listed below; the research notes and the map builders live with the game's code.
1,515
building footprints from the City of Austin's planimetric survey, flown in spring 2006, each at its surveyed height above the ground.
87.7 m
Dobie Center's surveyed roof. In the game, 87.8 units. The vertical scale is one unit to the metre.
Aug 13, 2006
The date on Capital Metro's fall schedule books, which put the 1, 101, 3, 5, 19 and 21 on their streets. UT's shuttle pages from that fall place the WC and FW.
2003
The city's two-foot contours, under every building's height and every hill in Northwest Hills.
Day 251
The realistic graphics put the sun where NOAA's solar position puts it over West Campus on that Friday: high in the south-southwest at two, low in the west at 7:21.
2011
The year Noodles & Co. and Qdoba opened on the Drag, so they aren’t in the game. Named places are found by their 2006 address; anything later is left out.
Details people will check
- San Antonio and Nueces step east at 24th; Pearl steps west. 23rd jogs at Rio Grande and again at San Gabriel.
- Leon runs only north of 22nd, with Robbins Place below it. Salado and San Pedro start north of 26th.
- 26th meets the Drag about seventy metres north of Dean Keeton. MLK, upper Guadalupe and 29th run on the diagonal.
- Guadalupe has four lanes and door-zone bike lanes; the bus lanes came in 2014. Nueces runs one way, south.
- Texas Hillel is new: the Topfer Center was dedicated in February 2006. Red brick, Lueders limestone, an ipe screen toward 21st.
- University Towers still stands at 801 W 24th: nine brick storeys, opened in 1969 as the Tri Towers, imploded January 5, 2020.
- Tower Records is dark. Its last day at 24th and Guadalupe was June 13, 2004.
- Toy Joy is at 2900 Guadalupe, where it stayed until May 2013. Ken's Donuts is open 24 hours.
- Baja Fresh holds the frog corner, with Daniel Johnston's 1993 mural on its wall.
- In Far West, the H-E-B on Village Center Drive has a kosher store with a fresh meat counter, and the J has stood on Hart Lane since 2000.
Sources
- City of Austin planimetric survey, building footprints from spring 2006 imagery; the city's 2003 two-foot contours; city address points.
- OpenStreetMap street centre lines, checked against the 2006 footprints.
- Capital Metro schedule books, effective August 13, 2006 to January 27, 2007, and UT Parking & Transportation shuttle pages from August and September 2006.
- NOAA's solar position equations for 30.285° N, 97.7425° W.
- National Register files, the Austin Chronicle, the Alcalde and Publishers Weekly for the landmarks; the JCAA Winter/Spring 2006 Program & Class Guide for Far West.
Interpretation, on purpose
Footprints and heights are surveyed. Facades, colours and most storefront tenants are interpretation, except where the research documents them. Trees and parked cars are placed by the map builder, not surveyed.
Streets and sidewalks are drawn wider than true scale so people and cars read at character size, and the blocks between them give up the difference.
The trouble is fictional
The characters and their schemes are invented, and so are the kollel's study hall on Hart Lane and the News Feed posts. The streets, the skyline, the buses and the week are real.
The frog is real.
Facebook launches News Feed. Students are furious about it.
Your Friday. 15 Elul 5766. Candles at 7:21.
No. 1 Ohio State at No. 2 Texas, Darrell K Royal–Texas Memorial Stadium.
ACL starts at Zilker. Somebody on the West Mall has lost her wristband already.
NowTwo ways in
Get to Friday.
Admit one · in your browser
Play free, right now
No account and no download. Open the link and you're on San Antonio Street at 2:00 PM. Computers get the realistic graphics; phones and tablets get a lighter version with touch controls.
- Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge
- Windows, Mac, Linux, iPhone, Android
- WebGL 2 · about 2 MB on phones, 8 MB on computers
- Saves in your browser
- Nothing collected
Download · free · macOS
Shtick City for Mac
The same Friday in its own window, full screen if you like, with the realistic graphics on. One app for Apple silicon and Intel Macs.
- macOS 12 Monterey or later
- .dmg · about 260 MB
- No account · nothing collected
The app is free and not notarized by Apple, so macOS asks once before the first launch. Install steps for every macOS version → Updates: download again and replace the app; your saves stay.