What Have I Stepped Into?
It's hard to explain, because nothing else quite like it exists. So here it is plainly, and then less plainly.
Plainly: this is a live stream where the chat isn't beside the show. The chat is the show. Every person watching becomes a character inside a real-time 3D world, built by hand for the stream and running live in the browser.
The moment you type anything in chat, a figure wearing your name materialises in a seat aboard the Funkline Express, a train that runs between the realms of the planet Funkatron. Your words float above your head in a speech bubble. The train's glowing marquee may shout your name when you board. You can blow the horn, fall asleep in your seat, wave at the camera, demand a close-up, pick which knight, frog-paladin, undead wanderer or Tronixian robot you are, and dance when the train pulls into the club.
Nothing here is pre-recorded. The camera director cuts to you. The weather turns. Portals tear open on the line and the whole train crosses into another land: a haunted redwood forest, the bottom of the sea, a dwarven kingdom under the mountain, a nightclub on the back of a starship.
Less plainly: every one of these web experiences is a window into a single world, Funkatron, with its own history, kingdoms, gods, trade goods, feuds and jokes. The stream is how that world is told. You are how it is lived.
IN ONE BREATH
Tolkien meets Mel Brooks meets World of Warcraft meets 70s funk. It's high fantasy that refuses to take itself seriously and takes its world very seriously.
You don't need to know any lore to join. Type hello. The world will find you.
The World of Funkatron
A planet sung into being, a people who can feel the song, and a people who can't.
In the beginning there was Ye Old Funk, the great groove beneath all things, and it sang a world into being. Where it sang loudest, the Great Trees took root, and the kingdoms of the mainland grew up in their shade. Its people can feel the Funk. It heals their sick through the creme of the Trees, it moves their feet at feasts, and it runs through their oaths, their wars and their music. They trade in Poolongs, argue about beans, race Goliath Toads and hold grudges for centuries.
Seventy years ago, fire fell from the sky. The Exodus Arks crashed onto the northern ice carrying the last survivors of a dead homeworld, Tronix Primaris. From that wreckage rose Tronixia, a city of chrome, rules and forms in triplicate, governed by the Directorate. Tronixians cannot feel the Funk at all. So they study the ones who can: they measure it, map it, file reports on it, and send envoys, surveyors and very confused robots out across the ice bridge into the mainland.
That friction, between a world that dances and a machine that wants to understand why, is the beating heart of Funkatron. Knights, frog-paladins, undead choristers, crooning robots and one clerk named B0-B are all tangled up in it. Soon, so are you.
The Mainland Kingdoms
Queen Druidia Pumpleskin's Funkopia, the frozen Nifflanders of Du Main, the merchant-oaths of Gilky under the Red Cypress, and the sun-scorched monks of Kli Doshi, where the Great Tree never took.
Lu La Lain
Goliath Toads raced and revered, Marsh Queen Ondara's secret creme vaults, and the Lily Paladins, armoured frog-knights sworn to a Frog God nobody can quite describe.
The Realm of Brangus
A dark lord, riders who fused to their armour, a choir whose one hymn teaches you what it feels like to have already lost, and the fog-drowned redwoods of Grimhollow.
Abudazi
Forge-Lord Buhaugnus Ashveil's orcs own the only land road into Tronixia and collect the toll in person, especially if you pay in exact change without enough feeling.
Tronixia
Chrome towers on the northern ice. Seventy years of paperwork. A jazz lounge that shouldn't exist, run by a robot who can't feel the groove and has decided that's the groove's problem.
The Funkline Express
The train that stitches it all together. Every passenger is a live viewer. It crosses between realms through portals that tear open on the rails, and it has a very loud horn.
How to Step In
Four steps. The first one takes a single word.
Speak
Type anything in Twitch chat. A figure with your name appears in a seat on the Funkline Express, and your message floats above it. Lurkers ride too; they just sit a little quieter.
Choose Who You Are
Visit tcpoole.com/players, find a character you love, and type its number or name, e.g. !robot 20 or !robot lillibert.
Play
Blow the !horn, !wave, fall !sleep, ask for a !cam close-up, !dance in the club and set your !mood. The full codex is below.
Ride the Realms
Stay aboard as the train portals between lands. Each realm has its own tricks, and in Grimhollow the cages are real.
The Codex of Commands
Words of power, typed in Twitch chat. Tap any command to copy it.
The Hall of Players
Every knight, frog-paladin, restless dead and Tronixian you can become, on file with the Directorate.
THE DIRECTORATE ARCHIVE
Open tcpoole.com/players to walk the archive in 3D. Every character stands on a pedestal where you can spin them, watch them dance and read their full file: lore, stats, Funk resonance and a Directorate note or three.
Each card shows its number and its name code. Type either in chat, like !robot 26 or !robot skarrow, and you'll re-materialise as that character, in your train seat or on the dance floor. Your pick is remembered for next time. You can change once every 30 minutes.
Tap a card to copy its command. Can't decide? !robot random, !robot frog or !robot undead.
Where the Line Runs
The Funkline Express crosses between realms through portals that tear open on the rails. Keep your seat.
Tronixia
Elevated rails through the chrome city on the ice. Neon, towers, blimps and Directorate surveillance, polite but constant.
Grimhollow
Giant 150-foot redwoods in thick fog, gallows groves, gibbet cages, jack-o'-lanterns and will-o'-wisps. Those banned from the realm get a headstone. The train stops. The train always stops.
Amberfall
Endless gold and crimson canopy, falling leaves, lakes and slow evening light.
The High Alpine
Snow, tunnels bored through the mountains, and viaducts over gorges that go down further than you'd like.
Open Ocean
Rails over rolling swells, spray, and lightning storms that light up the whole horizon.
The Deep
Into the Blue, the Coral Cathedral, the Sunken Forest of kelp, the Midnight Garden and the Drowned Grotto, all by submarine.
The Dwarven Kingdom
One colossal cavern: stone viaducts, carved pillars, terraced towns and a citadel lit by forge-light.
The Volcano Line
Lava light, ash skies, and the distinct sense that the Fire Orcs built this route to make a point.
Club Druidia
The train's party stop. Your character is on the dance floor under lasers and a mirror ball, or on the open deck of a starship cruising past a ringed gas giant. Here !dance and !mood come alive.
Questions Travelers Ask
Do I need to install or download anything?
No. Just watch on Twitch and type in chat. Everything you see is a live 3D world running in the streamer's browser, and your chat messages drive it.
I typed a command and nothing happened.
Most commands only work in the right place: !dance and !mood need the club or crowd scene, !rattle needs you to be in a Grimhollow cage, and !getup needs you to have been knocked down. Many also have a short cooldown so chat can't stampede them. Wait a moment and try again.
How do I change my character?
Browse tcpoole.com/players and type !robot followed by the number or name code on the card. You can swap once every 30 minutes, and your choice is remembered next stream. If a character "isn't on board tonight", its model isn't loaded in the current scene; try another.
Why is my character asleep / dimmer than the others?
If you typed !sleep, you're dozing (you snore in style). Type anything, or !wake, to sit back up. Lurkers who haven't chatted yet ride a little dimmer until they speak.
Somebody knocked me over!
That was the Conductor (or a Warden), and it was almost certainly affectionate. Type !getup and your character picks itself up, sometimes with a kip-up, sometimes with a very undignified plank.
I'm in a cage in a haunted forest. Is that normal?
In Grimhollow, yes. !rattle the bars for sympathy and try your luck with !escape, which has roughly a one-in-five chance every minute. Or wait to be freed. Or don't. The crows are good company.
Is the lore real? Where can I read more?
Very real, and very deep. Every character in the archive has a full file, and the kingdoms, gods and trade goods appear across all of TC's Funkatron projects at tcpoole.com. Ask in chat. Someone will gladly tell you far too much about beans.