The City of Metronome

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“As the sun rises over Metronome, thousands of citizens board the huge steam trains that will carry them into the city. Your job as an apprentice train engineer is usually very simple during the early rush; check that everyone’s work-order is valid, record their voice ticket and then clear your cart for departure. Now the entire passenger coach has gone quiet. Everyone stares expectantly at you and the raven-haired girl in the back of the cart. She looks distantly out of the window, ignoring the fact that her work-order is missing, not to mention the strange coincidence of your voice recorder breaking down just as you were checking her voice pass…"

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The City of Metronome is a cancelled game from Tarsier Studios.

Description

When the veil of conformity is lifted you begin to question the world around you. Who and what are you, in this city of continuous labor? What is the actual purpose of the Metrognomes? And are the scouts really there to help the citizens as the Corporation claims...?

Together with the mysterious girl New, you set out to uncover her hidden past. A journey that will lead you through several exceptional locations, trying to reveal the truth about the mysterious Corporation and find the purpose of the city itself...^[1]

The evil Company managed to uncover the secret of a wondrous machine capable of creating ideas and designs for world-building. Possessing this knowledge the Corporation set out to construct their own version of this machine. With the machine finished the requirement for maintenance arose, the machine and newly constructed areas needed a workforce to make sure everything was running smoothly. And what better way to employ some workers than to kidnap children, suck out their souls and put them to work?

So things were all well and good then, until a young man training to become a steam-train engineer one day met a girl aboard the train he was working on. She makes him question the purpose of life in the city, is the Corporation to be trusted? Could it be that it is evil? Together you both set off on a quest to unravel the Corporation's mysterious, probably evil plans.^[2]

Gameplay

The City of Metronome was intended to be a puzzle adventure game. The protagonist would have progressed in Metronome by creating, recording, modifying and using environmental sounds to defeat enemies or solve puzzles by manipulating people and metrognomes.

Characters

Main Characters

Tin^[3] - A young train engineer-in-training. Tin is an orphan who has grown up outside the city under the care of a chimney sweeper named "Chim", and has dreamed of working on a train. On his first day working as a ticket boy, he encounters New.^[3] He was meant to use a recording machine to capture and replay sounds for various purposes.

New - A "curious and rather aggressive young girl", she is on the run from the businessmen of the Corporation.^[3] She appears to have an understanding of the corporation and its devices. The young engineer would have initially met her on a train into the city. She is disheveled and raven-haired.

Corporation

The Corporation is the mysterious entity which governs Metronome. To maintain the Great Machine that allows them to create worlds, the Corporation carefully governs the schedules of the city's inhabitants. No one knows the origins of the Corporation. ^[3]

Mr. Gallo - A hunchback man in a wheelchair, known only from his concept art.

Clock Maestro - A tall man with a pocket watch and a long coat, known only from his concept art.

The Scissor Man - A mysterious tall man who appears to be working for the Corporation. He would have used scissors to cut photos of characters, and thus their souls, to create new metrognomes. It seems that some parts of his face were cut out. He seems to have a briefcase with him. He is seen in the trailer receiving a photograph of someone from the telephone office's chief of security. ^[3]

Henchman - A small man who seems to work for the Corporation, known only from his concept art.

Unnamed conductor - A small conductor who would have played music for a puppet show about Jinx. He is depicted in a screenshot assisting Tin at some point in the game. ^[4]

Scouts

Robots used by the Corporation. Scouts were meant to be powered by souls, which the player would have had to scare out of them with sound in order to defeat them.

Camera Scout - Camera Scouts were meant to take photographs of children, as well as the player. Presumably, the Scissor Man would have used these photos to create new Metrognomes.

Police Scout - The Police Scout seems to have been meant to be a mid-sized enemy. It would have been fought in the streets of the city by using recorded sounds to scare its soul out of it. It may have been intended to be able to fly using a propeller on its back.

Unknown human-faced scout - A strangely human-faced scout only seen in concept art. It appears that Tin would have encountered it in a prison segment.

Hunter Scout - A four-legged scout only seen in concept art. It may have been intended to be a boss fight.

Others

Bicycle King - A mailman on a bicycle, only seen from his concept art.

Biker Mike - A perpetually biking man employed by the Corporation to keep the clocks running. Tin would have captured the sound of his furious pedaling to use as a weapon against Camera Scouts.^[3]^[5]

Jinx - A mysterious Pied Piper-like figure who seems to have both a cat and a human form. His likeness was seen in a play in the trailer, which showed him leading away small souls using a flute.

Metrognomes - The bodies of children who have had their souls cut out by the Scissor Man. They would have been seen doing low-level jobs for the citizens of Metronome and could be manipulated by Tin using sound.

Notes - Floating notes seen in the trailers and concept art. Their specific purpose is unknown, but they may simply be representations of sound used by Tin.

The Operator - A four-armed man who operates the switchboards.

Picolo - A bellhop only seen in concept art.

Dr. H. Berg - A lanky, pipe-smoking man seen in the trailer as a dentist and in the concept art as a tailor.

Unknown female character - An unknown character seen in the right-side banner artwork of The City of Metronome web page. She is pale with black hair, and appears to wear a black, wide-brimmed hat similar to those worn by the Corporation's employees. This character has not appeared in any other media of The City of Metronome.

Unknown boy - An unknown boy seen in prison with Tin in concept art. A screenshot also appears to show the same boy sitting on a ledge. He appears to be around Tin's age, with spiky black hair.

Cancellation

Several issues relating to audio sounds, the crucial element in the game, during gameplay occur, and Tarsier Studios did not manage to resolve these issues. ^[6]

The City of Metronome was eventually canceled in 2007 when Tarsier Studios was unable to find a publisher. ^[6]

Connection to Little Nightmares

Elements from The City of Metronome have been incorporated into the Little Nightmares universe.

Both games have the "Monster stealing children" plot elements, the Metrognomes and the Nomes are very similar in name and concept, and Six's flashbacks and the beginning of The Tale of the North Wind seem to take place in a city much like Metronome.
There is an Easter Egg at the beginning of Little Nightmares where one of the covers for The City of Metronome appears with other photos on an opened briefcase that Six wakes up in.
Picolo's attire is similar to the Wax Bellman's, who is a cut character from Little Nightmares. Both of them have similar duties.
The Janitor's attire and skin tone is similar to that of the Metrognomes.
The plot for Little Nightmares II has story elements similar to The City of Metronome, with Mono and Six's unraveling of the Signal Tower's mysteries being similar to Tin and New unraveling the Corporation's evil plans.
- A character in a jumper similar to Six's is seen in a screenshot assisting Tin with defeating a Police Scout. ^[4]
The design of the Pale City is similar to that of the City in The City of Metronome, however appearing to be smaller in scale, and abandoned.
The presence of black and white photos throughout the Pale City may be a nod to the duties of the Camera Scouts.

Trivia

A remix of London Bridge is Falling Down can be heard in the trailer and cutscene.
Någonting Att Äta, Någonting Att Dricka by Karl Wehle can be heard at the end of the trailer.
Despite The City of Metronome ostensibly being canceled, Tarsier Studios do mention it in their website's About Us: "We haven’t made City of Metronome. At least, not yet…"