ArchaeOS presents you with a handful of artifacts and some tarot cards you can use to interpret them in whatever manner you wish.
As a digital pilgrim, you’ve been given the incredible privilege of being able to view some artifacts through an aging archive. They’ve been carefully chosen for you in some manner, although the game does not explain how this choice is made. Perhaps the software sees something in you. Perhaps the exact moment of your arrival is more important than who you are. Maybe it’s just your presence in time and space, occupying a chosen spot at the terminal in this exact intersection of all things. Whatever its meanings are, you will be presented with some artifacts and left to puzzle out their meaning.
And it was quite a puzzle, even though there were no right or wrong answers here. Sitting with these artifacts, I keep finding myself puzzling over their meaning with the hand of tarot cards I’d been dealt. What feels right about the meaning of the spinning compass in the image above? Is it the widow who seeks new direction after death has taken something from them? Does the heiress and their lion alter the directions of existence with their ferocity and sharp claws? Their might and wealth? Or do they need direction after being given unlimited financial power when they aren’t ready to use it? Do birds need to be lead around by an interpreter in some way? I found myself spending a ton of time mulling these over.
ArchaeOS is extremely brief, but its seemingly simple puzzles encouraged me to engage with what was on the screen before me in some compelling ways. I was both seeking meanings and creating them as I interpreted the objects, then looking inside myself to see which ones felt right to me. It asks you to examine the images and the self, and made for a peaceful time interacting with my mind and what was in front of me.
ArchaeOS is playable now on itch.io.
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