The Archivist and the Revolution
Content Warnings
optional sexual content, violence, illness, death, transphobia, homophobia. Content warnings included in-game.
A woman alone in a dying city, on a dying world. What will be left when it all falls apart?
The Archivist and the Revolution is a slice-of-life/romance/history simulator set in a far-future sealed city that has undergone cycles of destruction and revival. You play as Em, a middle-aged woman who is no longer an archivist, as she struggles with rent payments, chronic illness, and the remnants of past relationships.
~60k words, 30 minutes - 1 hour to reach an ending.
Awards
- 4th out of 70 at IFComp 2022
- IGF Honorable Mention for Excellence in Narrative
- Nominated for Best Game, Best Setting, Best NPCs, Best PC, and Best Implementation at the 2022 XYZZY Awards
- Winner, Outstanding Worldbuilding, Outstanding Science Fiction Game at the 2022 IFDB Awards
- Shortlisted at the Queer Games Festival
- 28th place in the 2023 Interactive Fiction Top 50
Reviews
"An imaginative world with interesting speculative fiction chops, well-realized characters, and a presentation of what it’s like to be understatedly but overwhelmingly oppressed." - Lucian Smith
"Suffice to say The Archivist and the Revolution is brilliant, desperately sad, mechanically detailed and set in a stunningly realized world that comes to life in suicidally unpleasant ways." - Kit Riemer
"the way I was able to retroactively construct a clear, clean narrative arc out of so many randomly-generated pieces, quite sure that I missed more words than I saw, was little short of magical." - Mike Russo
"This story seeps into your bones and lives there." - Arlo Elm
"Like all the best speculative fiction I found the allegory at once unsettlingly relatable, as it could be for any subject of late era capitalism, but also profoundly illuminating about existences beyond my own." - Caliban
"This is effective but not enticing. There's stuff to discover, down in the depths of the DNA archives; but any subject you care about will cost you more than you can afford." - Andrew Plotkin
Download
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Development log
- V2.3 - A Final Update (For Now)67 days ago
- Awards (and other updates)96 days ago
- V2.2 - minor updatesOct 13, 2023
- Bug fixSep 22, 2023
- The Music UpdateSep 08, 2023
- PostmortemMay 17, 2023
- V2.0 - Post-comp releaseMay 15, 2023
Comments
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"The Archivist and the Revolution" got reviewed by the arcane cache, a underground blog for underground games:
„The game and its world are well created – not only in the sense that it contains many creative ideas that go beyond the (also present) science-fiction cliches, but also since it does a really good job to depict the struggles and predicaments of the protagonist – the descriptions and structures feel inherent logical and very natural, and even though many of today’s many pressing matters are thematised, it never feels tokenistic doing so ... The Archivist and the Revolution“ is a well realized, highly political piece of hyperlink fiction that doesn’t need to hide behind most of the contemporary commercial science fiction stories I’ve read in the past few years; its direct language, its naturalist approach, the – rather pronounced – gameplay elements, and its clear political agenda make it enjoyable to underground gaming enthusiasts and a larger audience alike."
Well done!
https://thunderperfectwitchcraft.org/arcane_cache/2024/04/10/the-archivist-and-t...
Profoundly sad but showing the important angle, it hurts but it needs to exist. А bit confusing with names being just single letters, but you know what i don't even care, bc the rest of it is amazing.
this game is freakin amazing. ending i got made me feel like a cowardly slimeball. might not be able to play again. 10/10
such a beautiful, heartbreaking story
This was painful to play through, but it was also incredibly cathartic. Thanks for making this.
Got the first ending. I feel like even when this pandemic ends, this game would remain more and more relevant. Thanks for making it and the postmortem is great.
I loved it! Got the 2nd ending! I don’t know if I want to try others, i’m sure that’s the one I want!
cyberpunk settings (if that's even an accurate description) are so cool. very immersive story/game. would love to see more in this particular setting
Now that rating is over, I can comment here and tell you how much your story dragged me into it and left me memories I’ll cherish for a long time. Thank you for this precious piece of art
I love this