The Archivist and the Revolution

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.

The Archivist and the Revolution placed 4th out of 70 at IFComp 2022.

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

Content Warnings

optional sexual content, illness, death, transphobia, homophobia. Content warnings included in-game.