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.


Updated 19 days ago
StatusReleased
PlatformsWindows, macOS, Linux, Android, HTML5
Rating
Rated 4.6 out of 5 stars
(16 total ratings)
AuthorAutumn Chen
GenreInteractive Fiction
TagsDystopian, Female Protagonist, LGBT, Narrative, Sci-fi, Slice Of Life, Story Rich, Text based, Transgender

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archivist-download.zip 572 kB
Version 3

Development log

Comments

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(+1)

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!

(+1)

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

(-2)

this game was physically painful to play

(+4)

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

(+3)

I love this