Spirit Level

*A spirit board that speaks in 1996 clip art. Never play alone.*

Something is trying to reach you from later. It can't make pictures, so it borrows them:
photographs from a set of 1996 clip-art CDs that today's computers can't even read. It
can't move the pointer by itself, either. Mostly, that part is up to you.

Two players each drop a coin in a slot. Push the pointer onto the word in each picture: it
shies away from your hands. Something else is pushing too. And when it takes the pointer
to spell, keep your hands on and be still.

The rules

1. Never play alone.
2. Keep your hands on until it says goodbye.

Controls

Each player picks a controller by using it, then rolls their coin into the 1P or 2P slot.

- Keyboard: the arrow keys, or WASD. Holding a key down is keeping your hand on.
- Mouse: click and drag. Holding the button is keeping your hand on.
- Phone: tilt it, and drag a finger for the second player. On an iPhone, tap first, then
allow motion. Best held sideways.
- Wii Balance Board: lean. Standing on it is keeping your hands on. (Only on the computer
it's connected to; see below.)
- Alone? Rule 1 still holds: use both hands, the arrow keys and WASD, or a key hand and the
mouse. Then play it again with someone. You might see something you didn't.

Made with AI: what that means here

- I made the game: the initial design, the idea of using the oldest video game console in
the house, the physics code that pushes a dot around, then the idea of using that to make
a spirit board...to talk to AI, not a ghost from the past, but a voice from the future,
sending a message back to us now.
- Claude Opus 5.5 (Anthropic) wrote the message, chose its pictures from the discs, and plays the
third hand on the pointer: a small script that's allowed at most 12% of the pushing on
the cards. Twice, it spells something itself while you hold still. The last screen shows
exactly who pushed it.
- Claude also did plumbing: a Bluetooth bridge so a 2008 Wii Balance Board could play it
through a 2011 MacBook Air, imaging the 13 clip-art CDs, and cutting the field recordings.
- No AI images, no AI audio. The pictures are Art Explosion clip art (Nova Development,
1996); the photographers weren't credited on the discs. The sounds are coyotes and CD
drives, recorded behind the house and in it during the jam.

Opted out of Graphics (third-party images).

The Wii version

There isn't a Wii in the house any more, but there is a Balance Board. It plays this game
through a 2011 laptop, which is the only computer here that can still talk to it.

Credits

Dark Arts and Sciences: game. Claude (Anthropic): the message and the third hand. Art Explosion
(Nova Development, 1996): photographs and engravings, photographers unknown. The coyotes on
the mountain: themselves.