‘Buried’ is an ergodic literature game in which you play as an early career archaeologist who is grappling with the complexities of burial in both its academic and personal contexts. Text and its digital modifiers (code, arrangement, movement) form everything within the 218 individual passages which the player must exersise agency to navigate towards one of 50 dynamically generated endings. Buried aims to challenge how we frame and understand burial, visualisation, game and agency.

About Tara and Luke’s entry

Buried is astonishing in its many layers of meaning, rich creative assets, and technical ability.  It references a broad range of academic, theoretical and popular culture woven into a narrative which is at once universal (at least for archaeologists) and personal (becoming more so as the player moves through its many branching baths, investing their own time and understanding).  This is a visualisation but also a meditation, inviting return visits and many, many play-throughs (do we detect a hint of The Stanley Parable?).  The art, the creative writing, the creative game design, and the full (dare we say, inspiring) paradata are all at the heart of the goals of the Jam