Vanitas

Tale of Tales

About this app

Vanitas. A memento mori for your digital hands.
To lift you up when you're feeling down. And drag you down when you're up too high.

Everything flows, nothing remains.
Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!
Life is the farce we are all forced to endure.

Sometimes, when you're depressed, it's good to see something depressing.
A contemplation of the fleetingness of life. To help appreciate what you have.
A meditative experience. A spiritual toy. A reminder of the preciousness of existing.

Designed by Auriea Harvey & Michaël Samyn.
With Zoë Keating on cello.

Referring to still life paintings from the 16th and 17th century, Vanitas presents you with a gorgeously rendered 3D box filled with intriguing objects. Close the box and open it again to see new objects. You can move the objects by tilting your phone or pushing and dragging the objects with your fingers. To create pleasant arrangements that inspire and enchant. Some objects decay. A flower blooms. A bubble pops. Life like an empty dream flits by.

- Beautiful, tactile realtime 3D graphics.
- Subtle sound effects.
- Surprising musical punctuation by renowned avant cellist Zoë Keating.
- Realistic physics.
- 35 Different 3D objects with multiple states arranged over 12 stages.
- Simple, intuitive and direct interaction through multi-touch and tilt.
- Random combinations can generate over 40,000 different dynamic interactive pictures, each capable of inspiring contemplation.
- 24 Quotes on the topics of life and vanity from The Bible and from famous authors such as Rimbaud, Nietzsche, Sappho and Kundera.
- Win a gold star each time you get three identical objects.

From the makers of independent games milestones The Path, Fatale, The Endless Forest and The Graveyard.
Created at the occasion of The Art History of Games symposium in February 2010 in Atlanta.