Archive — A Narrative Investigation Game About Curating Human History

This is a submission for the June Solstice Game Jam Archive — The Last Historian of Humanity What if history wasn't discovered... but selected? History is often treated as something permanent—something waiting to be uncovered. Archive asks a different question: What happens when humanity loses the ability to tell the difference between truth, memory, and fabrication? You play as the final Archivist after the collapse of civilization. Humanity's knowledge survives, but it has become fragmented, contradictory, and corrupted. Your responsibility is no longer to preserve everything—you must decide what deserves to be remembered. Every decision changes the civilization that will inherit your version of history. What I Built Archive is a narrative investigation game where players reconstruct humanity's past by examining historical memories, investigating evidence, resolving contradictions, and deciding what becomes official history. Unlike traditional mystery games, there is rarely a perfect answer. Instead, every investigation asks questions such as: Should conflicting memories be preserved? Is stability more important than truth? Can compassion justify rewriting history? If no one can verify the past, what does "truth" even mean? Each recovered memory is presented as a historical article. Players investigate through classified documents, research papers, witness testimonies, forensic reports, personal journals, and government archives before making irreversible decisions. Those decisions reshape the civilization that follows. By the end of the game, players don't simply receive a score—they discover the kind of society they created. Why It Fits the Theme The June Solstice represents a turning point. It is the moment when one season gives way to another, when light begins yielding to darkness, or darkness begins yielding to light. Archive explores a similar transition. Not between seasons... but between certainty and uncertainty. Human civilization reaches a moment where