Known Mysteries is a lo-fi climate fable that runs off a solar-powered server on its developer’s balcony

Image credit: Kara Stone

You might remember Kara Stone as the developer of Ritual Of The Moon, a game about a banished witch that is played in bursts of five minutes a day, over the course of a lunar cycle. Alice B (RPS in peace) dedicated an article series to it back in 2019, summarising it as “a sad, quiet, meditative game about breathing and loneliness and drawing pictures in the stars”. Stone’s forthcoming Known Mysteries is a ritual of the sun, I guess. Slated for launch on 23rd October, it’s the first of several, creatively low-carbon projects that will run off a custom, solar-powered server Stone has set up on her apartment balcony in Calgary, Canada.

Known Mysteries – Gameplay Trailer

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Stone’s solar server project is broadly an exploration of the artistic possibilities of reliance on locally-generated renewable power. Known Mysteries itself is a sorrowful climate change fable in which a woman from a small Canadian town reckons with the dastardly doings of the neighbourhood oil-tech corporation. I’m not captivated by the premise and confessional tone, if I’m honest, but I love the corroded, iridescent visuals, and I’m very interested in how Stone (who serves as writer, designer, artist and programmer) has tailored Known Mysteries towards the server’s capacities.

“The game is designed to be low-carbon,” she observes in a press release. “It has highly compressed images and video that utilizes found footage, a low frame rate, and is divided into three distinct streamable chapters.”

I wrote about Stone’s solar server for Techradar in 2022, back when I plied the ever-ravenous waves of freelance. We talked a little at the time about how embracing the practicalities of locally generated solar power – for example, variable yields based on the time of day or weather, and difficulty scaling up with demand – might push back against always-on recreational culture.

“The idea is that things don’t have to run 100% of the time, especially access to a game – it’s really not crucial for anyone’s life,” Stone told me back then, scandalously. “So even if the server was down every night in my timezone – which it shouldn’t be – I think that’s fine.” The emphasis on not having constant access to the game naturally makes me think of Ritual Of The Moon’s daily rhythms and minimised playtime. (The server is hooked up to a car battery, so it can store a bit of power for overnight operation.)

Stone aside, Known Mysteries is the work of another programmer Chris Kerich and voice actor PARTYGIRL, with music from Amateur Painter. Stone has yet to announce any other games for the solar server. I’m intrigued to see whether the distribution platform might give rise to a range of bespoke “solar” genres, perhaps comparable to the disarming alt-history fusions of UFO 50.