The Visitors' Game

An alien games device recovered from beyond the Aperture; powered, it runs a single game.

Description

A palm-thick slab of dark, faintly iridescent material with a recessed screen and no controls the Department can identify — a games device of another people. Powered (by no means we can trace), it runs one game: a luminous serpentine glyph that grows as it consumes sigils across a lattice without edges. The rules are plain within a minute; the patience to master it is not ours.

Provenance

Carried back from beyond the Aperture by the Ministry of Grace on one of their crossings, and passed to the Department.

Condition

Operational. The screen is undimmed, the slab cool to the touch; it asks for nothing.

Display

A working copy runs at the exhibit terminal: enter the game.