Starting a game, running a mission and connecting ages

1. Main rule

The Atlas connects different ages through objects, places, texts, stories and other traces. Each window shows something that already happened. A Tracekeeper may walk, talk, collect, carry and help inside it because their participation is already part of the open moment, but they cannot change a major historical event or deliver knowledge from the future.

The Atlas does not make people separated by centuries meet or visit one another. A transition always states the date, place and question connecting the two ages.

Public editorial order of the sagas:

1. Prehistory
2. Sumerians
3. Egyptians
4. Phoenicians and Carthaginians
5. Greeks
6. Persians
7. Hebrews
8. Iberians
9. Romans

This is the presentation order used by the library and menu. It is not all human history, a rigid chronology or a ladder from “inferior” to “superior” peoples. The Atlas may connect questions across non-adjacent sagas whenever dates and evidence support the link.

2. Beginning the game

1. The player chooses play alone, create a private room or join with an invitation or code.
2. They enter a name or alias and choose their own avatar.
3. They privately choose 10–14, 15–25 or 26+. The range is not shown to others and does not change difficulty.
4. The Arecibo cinematic presents the real message of 16 November 1974: 1,679 ones and zeroes sent from Puerto Rico towards M13.
5. The Atlas explains that the signal is still crossing space. An Avenyth beacon detects the trace it leaves in space-time and reports the discovery to the central network with almost no noticeable delay. The human wave does not travel faster.
6. The bits are arranged in 23 columns and 73 rows. The image shows information about life, DNA, a human figure, the Solar System and Arecibo. It does not contain the name Earth or a written sentence.
7. The Avenyth Custodians refuse to answer on the basis of one image and send Veritas and Aletheia to follow the trace and build a verifiable archive. Before contact, both adopt human field appearances without copying or impersonating anyone.
8. Arca reaches present-day Earth and makes a rapid scan. It shows science, art, care, war, hunger and manipulation, but admits that it does not understand their causes.
9. Veritas and Aletheia introduce three rules: we need traces, we cannot change what happened, and we must acknowledge what we do not know.
10. The Atlas detects an increase in connected traces beginning about twelve thousand years ago. Interference removes the uncertainty level from one reading; the Obscurantists are not yet explained.
11. The game chooses Veritas or Aletheia as field guide. A solo player decides. In cooperative play, the team makes a visible choice and the person who created the room only breaks a tie. One guide always travels; they do not occupy a player place, collect objects, vote or solve the puzzle. The choice is saved for the campaign and can only be changed aboard Arca between missions.
12. The Atlas opens the first stable window at Sarımğara Çakmaktepe around 9600 BCE. Arecibo's last pulse becomes the sound of Kael working stone. After “Then begin by looking”, the team enters the 3D environment and learns to move.

Çakmaktepe appears as an area of limestone hills with a reconstructed occupied cave, circular sunken homes and special structures cut into bedrock. Wooden posts are used; there are no T-shaped pillars. Göbekli Tepe lies roughly 30 km away, about eight hours on foot, and is saved for a later stage. No alpine lake, mountain river or invented forest is shown as confirmed fact.

3. Prehistory 3D tutorial

The tutorial teaches one action at a time:

1. walk and move the camera;
2. approach a visible trace;
3. observe an object;
4. listen to a short explanation;
5. collect only what someone requested;
6. check which map zone remains;
7. carry it to the stated person or place;
8. open a written conversation;
9. choose “Tell me more” or save the question;
10. share a piece of evidence with the team.

The chosen guide accompanies the tutorial. They first allow the player to act. If asked for help, they recall one action only: look, check the remaining zone, collect the requested stone or return to Lorn. They never point directly to a puzzle solution.

Mission 1.0, The Beads of Sarımğara, applies the whole tutorial. Lorn marks four safe map zones. Each contains one small mission stone. Players locate and deliver them; Lorn compares the pieces and completes a bead ornament through a shortened interaction. Objective, four zones and graduated help remain the same for all ages. Only the tone changes:

• Children: one zone and one instruction at a time.
• Young people: a direct reminder of the remaining zone.
• Adults: a neutral reminder of the same remaining zone.

Stone beads are documented at Çakmaktepe. The particular ornament, its recipient and its meaning are reconstructed. The game does not teach real drilling or stone-cutting techniques.

The first items use plain explanations:

• Flint: a hard stone that can break and leave a very sharp edge.
• Ochre: earth or stone that can leave a yellow, brown or red colour.
• Worked bone: bone that a person shaped to use as a tool.
• Wild ear of grain: the part of a plant that holds grains; it is not yet organised cultivation.
• Almond or pistachio shells: remains of fruits gathered in the area.
• Dry and damp wood: two materials that react differently near fire.

All are virtual objects confirmed for the scene. The game does not teach players to identify real food, knap stone or carry out a dangerous activity.

The 3D web alpha includes a first playable version of all ten adventures. It must add the revised arrival mission: the Kael prologue, Lorn's request, written dialogue, objects and clues, educational cards, decisions with costs, consequences and local saving. The old text simulator for 1.1, 1.3 and 1.5 remains only as a historical UX reference. Unreal remains the later high-fidelity edition for PC and consoles, without replacing what is validated through the web game.

4. Mission cycle

Each mission follows this rhythm, with variations to prevent repetition:

1. Short cinematic: shows a need or change in the environment.
2. Invitation: the character shares part of daily life without pretending not to know it.
3. Meaningful request: asks for an object, a sign or another person's help and explains why it matters.
4. 3D exploration: the team searches different routes, listens and examines.
5. Delivery or use: the object changes a visible situation; it does not vanish into an abstract counter.
6. Edge of discovery: a new problem appears that the character cannot solve alone.
7. Test: the group combines materials, tasks or observations and sees a consequence.
8. Decision: when the dilemma requires it, the group votes, debates, receives a new clue and votes again.
9. Cinematic ending: the character states the lesson in plain words.
10. Record: the Atlas separates established, possible, disputed and reconstructed material.
11. Optional depth: any player can ask more until the character's limit is reached.

A collection task is approved only if it answers three questions: Who needs it? What for? What changes when it arrives? If there is no visible answer, the object does not belong in the mission.

5. Written and free conversations

Scenes that introduce an objective, a critical test, a canonical decision or an ending use written and reviewed dialogue.

In safe areas of a mission, the player can open Conversation Mode:

• the camera moves to a close-up;
• the character keeps the same identity as the 3D version;
• the user asks by text or push-to-talk;
• in cooperative play, one person speaks at a time and everyone sees subtitles;
• the character answers with one simple idea and may ask one short question;
• the AI receives the period, mission, learned point and character limit;
• if no safe answer exists, the character acknowledges the limit and suggests saving the question.

The character is always present in 3D. The player may enable an AI-video close-up for free conversation. If disabled, the network is unavailable or the provider fails, the camera keeps the 3D face, displays subtitles and uses a written fallback response. A mission never depends on the close-up.

6. Cooperative flow

1. The character presents the shared need.
2. The chosen guide recalls the objective if asked, without adding evidence or proposing an answer.
3. The rotating leader receives shared items and organises the board.
4. Each player explores a different area, conversation or object.
5. Everyone may observe evidence and consider affected people; there are no fixed “mental classes”.
6. The server confirms collections, deliveries and objective changes.
7. When an important decision appears, the first secret vote takes place.
8. The shared screen shows the distribution without names.
9. The group shares evidence and discusses it.
10. A new clue, test or consequence allows everyone to reconsider.
11. A second secret vote takes place.
12. The leader organises the response but cannot change votes or hide a contribution.
13. The character reacts, and the Atlas records the conclusion, confidence, limits and open question.

If there is a tie, the team searches for another sign or keeps two hypotheses. The leader does not decide alone. A disconnected player's place is held briefly and resynchronises on return.

7. Changing act and age

After 1.3, 1.6 and 1.9, the team returns briefly to Arca. The field guide and the protagonist who remained aboard meet there. Together they compare what was learned with the initial scan and discover a new contradiction or Interference. After 1.10, the Atlas brings the ten conclusions and questions together in the First Record of Earth. This ending belongs to Prehistory and does not depend on Sumer being available.

At the end of a campaign, the Atlas shows:

1. what the player learned;
2. which part is reconstruction;
3. which question connects to the next age;
4. the visible change of date and place.

Examples of knowledge bridges, which do not have to match the menu order:

• Prehistory → Sumerians: from perishable vessels and marks to fired vessels and clay records in later cities. The route remains locked until produced and reviewed.
• Sumerians → Egyptians: different ways of organising water, work and writing; the game does not claim that one civilisation copied every advance from the other.
• Egyptians → Hebrews: the Atlas changes period and distinguishes historical remains from biblical tradition.
• Hebrews → Phoenicians and Carthaginians: trade, ports and alphabets in the eastern Mediterranean.
• Phoenicians and Carthaginians → Greeks: movement of objects, words and ideas without one single line of progress.
• Greeks → Romans: Rome adopts and transforms knowledge from many peoples.
• Romans → Iberians: contact, exchange and conflict from different perspectives.
• Iberians → Persians: a move east to compare empires, roads and water management; every technology keeps its own date.

8. Knowledge threads

After an explanation, any player can select “Tell me more”. The character develops the idea as far as their experience and the approved evidence allow. If they cannot continue, they acknowledge the limit and the Atlas saves the question.

When a later age returns to the subject, the Atlas shows:

1. the last idea learned;
2. the question left open;
3. the new tool, need or evidence that allows progress;
4. why the earlier character could not observe that part;
5. the new character's limit.

The Tracekeeper tells the later character the summary. That character does not pretend to know someone who lived centuries earlier. See Knowledge threads.

9. Age and accessibility

Everyone receives the same puzzles, equivalent hints and the same learning. The age range only changes tone: warmer for children, direct for young people and neutral for adults. No version assumes general knowledge or adds jargon.

In a room with mixed ages, each device may show its own wording. Changing range does not restart the game or increase difficulty.

Every spoken conversation has subtitles. Every voice input has a text alternative. Cinematics can be paused or replayed, and necessary information reappears in the mission journal.