Arbiter: A Year That Cannot End

Every year, someone wakes up at the top of the tower. 

This year, it's you. Below lies Vertigo, a village lost in the mountains with no lord and no laws. Every day the villagers climb up to you with a request. Whatever you answer is written in the Book of Rules, and from that day the village lives by it.

How it plays

1. A villager climbs the tower. You see them walking up with a ! over their head. Tap them to listen.
2. Swipe the card left or right. Before you let go, you see what changes and the rule you are about to write.
3. The village obeys. Woodcutters go out at dawn, candles climb the tower at sunset, patrols walk the streets at night. Some choices come back days later, in ways nobody planned.

The Book remembers

Go against your own word and the village notices. Trust drops, and with it how much the village listens to you: people start breaking your rules, families pack their carts and leave. Keep your word, and they climb the tower to bring you gifts.

Features

• A living diorama: a hand-made 3D village with 2D villagers in pixel art, seen from the watchtower.
• 55 requests, and every answer becomes a rule with a daily effect and a mark you can see in the village.
• Three forces, Order, Nature and Faith, that reshape the village at every threshold.
• Trust: contradict yourself and you pay for it.
• Small troubles during the day: a roof catches fire, a sheep runs off to the woods. Send help, or see how it ends.
• Four seasons in one year: golden summer, rust autumn, winter snow, rain, a merchant from the south, night feasts.
• 11 endings, each with its own scene, and a gallery to collect them.
• Torn pages left by previous Arbiters, and a lantern on the hill that keeps blinking the same message.
• English and Italian.

Controls

• Mouse or touch: drag the village to look around, wheel or pinch to zoom.
• Drag the card left or right, or use the arrow keys, to answer.
• Pause and speed at the bottom of the screen. ESC opens the settings.
• The game saves by itself at every dawn.

On macOS

The Mac version is signed and notarized by Apple. Unzip it, drag Arbiter into Applications and double-click to play.

Part of Final World

Arbiter is set in the north-eastern mountains of Repetis, in Final World. Read more in the Final World lore archive.

Made by Final Studio.

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More from Final World

Short stories: Polvere · Calante
Open journey: The Roads of Columna
Arcade: Ouros
The world behind them all: Lore Archive