Arbor.exe

Arbor is a holistic experience: a text-based game accompanied by a cassette of ambient music and a vial of chaga mushrooms (to be brewed as a tea). Drawing inspiration from the surreal arboreal setting depicted in the cassette’s album artwork, players are invited to enter an abandoned structure deep within the woods. As the game progresses, players encounter randomized glitches in the text output, which — in the spirit of Alvin Lucier’s I Am Sitting in a Room — increase in frequency until the text is all but obscured. There are eight possible outcomes in the game, depending on the choices made by the player. A nod to Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves, the game and its accoutrements allude to the new and ancient ghosts who stir the leaves beneath our feet.