The Long Now
Sequence deep time against three independent clocks — uranium–lead, fossils and superposition — and let them check each other.
4
levels4–15 min
a run, player-paced7
samplesNo timer
player-paced, always
The Long Now
Sequence deep time against three independent clocks — uranium–lead, fossils and superposition — and let them check each other.
A hand of geological boundaries and a timeline four and a half billion years long, drawn on a logarithmic axis with its decades marked. Placing an event is a claim. Samples buy evidence: a uranium–lead band, a fossil stage, or a logged section that orders everything it exposes. The sequence wins when it agrees with every band and the evidence pins every neighbouring pair. The finale gives the order and asks for the cheapest proof.
Levels
4 levelsThe tag on each level says how it gets harder. Levels gate on ideas, not on each other — jump wherever it gets interesting.
What decides the outcome
The game never restates the science — it imports it. These are the model layers that do the deciding.
Every age (the ICS chart v2026/06 boundaries and stages, through time-scale), the uranium–lead band (geochronology's concordia arithmetic on the vendored decay constant, and its useful range), and superposition (stratigraphy's principle, named in its words). The game types no age and no constant.
Why it teaches
The author's own delete-the-science argument: remove this game's substrate and there is nothing left to choose.
Nothing distinguishes one placement from another except dated evidence with its uncertainty: a band that does not overlap another orders its events, a band that does leaves them open, and a logged section orders what it exposes. Without the chart, the concordia equation and superposition there are no bands and no relations, every order agrees with nothing and nothing pins a pair. With them, the learner meets the cases the lesson lives in: two clocks agreeing on one event, one clock blind where another resolves, and a proof bought with the fewest samples.
Accessibility
The contract's declarations, stated before you commit to a run.
Keyboard
Playable start to finish from the keyboard.
Screen reader
Every move is narrated — the narration is the state, not a description of a picture.
Motion
Reduced-motion: consequences render statically.
Audio
Silent — no sound, and nothing on screen moves on its own.