The Armillary Sphere
Turn the rings of the heavens until the Sun stands above and the Moon below. Five puzzles, each with more rings and more of them turning together. Two or three minutes.
Opus Magnum · Chapter V
The Armillary Sphere
Alchemists waited for the right sky before they lit the furnace. "As above, so below" was their rule: what happens in the heavens happens in the vessel.
Line up every ring: the Sun and the planets at the top, the Moon at the bottom.
The work rests
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I made this game the way I make projects for clients: many separate parts, brought into one piece of work. If you need something interactive, write to me.
Why the rings turn together
An armillary sphere is a model of the sky built from metal rings: the equator, the tropics, the path of the Sun. Alchemists and astrologers used it to read the right moment for a work. Starting under the wrong sky meant starting again.
The Emerald Tablet, the shortest and most quoted text in alchemy, says: "That which is above is like that which is below." In this game the Sun and the planets belong above and the Moon below. The rings are joined by rods, so moving one part of the sky moves another, just as the alchemists believed the heavens moved the metals.
Every puzzle is built by scrambling a solved sky with a few random turns, so every sky can be set. Par is the number of turns used to scramble it.
- Tap the right side of a ring to turn it one step clockwise. Tap the left side to turn it back.
- A golden rod: the joined ring turns the same way. A silver rod: it turns the other way.
- Sun and planets go to the top of the axis. The Moon goes to the bottom.
- Each sky is worth 200 grains, plus a bonus for finishing near par and 100 more for finishing at par.
- Five skies in all, from two rings to five.