The Clockwork Automaton

Read the face: a FACS expression puzzle

The automaton's face is built on nine action units from the Facial Action Coding System (FACS), the system animators, character artists and psychologists use to describe faces: inner and outer brow raisers, brow lowerer, upper lid raiser, lid tightener, lip corner puller and depressor, lip stretcher and jaw drop.

It shows one of twelve expressions. Several differ by a single unit: Grief and Doubt by the inner brows, Wonder and Surprise by the upper lids, Anger and Rage by the upper lids too. Seeing the difference is easy; saying it precisely under time pressure is the game.

Play the first module free Read the notebook
The automaton's brass face with its brows drawn together and the mouth corners turned down

How to set it up

  1. Play the free face module on the product page. Give the notebook to your AI or to a friend.
  2. Describe what the brows, lids, mouth and jaw are doing, not what the face "feels". Your partner matches the units to an expression and a key.
  3. Three faces, four minutes. The full game adds four more modules.

From a character art studio

Arvolve is a character art studio; its founder sculpts FACS blendshapes for film characters. The expressions here follow FACS unit combinations rather than cartoon shorthand, so a raised inner brow means what it means on a real face.

The full game: five modules

GBP 6 one-off

The face, the gear train, the masks, the chimes and the hallmarks. Four difficulty levels. Runs offline in your browser.

More ways to play