tr Tender RelicsCare is a sequence of small choices

A quiet game of restraint

Care for old objects without erasing their past.

Tender Relics is a free restoration puzzle for players who enjoy observation and careful decisions. Inspect an old object under different lights, learn what its surface needs, and choose a gentle treatment, because some marks are damage and others are history worth keeping. It has 18 restoration studies and a daily bench.

Each object brings a short history and a surface that only shows its problems under the right light. Handle it too much and the damage count rises, so look first and touch second.

Free, no account. Your bench journal stays in this browser.

D · dust T · tarnish A · accretion F · lifting flake P · significant patina to preserve
Your progress & daily archive
Collection mastery0 / 18 treated
Daily bench archiveSeven deterministic treatmentsNew object at 00:00 ET · America/TorontoCurrent run: No run in progress
Studio distinctions0 / 6 earned
Treatment journal0 attempts retained
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    Collection

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    Eleven other independent, free, local-first games. Each is its own self-contained site with no shared account, cross-site tracker, or runtime dependency.

    Bench notes

    Inspect. Stabilize. Clean. Stop.

    Review all three views, then approve the artifact-specific treatment scope. Overall light identifies loose dust. Raking light reveals lifting flakes and raised accretions; conceptual UV distinguishes designated tarnish from significant patina. Inspect can classify an individual square in any view. Use Set flake for F, Soft brush for D, Controlled swab for T, Wooden pick for A, and Document & preserve for P.

    Lifting flakes must be stabilized before an adjacent area can be treated. The bench blocks that intervention without adding damage, so you can revise the sequence deliberately.

    Connected-area pass treats one contiguous region of the same revealed condition in a deliberate intervention. Undo is unlimited, but handling cautions remain in the attempt journal and prevent the Steady hands distinction.

    Six handling-damage points end the treatment and send the object for supervised review. Undo restores both the surface and the allowance, so a halted bench is always recoverable.

    The care score opens at 5,000 and subtracts 320 per handling-damage point, 180 per guidance step, and 22 for each intervention beyond the planned number of passes. The bench journal shows the running arithmetic.

    The game is conceptual, not a real conservation procedure.
    Bench shortcuts

    Play without the mouse

    These work while an object is open on the bench. Tab reaches every control, and the arrow keys, Home, and End move around the treatment surface.

    1 to 6
    Choose Inspect, Set flake, Soft brush, Controlled swab, Wooden pick, or Document and preserve
    Q W E
    Switch to overall, raking, or conceptual UV light
    Arrows
    Move the focused surface square; Enter or Space applies the selected tool
    N
    Focus the next unresolved condition visible in this view
    U
    Undo the last intervention
    H
    Request one condition hint
    G
    Toggle the connected-area pass
    R
    Restart the object
    ?
    Open this list from anywhere
    Bench statistics

    Your treatment history
    Studio preferences

    Workbench settings