Dowsing Rods: Spirit Finder

Choose a room or a yard. Take up the rods. Walk slowly, and watch them.

Dowsing Rods puts two copper L-rods in your gloved hands, seen through your own eyes, swinging freely on brass sleeves. Their motion comes from the phone's real sensors. Turn, and the rods lag behind and swing back. Walk, and every step jostles them. Tilt, and they drift. Somewhere around you, laid out fresh for every walk, something is waiting: a presence, a cold spot, something buried, running water. Walk toward one and the rods begin to lean, drift together, hesitate, then suddenly swing across into an X, within about a metre and a half. Walk away and they part.

THE RODS
• Photoreal copper L-rods on brass sleeves, first-person, held in knitted gloves.
• Turning, walking and tilting all move them; your steps are counted from the phone's bounce.
• Dusk and candlelight: real wood floor and paving textures, lantern light that gutters near a spot.
• Sound synthesized live: room tone or wind, the metallic creak of the sleeves, the ring when the rods land on each other, a low tone that rises as you near a spot. Headphones recommended.
• Haptics when the rods cross.

SEEK
• Choose a room or a yard before you start: indoors the spots lie a few metres away, outdoors farther.
• Walk slowly and follow where the rods lean. Presences, cold spots, something buried, running water.

ASK
• Hold still and ask a yes/no question, aloud or typed.
• The rods cross for yes and swing apart for no. Sometimes they will not say.
• Ask the same question in the same sitting and you get the same answer.

MAP
• Your walk drawn from above in ink on old paper, with a mark wherever the rods crossed.
• No GPS and no location permission: your position comes only from your steps and turns.

THE JOURNAL
• Every walk is saved on the phone: date, time, duration, steps, distance, what was found and where, and the answers.
• Name the place afterwards. Share a card with the map of your walk.

ALSO
• No account, no server. Works offline, ads aside. Nine app languages.
• Ads only on the home screen, in the journal and before a new walk. The two video offers, sensitizing the rods for 10 minutes or revealing one more spot, are optional.
• Walk slowly and watch where you are going.

For entertainment purposes. The spots and the answers are generated by the app.