Tale of Tales's intriguing interactive art game Vanitas lets you 'contemplate morality' on iOS and Android

Inspired by the still life painting style of the same name that flourished in the 17th century, Vanitas is an application that claims to offer a digital portal into the past.

In this part-game, part-meditative tool, you are presented with a wooden box, which reveals three objects when opened. You can then interact with the objects by tilting your device or touching the screen.

The box is randomly populated by items like playing cards, coins, keys, and dice. Some of the objects, like flowers or bubbles, decay or disappear over time. If the box contains three matching items, a gold star appears on the lid.

According to developer Tale of Tales (responsible for explorable painting The Graveyard on iPhone), the objects in the box are meant to remind the viewer of "the fleetingness of life": this makes considerably more sense once you know that the word 'vanitas' means 'emptiness' in Latin.

Originally commissioned for the Art History of Games symposium in Atlanta last year, Vanitas is Tale of Tales's first game as part of the Notgames initiative, a collection of developers seeking to move away from traditional game formats and explore the potential of interactive art.

"We had always been skeptical about the limitations of the conventions of games for creating expressive software. But the explicit decision to consciously avoid any such conventions has been a great help," Notgames founder Michael Samyn said.

Featuring 35 different objects capable of generating over 40,000 "dynamic pictures", Vanitas is now available on the App Store at the introductory price of 69p / 99c, and on the Android Market for 81p / 99c [download].