A text adventure with a party at your side and dice that actually roll

Type what your character does in your own words, and the world plays along, bad ideas included. It's Zork at 2am and Friday night at the game table, and you'll play it from your terminal.

ssh naturallanguage.fun

The tape is the command in 8-bit ASCII, even parity.

*** Status ***Under construction. Nothing is playable yet.

01A session, illustrated

Black: what you'd read.Red: the dice and the bookkeeping.

A tavern · Fighter 12/12 hp · Day 1 21:40 · your turn Party: Fighter 12/12 (you) · Cleric 10/10 (AI) · Rogue 9/9 (AI)

  1. look

    A TAVERN Low beams. A fire that smokes more than it warms. Exits: north (alley door), down (cellar door). You see: the bar, a notice board. The bartender is here.

  2. challenge the fire to a staring contest

    The fire wins. You blame the smoke.

    • no roll needed

  3. ask the bartender what's scratching under the floor

    "Rats," the bartender says, not looking up. "Big ones. Nobody's been down there in a month, and nobody's been sorry."

  4. open the door

    Which door? 1. the alley door 2. the cellar door or say it in your own words

  5. 2

    The cellar door opens on stairs and a smell of wet grain.

  6. down

    A CELLAR Barrels. Damp. Two giant rats look up from a split sack.

    • roll for initiative
    • you 15, rats 11, rogue 8, cleric 4

  7. hit the nearer rat with my longsword

    You swing hard and bury your longsword in a ceiling beam. The rat watches you work it free.

    • your turn
    • d20 comes up 1
    • it misses, and everyone saw

  8. The nearer rat takes the opening, and your ankle. The other one tries the cleric and gets a mouthful of chain shirt.

    • rats' turn
    • a bite hits you for 5
    • you're at 7/12

  9. The rogue sighs at your swordwork and puts a dagger in the rat that bit you.

    • rogue's turn (AI)
    • nobody asked
    • dagger hits for 7, rat down

  10. The cleric brings a mace down on the other rat, then says a short prayer over it, which seems generous.

    • cleric's turn (AI)
    • mace hits for 7
    • that's both rats

  11. . . . later, out the alley door . . .

  12. east

    A NARROW YARD A pump with no handle. Washing that has been out too long. Exits: west (alley). You see: a rain barrel, a torch in a bracket.

    • first visit
    • made up on the spot

  13. . . . the next night, back in the alley . . .

  14. east

    The yard again. The pump still has no handle, and the washing still isn't dry. You see: a rain barrel, a torch in a bracket.

    • remembered from last time

The campaign setting is still being written, which is why the tavern has no name and neither does anyone in it.

02Type anything

The old shortcuts still work, so n goes north and i shows what you're carrying. For everything else, type it the way you'd say it at the table. Nobody makes you guess the verb.

jump through the window
You make it. Most of the window comes with you.
ask the bartender if the rats pay rent
"In droppings," the bartender says. "Late."
wait behind the barrels for the rats to come to me
You wait. The rats come to you, as requested.
xyzzy
Nothing happens. Wrong cave.

03Your party

You play one character, and AI companions sit in the other seats. Each one takes its own turns and has opinions about how you take yours. Nobody told the rogue to go for that rat, and nobody asked for the sigh.

The seats are built so your friends can take them over one day. Multiplayer is the plan, but it won't be in the first version.

04The world remembers

The places that matter, the monsters, and the rules are written by hand, and they play fair. The game is 5E compatible, built on the SRD 5.2.1, so a longsword still does a d8. The AI telling the story can describe a giant rat however it likes, but it can't give one 40 hit points because that would be more dramatic.

The little things get made up as you play, like a yard behind the alley that nobody planned, or what the bartender says about the noise downstairs. Once you've seen something, it stays that way. Come back a month later and the pump still won't have a handle.

05It's just SSH

There's nothing to install and no account to sign up for, because your SSH key is your character's key. Connect again with the same key and your party will be waiting where you left them. It'll work from any terminal you already have, including the one on the server you're supposed to be fixing.

  • Terminal over SSHsignature
  • Web clientplanned
  • Mobilemaybe later
  • Steam desktop buildmaybe later

06For the curious

Every turn gets recorded, dice and all, and any turn can be replayed. That makes the game a test bench, too. Put a different model in the game master's chair or in a companion's seat, and you can see how well it runs a game and how well it plays in a party. There are no results yet. The details are under the hood.

Under the hood ->