game Archives - Home For Fiction

game

Marco Polo: a Text Adventure Game

July 2, 2025

game, javascript, programming, video games

Technically speaking, the JavaScript program I’ll be talking about today is a text-adventure game. And yet, it isn’t quite that – not like Mansion Escape, let alone The Clock Village. Yes, Marco Polo is a text adventure game – free, open-source, available to all – but at the same time it’s sort of a hybrid game.

Marco Polo emulates the text-adventure video games of the 80s, yet it’s also inspired from the eponymous board game of the same period. You assume the role of Marco Polo, the famous explorer who traveled from Italy to China and back. You must cross the entire continent of Asia, experiencing adventures and dangers, trading, and successfully negotiating with others.

With the exception of the intro, outro, and basic game functions (showing instructions, starting, saving, or loading a game), Marco Polo is a pure text adventure game interface: There is text, and you enter commands. It’s retro, and it’s supposed to be.

Marco Polo text adventure screenshot — Here’s a typical screen of the game, showing the “Amiga” theme. Other themes include a default green-on-black, amber (see image further below), and silver-on-black

(more…)

Letteract: a Card Game with Words

April 22, 2024

Programming

game, programming, video games, words

It’s been a while since I made a game. In fact, if I’m not mistaken, the previous effort was about a year ago, with The Clock Village. This time I thought to make something far simpler, so here’s Letteract, a card game with words.

The setup and rules are very simple, as you will see. The program didn’t take more than two or three days to put together, and another few to polish some details.

Letteract, a free card game with words. Screenshot of the game. — Here’s the main screen of the game. The card deck is customizable (i.e. you can choose the design)

(more…)

The Clock Village: an Interactive Fiction Experience

April 24, 2023

Experiencing, Fiction, Programming

fiction, game, programming, text adventure, video games

The Clock Village, my latest programming project, is first and foremost an interactive fiction experience. Only nominally could one also call it a modern text adventure game, like my earlier Mansion Escape.

In other words, though in this process as a “player” you move around, engage in interactive dialogues, collect and use items, and try to increase the score that will let you get a “better” ending, I prefer to see The Clock Village as something more artistic.

Perhaps it’s a philosophical exploration of self. Or maybe a short interactive reflection of our innermost existential anxieties. Maybe, like true art, it simply is what its experiencer wants it to be

interactive fiction clock village game screen — This is the main screen of the interface. I don’t want to call it “game”; it’s interactive fiction

(more…)