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Text Quest is a game engine for running text-based adventure games, using a low/no code approach to game design.

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Text Quest: Unlock your imagination

Visit the Text Quest website, Studio23 Games or play one of the games:

 _             _                          _
| |_ _____   _| |_   __ _ _   _  ___  ___| |_
| __/ _ \ \/ / __|  / _` | | | |/ _ \/ __| __|
| ||  __/>  <| |_  | (_| | |_| |  __/\__ \ |_
 \__\___/_/\_\\__|  \__, |\__,_|\___||___/\__|
                       |_|

                       Unlock your imagination.

Overview

Text Quest is a game engine for running text-based adventure games, using a low/no code approach to game design.

Motivation

The project was started to...

  • Inspire creative story writing (without images, CGI or video)
  • Create a low/no code solution for building games (using YAML)
  • Bootstrap something as quickly as possible to test the above (and not get bogged down with tooling, libraries and frameworks)
  • Provide a little escapism during these unusual times

Game Design

Games are defined using YAML. A sample game can be seen in ./game.yml).

Here's an overview of the core concepts within a games:

  • Blocks: A block represents a single location within the game. A block can have:
    • exits: Connections to other blocks
    • states: Variations for a block state (containing exits, actions, items)
    • items: Items which are 'visible' from within a block state
    • actions: Actions which can be performed by the player within a block state, and actions which can be triggered automatically based on what a player is carrying
  • Game: The name, version and author for the game
  • Player: The name, current block location, powers and items they are carrying
  • Powers: Descriptions for powers a player can unlock (not listed here, as they are part of the game)
  • Items: Descriptions for items which the player can carry, or can be found in a block

Technical Details

This project currently uses:

  1. JavaScript as the core programming language for the game engine
  2. Node.js v20 LTS
  3. Parcel web application bundler
  4. text-terminal for the terminal interface
  5. YAML to store
  6. ascii generator for the logo
  7. github-fork-ribbon-css

Development: Getting Started

  1. npm i: To install the dependencies
  2. npm start --game=sleepy and open localhost:1234 in a browser to view the live reload development server
  3. Changes in the ./src directories will cause a live reload and compiled files to ./dist-$game
  4. Press CTRL+c to stop the development server
  5. npm run build --game=sleepy: Builds to ./dist-$game
  6. npm run build:serve --game=sleepy: Server builds from ./dist-$game

TODO

  1. Introduce characters as a concept (and associated powers)
  2. Cross over with voice activation project
  3. Upload/point to yaml URL
    1. Auto conversion yaml > JSON
    2. Game yaml validator
  4. Online game editor (visual, or text based)

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Text Quest is a game engine for running text-based adventure games, using a low/no code approach to game design.

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