John McCardle
80908f771c
A 30-45 minute turn-based RPG built overnight as an engine showcase: six recruitable characters (party of three), four recurring NPCs, choice-driven dialogue with visible-but-locked skill checks, shops, loot, levels, two bosses with in-battle Talk options, the reverted grey-town beat, and an epilogue assembled from the player's actual choices. 33 dialogue scenes / 171 nodes. Terrain is ColorLayers only; kenney_tinydungeon supplies characters, items, and props. Creative direction, story, dialogue, maps, and systems design by Fable; implementation by four Opus subagents (framework, battle, overworld, integration). Verified by tests/playthrough.py: a scripted headless run of all three acts, 20/20 beats passing, plus per-system unit tests (script integrity, UI kit, 225-battle balance sim, overworld). Run: cd build && ./mcrogueface --exec ../games/unwritten/main.py Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_014vxWJ6GY384SmZiMVXgrF4 |
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UNWRITTEN
The world is finished. The story is not.
A complete short-form RPG (30-45 minutes) built on McRogueFace: turn-based battle-screen combat, a six-character roster with an active party of three, choice-driven dialogue with skill checks, shops, loot, levels, two bosses, and an epilogue assembled from the choices you actually made.
The Maker built a perfect vale, sat down to write what should happen in it, and couldn't think of a single thing. Three hundred years later, someone wakes up holding a blank book.
Run it
cd build
./mcrogueface --exec ../games/unwritten/main.py
Controls
- WASD / arrows - move (bump into people to talk, into enemies to fight)
- Enter / Space - advance dialogue, confirm menus (Space also skips the typewriter)
- Esc - back out of menus / open the party menu from the overworld
- E / Enter - interact (camps, props)
- Tab - party menu (swap, equip, items, stats, key items)
- Title screen: 1 / 2 / 3 jump to Act 1/2/3 with appropriate preset state (debug)
What to look for
- Every dialogue choice is remembered; several are gated by WHO is in your active party (each character carries a dialogue tag) or by what you chose hours earlier. Locked options stay visible - that "what would that have been?" itch is intentional.
- Both bosses can be TALKED to mid-battle if you brought the right people.
- After the first boss, go home. The way the town comes back is the game's favorite trick.
- Whether you find the sixth party member at all depends on questions you did or didn't ask in Act 1.
Layout
design/- creative bible, systems spec, architecture contractsdata/- authored content: dialogue scripts (33 scenes / 171 nodes), maps, items, enemies, epilogue pages, battle barkscore/- UI kit (dialogue box, menus, bars, toasts), palette, input stacksystems/- state, dialogue runner, overworld, battle, shop, menus, epiloguetests/- unit tests per system +playthrough.py, a scripted headless run of the entire game (20 beats, title card to WRITTEN stamp):cd build && ./mcrogueface --headless --exec ../games/unwritten/tests/playthrough.py
Credits
Made overnight, on request, as an answer to a question.
- Creative direction, story, dialogue, systems & encounter design: Fable (Claude)
- Implementation: Claude Opus subagents (framework / battle / overworld / integration)
- Engine: McRogueFace by John McCardle
- Tileset: Kenney's Tiny Dungeon (characters and items only - the terrain is nothing but colored cells, on purpose)
The Maker built the vale. You were what happened.