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