Adventure games

The two modes

Creator. An 11×11 grid — the original's maze footprint. Carve floor out of solid rock, place arms, treasure, monsters and puzzles, and set the mist, the dragon's wake radius and the party size. The plan is the third view of the same space: the one you draw.

Play. Corridors render as nested rectangles with flat sprites centred in them — the way the original did it, not raycast. Two parallel health tracks, War and Spiritual, with two matching weapon classes: swords and bows hit War, books and fireballs hit Spiritual.

While you play, one thin strip across the top carries what you check on every step — your bricks, and whether the dragon is sealed — and one line at the bottom says what just happened. Nothing marks how near the dragon is except its breathing, which grows louder as you close in along the corridors; come within its wake radius, or strike it, and it wakes, burns you and drives you back to where you came in. Everything else — health, helpers, treasure, the full map, the quest, and what the dungeon still holds — is in the status panel (I, Start, or the button on the strip), and the game waits while it is open.

Two views of one dungeon. Press V (or Overhead under the picture, or the status panel's VIEW button) to look down on the dungeon from above instead of walking through it, the way the 1982 Advanced Dungeons & Dragons cartridge showed its caves under Cloudy Mountain. Only what you have explored is drawn: bright where you can see from where you stand, dimmed under the mist where you have been. You keep your cell, your facing and everything you have uncovered when you switch, so you can flip back and forth mid-step. Overhead always steers by compass, since up is north on the screen. The corner map hides there, because the whole screen is the map. The game remembers which view you used last.

Skill and pace, in Battle. Four skill levels, named after the 1982 cartridge's: Sightseer, Weekend Adventurer, Soldier of Fortune and Hero. Each step up adds more monsters to every dungeon and makes them faster, and from Soldier up they come looking for you. Pace decides when they move. With you: they move when you move, so the dungeon waits while you think. Real time: they move on a clock, as on the cartridge, and the clock stops whenever a panel, riddle or scroll is open. The dragon never moves, because walling it in depends on it staying put. Both settings are under the game, beside Riddles, and only show in Battle.

Saved games. The status panel (I, or Start on the pad) has three save slots, kept in this browser. A save holds the whole game in progress: where you stand, what you carry, every brick you have moved, and how far through a world you are. Load puts you back exactly there, and Begin again still restarts that dungeon as you first walked in. Loading never touches your own drawing in Creator.

Masonry is a wall someone built rather than rock: it shows as brick, and B lifts a brick out of it as readily as it lays one. Every brick you lay is masonry, so any brick can be taken back.

Dungeons also hold scrolls, which tell the story of the place and stay in the status panel once read; riddles on the way out, answered in one word; and things that want something — a windlass with no handle, a statue with an empty hand — that open once you bring what they need. A world's guide greets you on arrival, speaks up as you reach each new part of the cave, and travels as your first helper. Riddles: Easy lets you through after three wrong answers and shows you the answer; Answer never does. Wrong answers cost nothing in Adventure.

Beside the game sits a list of cards: the worlds, ready to play, under Battle / Adventure and the other choices. In Adventure nothing fights back — walk into a creature to collect it. Playing a card never touches your own drawing; it is waiting in Creator when you go back.

You win by not killing the dragon

The dragon cannot be fought. Strike it, or come within its wake radius (counted along the corridors, not in a straight line), and it wakes, burns you and drives you back to where you came in.

You win by walling it in with the bricks your party carries, then walking out while it still breathes. Look for the narrow places: a brick there closes more than a brick in a hall. No number tells you how many you need; you read it off the shape. Every shipped dungeon was checked before release to be winnable with the bricks the party carries (the check, sealCost(), stays in the file for tools/worldgen and is never shown).

Bricks come from the party: 2 base plus 2 per helper. Helpers also step in front of one monster blow each, and then they are gone.

Because bricking only ever removes floor, path distances can only grow — so laying a brick can push a previously fatal cell out of the wake radius. You build your way to safety.

You're a zoologist. The rainforest has four layers: the forest floor, the understory, the canopy and the emergent treetops, and each species lives in its own. Twelve species come out by night and twelve by day. Find all twenty-four before your time runs out.

To document a species, hold B and stand still with the animal in view until the circle fills.

• By night you see only what your lantern reaches. Holding B raises it so you see further. Animals' eyes shine in the dark before you can see the rest of them.
• By day you can see everything, and so can they. Holding B brings up binoculars, so you can observe from much further away (face the animal). Run near a shy animal and it bolts: birds fly off, monkeys scatter, an iguana drops off its branch. Creep (hold B while moving) to get closer.

Darkness on or off: press B on the title screen or the pause screen (or L on a keyboard, any time). With darkness off you see the whole forest at night, not just the lantern's circle. You still need the lantern on an animal to document it. The game remembers your choice in this browser.

Switching night and day: open the field journal with Select and press B. Dusk or dawn falls over two seconds, and the night animals slip away as the day ones come out, or the other way round. Nocturnal species only appear at night, diurnal ones only by day. Jaguars, anacondas and caimans are about at both times.

Button	Keyboard	Does
D-pad	Arrows / WASD	Run. Up or down beside a liana to climb it.
A	Z, K or Space	Jump. Hold it to jump higher. Down + A drops you through a branch. On the swinging vine, A or Down lets go.
B	X or J	Hold: lantern up (night) or binoculars (day), creep slowly, and observe.
Select	Shift	Field journal: night and day pages (Left/Right), a true fact about each species you've found. B turns night to day; A turns sound on or off.
Start	Enter (or P)	Start / pause.

A standard USB gamepad works too, including cheap pads that report the D-pad as an analog stick.

The first time you plug in a pad the browser doesn't recognise (most cheap USB pads), the game asks you to press A, B, Select and Start, and remembers the answer for every game on the site. Add ?padsetup to the address to ask again.

The jungle is a loop: keep going one way and you come back to where you started. Creeks cross the forest floor. Some have a vine to swing across; caimans live in others, and you can hop across their heads while their jaws are shut. At night, lightning lights the whole forest now and then. Look while you can.

Watch out for: jaguars, anacondas and the fer-de-lance (it can sense your warmth in total darkness). A vampire bat bite costs you time, and so does touching a poison dart frog: never touch one. A startled armadillo jumps straight up.

Browsers start sound only after a key press or click (a gamepad button may not count), so press any key once if it is silent.

Points: 500 for a species on the forest floor, more the higher it lives. A time bonus if you find all twenty-four.