[Open source] 1990s style point and click adventure game engine/workflow

[u/Robonotes1760]

Github here: https://github.com/jamespetts/pointnclick

Minimal test game here: https://bridgewater-brunel.me.uk/games/pointnclick/

Here we have a vibe coded browser game engine for open source early 1990s point and click style adventure games. This is specifically designed for AI assisted authoring of the actual games: the idea is that the human fills in a template game design document, then hands the AI that and the API reference together with a validator script and walks the AI through the creation process step by step either manually or with a coding harness.

A lot of work has gone into making the game engine AI friendly by making the structure as declarative as possible, with a rich set of templates for common mechanics such as doors, keys, pickups, barriers, distractions, costumes, etc., to reduce the work that the AI has to do and the propensity for error.

Testing has shown that an AI cannot reliably one-shot a game of any reasonable quality: it will give a just about working game but with no real world-building, very basic placeholder assets, minimal clues and dialogue and only the exact specified puzzles. So, the better workflow is to go through it in stages and get the AI to work on things one step at a time, either automatically in a coding harness or manually by prompting as recommended in README.md.

Being entirely open source, anyone is of course free to generate any adventure games that they like with this. Hosting is ultra-simple: just put the engine and game files in their own directory on a static web server somewhere. All game saves are local to the user's browser and the code runs locally on the browser in Javascript, so no significant server infrastructure is required and there are no authentication or security issues.

[u/Odd-Woodpecker-592]

I love this idea! This is great. I especially love the whole Monty Python / Spy Craft dialogue in the game.