Please visit www.generativefiction.com to play.


Text adventure games such as Zork, Colossal Caves, and Photopia, have captured the imagation of millions around the World. I was one of those millions.

My parents bought a commodore 64 second-hand from the For Sale section of the city newspaper. The elderly gentleman was surprised when a 7 year old boy showed up at the doorstep. He walked me through setting up the computer and loading disks, then handed me a box full of software. One stood out: The Essex. It came with a hardcover fiction book instead of a manual. After reading the book, players had to start the game to find out create what happened next. This mixture of media was magical for me and I credit that moment to my interest in computers.

I believe we are at the dawn of a new age in AI. Large forward models, such as Large Language Models, are going to revolutionize how tomorrow's generation works and plays. The text adventure you are about to play blends the latest AI with a human touch to tell a story about tragedy and friendship. The Essex was a flawed game, but it captured my heart. I hope The Fortuna will capture yours.

Comments

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I'm still failing to play the game. There's a button that says "Start game", but when I press it, it just says "Please wait" for about a second and then the "Start game" button comes back.

Can you post a screenshot?  What browser are you using?

I'm also having this issue on Chrome.

What happens if you press restart?

Are you blocking cookies?  I use a cookie to save the game state.

The game does not seem to be playable. It is just a link to an Abandonware site unless I have overlooked something?

There is a link to the game website, www.generativefiction.com, but the "Run game" frame doesn't show enough of the content to see it. (And I do get a thing that looks like a game if I go there.)

I found it by going into my browser's "developer tools" and fishing out the 'real' game content that runs in that frame: https://v6p9d9t4.ssl.hwcdn.net/html/8177523/index.html

Perhaps change the game setting to fullscreen or choose scroll bars, otherwise people will probably miss the link.

Changed to full screen and added scrollbars, thanks.