I didn’t have time to finish my text adventure game so I wrote a map editor

Sometimes procrastination work can pay off

You can take a look at dungeon-loom.retrogamecoders.com

On my retro game programming site I have been running a series about writing text adventure games in C64 BASIC. I've got to the point where the game should have more than demo data, and that is where I got stuck.

I tried! Nothing helped. Scraps of paper, written notes, even a spreadsheet.

The problem, I think, was the usual ADHD stuff, but also trying to mix the creative with the analytical.

In writing we say "Write Drunk, Edit Sober". It's hard to switch from essentially writing a story with puzzles while also doing math and logic.

So I started writing a tool for my own use and it kind of got out of hand.

It's a JavaScript web app. Potentially I could package it for desktop using NW.js.

Right now you can place rooms, define the exits for each room, and add the room name, description(s) and any objects a room might contain.

You will notice I said descriptions, that is because there might be a before and after, for example the description for light on and in darkness.

The app exports and imports .JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) files right now. In future I might come back to that, or perhaps instead write post-processors. We shall see, that is a problem for future-Chris.

Anyhoo, try it out and let me know what you think?