The Fortuna by Jason Gauci 2023 Web Site

About the Story

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 Langauge 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.

As much as I would love to ship the entire game as a zip, the AI models can not run on most computers. To make the game as accessible as possible, I am hosting the game on AWS (compute services provided by Amazon). My hope is that, over the next few years as technology progresses, I'll be able to release the full game as a standalone binary.

Game Details