Matrix: a text adventure, Joshua Edition

“Follow the white rabbit.”

A text-based adventure like the ones I played on the C64 in the 80s, only with a story set in 1999. You are a talented hacker and notice strange anomalies in the systems. What happens next, I will not reveal.

What is inside

• A C64 start screen with the famous line LOAD "*",8,1
• A text parser with natural commands. The game speaks German, so they are GEHE (go), NIMM (take), SCHAU (look), BENUTZE (use), HACKE (hack) and REDE MIT (talk to)
• Locations from the apartment to the cyber café to the server farm
• Hacking mini-games: cracking passwords, scanning ports
• An alert level system. Attract too much attention and you lose.
• Encrypted messages, easter eggs and more than one nod to WarGames

Playing

Locally with Python 3:

python3 Matrix_v2.0.py

Or right here in the arcade, in your browser, with nothing to install. The same Python code runs there, thanks to Pyodide as WebAssembly.

The source code is on GitHub.