Creating a Cozy Game

January 2025, I started a project … the beginning of my Git commit history evokes the cozy feeling I needed at the time: 

commit af1655fadb59e1fcbf72eb5bc3225ceaaed4854b
Author: Howard Abrams <howard.abrams@gmail.com>
Date:   Thu Jan 23 21:35:38 2025 -0800

    Create a chair to snuggle into

commit 8c9f89c92e49a52eb4544c32d81939d78127b3aa
Author: Howard Abrams <howard.abrams@gmail.com>
Date:   Wed Jan 22 15:57:14 2025 -0800

    Make a cozy room with a fire

commit 48fae4b4c93be479b4c8557ac3b73dd6e1e113b6
Author: Howard Abrams <howard.abrams@gmail.com>
Date:   Mon Jan 20 07:58:32 2025 -0800

    In the beginning was a tree...

What significant event spurred me to create a cozy game on that day? 😏 Over the year, I retreated to play and expand that game. A fortress of solitude against the winds buffeting my mental health.

What sort of game? I made a storybook game. You read a bit of a story, and like a choose your own adventure book, you do something to move your story along. Technically, this is a MUD-like game, where other people can jump into this text adventure game, to explore my cozy, little environment.

View this game as a respite from the cacophony of our world, where players role play (pretend to be) a storybook character in an idyllic setting.

What does this look like? Here is a bit of a transcript. It begins with a description of where you are in the world of the story:

Dabbler’s House
You found a cozy, cornerless room. The room is dim, but you see large, overstuffed chairs placed by a dark fireplace in a large stone hearth. Perhaps you could light a fire? Oddly angled shelves with books and knickknackery adorn the walls around a tapestry. The subtle smell of wood smoke, incense and tea leads you to a trolley supporting a large teapot, cups and freshly baked scones.
Exits: outside
You see: a collection of books, a few overstuffed chairs, a fireplace, and a teapot

You start by looking closer at objects, like:

>> look shelves
Shelves at various angles embellish the walls of this small, cozy room. Leatherbound books weigh each shelf, while some stacks of books support other shelves. Dabbler has decorated some shelves with odd trinkets.

>> look trinket
You see a crystal ball. When the swirling vortex stops, It reads, ’Maybe, maybe not’.

You can re-look at things too, for instance:

>> look trinket
You find a deck of Tarot cards, but the card of Death has been replaced by a worker in an office cubical that reads, ’Mostly Death’.

Sometimes, a command will give you hints about other things or commands, for instance:

>> look books
Books of different sizes and colors. So many books. Perhaps you want to simply look at a book at random?

Might make you type:

>> look book
You see a pristine copy of a vellum-bound book, titled, Eat, Prey, Club.

Which then allows you to type other commands, like:

>> get book
You pick up the book.

>> inv
You are carrying:

a book a worn vellum-bound book, titled, 50 Shades of Fey
a cap It’s crimson. It’s jaunty.
a gnarled staff An oaken staff with a sprig of two leaves next to a swirling ball of crystal embedded near the top.
a teacup A rustic teacup crafted from clay etched with leaves and runes, with an olive green and brown glaze.

Sometimes, the game tells you things about an ever-changing, dynamic world, like that the fire is going out:

The fire in the fireplace is little more than glowing embers casting shadows on the wall.

Which might prompt you to:

>> feed fire
You get up and put some wood in the fireplace, and start a fire. The fire in the fireplace crackles and pops with warmth and light.

Since this is a cozy world in a fantastic universe, it may randomly say:

Freshly baked scones magically appear on plates on the trolley.

Which should prompt you to sit and enjoy yourself:

>> get scone
You get apple cinnamon scone.

>> make oolong tea
You make a teapot of a complex and earthy oolong.

>> pour tea
You pour oolong tea into your teacup.

>> sit
You sit in an overstuffed chair. This feels very comfortable.

>> sip
You take a sip of oolong tea from your cup.

>> eat scone
You really taste the cinnamon.

>> read book
You crack open your book, entitled, Eat, Prey, Club, and read the heartfelt chronicle of a young orc and her quest for true dominance.

>> sip
You take a sip of oolong tea in your cup.

>> eat scone
Delicious.

The fire in the fireplace shows glowing red embers that seems breathe in a memorizing way.

>> feed fire
You get up and put some more wood on the fire in the fireplace. The fire in the fireplace dances and shimmies with warmth and light.

>> burn book
You throw the book in the fireplace. It immediately yelps, flaps its pages, and flies back to a section on the shelf.

But then you forgot to feed the wee beastie in the field.

>> stand up
You stand up from an overstuffed chair.

>> get scone
You get cheddar cheese and chive scone.

>> pose gets ready to cast his spell.
Dabbler gets ready to cast his spell.

The pose commands allows you to effectively do anything in this crazy world. However, I am a wizard, and I have the fly spell:

>> fly to Frog Meadow

After a raspberry sound, the gnome, Dabbler, disappears in a wisp of smoke.

Which shows me my new location quite quickly …

Frog Meadow
A large waterfall cascades on the far side of this meadow creating a stream that meanders through the tall grass and large yellow flowers. They nod their heads to you as you pass by in the lazy afternoon. A gap in the trees show how you can return to the footpath in the forest.
Exits: footpath
You see: a big hairy beast

If you are a wizard, you have to enter an area with aplomb:

White mist appears…along with the smell of sulphur.

When the smoke clears, an old gnome materializes.

>> look beast
A big, hairy beast with long claws and teeth. It lays down next to you.

>> :pets the big beast.
Dabbler pets the big beast.

The : character is a shortcut for the previous pose command.

>> feed beast
The big, hairy beast eagerly sniffs your outstretched arm holding the scone. It excitedly eats it, and gives you a big lick as if to say, Thank you.

>> say Who's a cute, widdle beastie?
You say, “Who’s a cute, widdle beastie?”

>> whisper beast = You are, that's who.
You whisper to big hairy beast, “You are, that’s who.”

>> look waterfall
Cascading down the cliff in three sections, each section of this giant waterfall widens ending in a large pool.

Wait! Is there a large cave entrance hidden behind the water?

If you are interested in checking it out, use any MUD client to connect:

Or, you can use a Webclient at howardabrams.com/cozy … and if you see Dabbler, say, “Hi”.

PS: And if you know anything about me, you’ll know I also wrote an Emacs Client, which you can grab here, and then org-babel-tangle to a Lisp file. I’ll publish it properly when I’m sure I’ve worked out all the bugs.