Hey everyone! We’re making Stories Terminal, an AI-powered detective text adventure, and we’d like to share its development here.

The game takes place on a university campus at midnight. You explore pixel-art scenes, examine objects, and follow clues to work out what happened.

What we’re trying to get right

We want investigating to feel like following your own train of thought. If something on a desk catches your attention, you should be able to describe what you want to do without stopping to guess the wording the game expects.

That’s where the AI comes in: it serves as a loose interface between the player and the game, translating what you type into supported actions.

The case itself is authored. The clues and consequences are written by us, and what you discover affects how the mystery ends.

A first look

We have a trailer on our Steam page showing the investigation and text interaction. There isn’t a public playable demo yet.

We’ll use this thread to share progress as development continues, including how the interface handles the things players want to try.

Looking at the scenes above, what would you try investigating first - and how would you phrase the action? We’d be interested to hear your instinctive wording.

If it looks like your kind of game, you can also wishlist it on Steam.