Hi everyone! I’m Christos, the independent creator behind CK My Apps. I’m starting this thread to share the development of my retro-inspired adventures for modern Macs: the decisions, experiments, problems, and small improvements that turn a working game into something enjoyable to play.
My two projects here are Pirate Cove and Escape from Future City. One takes you from a London apartment to distant pirate shores; the other places you in a mysterious futuristic city. They share my interest in a particular kind of game: one where reading carefully and trying an unexpected idea can matter more than fast reflexes.
Keeping the commands, improving the experience
The main challenge has been deciding what to preserve and what to change.
I wanted to keep short text commands, inventory puzzles, and the satisfaction of discovering a solution yourself. But I also wanted to make the games more approachable on a modern screen, with readable text, convenient controls, useful save options, and clear ways to get help.
Adding an illustration is relatively straightforward. Making sure that it supports the written description—without suggesting objects or exits that aren’t actually there—is a more interesting design problem. In these games, the text still needs to be the player’s most reliable source of information.
Pirate Cove: two visual approaches
For Pirate Cove, I developed two presentations of the same adventure:
- Retro 80s: green terminal-style text and pixel-art illustrations.
- Modern: cinematic artwork, dark navy backgrounds, and amber accents.
The choice happens before the main menu. It changes the presentation, not the puzzles or story.
This project adapts Scott and Alexis Adams’s Pirate Adventure, drawing on the BASIC listing published in BYTE magazine in December 1980. I contacted Scott Adams and received permission for the adaptation.
Recent additions include an exploration map, a clue journal, progressive hints, and three manual save slots alongside autosave. The map records discoveries rather than revealing the whole world, while the hints let players choose how much assistance they want.
Escape from Future City: a different atmosphere
With Escape from Future City, I chose a minimalist monochrome presentation and an electronic soundtrack to support the science-fiction setting.
The goal is a different mood, rather than simply another color scheme: unfamiliar machinery, interconnected locations, and the feeling that every object might have a purpose you haven’t understood yet.
Working on both games has also made practical details impossible to ignore. Text scrolling, window resizing, keyboard input, and restoring a saved game all affect the experience just as much as the artwork does.
Sound should help, not get in the way
One lesson from testing was simple: atmospheric music stops being atmospheric when it’s too loud.
For Pirate Cove, I added adjustable music volume, separate controls for environmental sounds, and playback-position retention so the soundtrack doesn’t restart every time you return. Ocean, cave, ship, island, and indoor ambience give locations their own character without replacing the written world.
I also created illustrated four-page PDF instruction booklets. They’re a small nod to the manuals that used to come with computer games, but they serve a practical purpose too: explaining commands and saving without making players search through menus.
A note on the development process
I use AI-assisted programming and AI-generated artwork as part of my workflow. That involvement is disclosed on the project pages. The classic material is credited separately; I don’t present the original adventures as stories I wrote.
What I’m focusing on next
My priority is refinement: clearer command feedback, comfortable reading on different window sizes, and checking that saves, audio settings, and navigation behave consistently.
I’d be interested in hearing from other text-adventure players:
- Do you prefer a traditional terminal presentation or illustrated scenes?
- How much help should a hint system offer before it gives too much away?
- Which modern convenience makes the biggest difference without weakening the original experience?
You can find the projects here:
https://ckmyapps.itch.io
CK My Apps also includes other games and utilities for Apple devices. I share the broader catalog, manuals, and development updates on my website:
https://ckmyapps.substack.com
Thanks for reading. I’ll use this thread to share concrete changes, screenshots, and lessons from testing as the projects develop.
— Christos / CK My Apps