Brass Lantern

BRASS LANTERNA text adventure engine on npm

Three packages for classic parser games in a CRT terminal. Write your own world as data, mount it on a page, or load a Z-machine story file. The demo plays the Zork trilogy.

Install
Get started
Play the demo
Story files
GitHub
The Brass Lantern mark, an amber lantern

  • Worlds are data

    A game is one TypeScript object of rooms, items, people, events and the rules that join them. Write a story without touching engine code.

  • A parser that meets players halfway

    Classic verbs run instantly, and so do chained commands like “take key and wallet”. Anything else can go to an LLM through the optional server package, which only maps it onto your verbs and IDs; it never writes the story.

  • The terminal is the product

    Boot sequence, scanlines, phosphor bloom and decay, flicker, a typewriter that changes pace with the scene. All CSS, no canvas.

  • The genre’s good parts, built in

    Gated rooms, use rules, gifts, timed interruptions, hints, a score with ranks, and endings that remember what you did.

  • Plays Zork, too

    Z-machine story files run in the same terminal, starting with Zork I, II and III, which Microsoft released under the MIT License. Pick from a cartridge menu; saves and autosave included.

  • Bring your own story files

    Type LOAD at the menu to play a Z-machine game from your own computer. It stays in your browser; nothing is uploaded.

Install ​

sh
npm install @brass-lantern/engine @brass-lantern/vue vue pinia

Three packages ​

PackageWhat it is
@brass-lantern/engineThe game itself: parser, rules, saves and the Z-machine bridge. Runs anywhere, no DOM.
@brass-lantern/vueThe CRT terminal, themes and mountGame, as a Vue 3 component.
@brass-lantern/serverOptional. An Express route that lets players type like people, through Gemini.

A game on a page ​

ts
import { mountGame } from '@brass-lantern/vue';
import '@brass-lantern/vue/style.css';
import type { World } from '@brass-lantern/engine';

const world: World = {
  startRoom: 'study',
  rooms: {
    study: {
      name: 'The Study', description: 'A desk, a chair, and the dark.',
      exits: {}, items: ['lantern'], npcs: [], onEnter: [],
    },
  },
  items: {
    lantern: { name: 'brass lantern', aliases: ['lamp'], description: 'Unlit, for now.', portable: true, tags: [] },
  },
  npcs: {}, events: {}, dialogue: {}, flagLabels: {},
};

mountGame('#app', {
  cartridges: [{ kind: 'world', id: 'study', title: 'THE STUDY', world }],
  storagePrefix: 'study',
});

Then build a real one, or read Using the library for the component, themes and options.

Built with Brass Lantern ​

Office Space: The Text Adventure is a full-length game on this engine: four chapters from a very bad Monday at Initech to a field, a baseball bat and a printer that has it coming. It runs with the intent server, so you can type like a person.

Brass Lantern v2.1.1 · Released under the MIT License. · Why a brass lantern?

Copyright © 2026 Todd Greco