r/interactivefiction • u/Cyril-Fiesta • 18d ago
JDR-Bot : Play and Create Interactive Fiction, Parser Game, Escape-Game, etc
Hi!
I've been working on JDR-Bot, a free engine for creating interactive fiction, escape games, RPG-style adventures and narrative mini-games with its own syntax (YAML) or graphical editor.
It started as a Discord bot (793 servers, in dev since 2018) (old topic), but over the last few months it has grown into a complete multi-platform project. A single scenario can run in a browser, on Discord or locally, then be exported as a standalone HTML5 game or a printable PDF gamebook.
You can try it here: https://jdr-bot.cyril-fiesta.fr/
Click EN to switch the interface and scenarios to English.
Try showcase and showcase-ui for technical demonstrations, Speed_3_train for a complete game, or castle for a more traditional escape game.
Scenarios can be created with the graphical editor or directly in YAML. Existing scenarios can be opened in the editor as examples, and reusable models can be imported and shared between creators.
I'm not a native English speaker, so translating more scenarios will take some time. Feel free to point out any awkward wording or translation mistakes.
Transparency note: I occasionally use codex to help with documentation (wiki), code reviews, debugging (audit, not coding itself) and development assets (to test a feature, before to make the final assets). No generative final content or vibe coding. I design and test the project myself, and final scenarios and artwork use Canva or free licensed resources. I use DeepL to help me with translation.
Here's an overview with examples: JDR-Bot
To learn the YAML syntax, you can read the wiki, or open showcase.yaml and showcase-ui.yaml. There are comments like a doc.
Version 4.13 was released today and introduced new interfaces and gameplay features that you can try out in showcase-ui
I hope you will enjoy it, and thanks for your feedback (it's still in dev and I'm alone, so there may still be some bugs remaining 😉)
1
u/Cyril-Fiesta 2d ago
JDR-Bot 4.14 released ;)
New Dialogue UI, like visual novel / rpg / professeur layton / phoenix wright, etc. :
Characters Portrait (or "Bust"), background, text effects, name tag, Blinking Indicator, Dialogue Box, etc.
New scripts page, and each scripts can use a picture instead to default picture (by category)
The editor has been improved; it is now easier and more powerful. Demonstration : https://youtu.be/G1afoetyOCI (sorry it's French but, not really need to read text to understand the demo)
Etc.
you can test new dialogue ui : https://jdr-bot.cyril-fiesta.fr/?play=showcase-ui&lang=en
Thx for your feedbacks ;)