Launching today
Dungeon Mastron
Design worlds. Shape stories. Play the outcome.
15 followers
Design worlds. Shape stories. Play the outcome.
15 followers
Dungeon Mastron is a free, MIT open-source platform for choose-your-own-adventure games. Build visually with a node graph, play and share instantly in the browser, or paste one prompt template into ChatGPT to generate a complete playable game - then load it onto a 3D-printed Raspberry Pi cartridge console.
How does the Raspberry Pi cartridge actually run the games offline once they’re generated, and is there any hardware dependency or does it work on any Pi setup you flash it onto?
@pnarwmyy Thanks! The console is designed to work completely offline. The "cartridges" are just USB sticks containing the game JSON plus any assets (images, audio, etc.). The Pi runs the Dungeon Mastron player locally, so when you insert a USB, it detects the game and launches it, no internet required.
Right now I'm targeting Raspberry Pi OS on a flashed Pi with my software installed. The hardware is intentionally simple and open, so people can build or modify their own versions. The Pi engine is still in beta, so feedback from early builders will be incredibly valuable.
How does the browser export handle the node graph when it gets really complex, like dozens of branching paths? curious if it stays performant or if there is a practical limit before things start to bog down.
@erolheperayer There isn't a deliberate hard limit, but with very large graph count the challenge becomes organization and usability more than browser performance. I've personally tested games with a couple of hundred nodes without issues in the browser.
One thing I have noticed is that the AI Companion starts to struggle with very large projects. Once there are hundreds of interconnected branches, it has a lot of story arcs, items, and state to keep track of, so the quality of generation can drop. Improving support for larger adventures is definitely something I want to keep working on as the project evolves.
Curious how the ChatGPT prompt template actually works - does it output the same node graph format, or do I need to massage it back into the editor?
@linaeresin Hey! The prompt tells the AI to create a propper .json file which you then can upload into dungeon mastron. So the prompt tells the AI all the rules and frameworks for a complete game.
so either you can feed the whole prompt to the AI and say.
1. "Give me questions to answer about the game we are making"
2. " I want a dark fantasy style game with a lone hero character, conan style. Make the game dark, but with humor. Around 150 nodes long. and 3 possible endings.
so there are different ways for it to create the actual game. But in the end, it outputs a file you import into Dungeon Mastron.
Tried building a quick branching story last night and the node graph feels way more natural than scripting. Love that I can paste the prompt template into ChatGPT and get a playable game back without fuss.
@diyar113588 Thanks so much! That's exactly the workflow I was hoping for. I wanted people to spend their time designing stories rather than fighting syntax. The prompt generates a solid starting point, and then the node editor makes it easy to reshape branches, add choices, or expand the adventure visually. I'm really glad it felt natural to use!
Spent a few minutes clicking through the node graph editor and was surprised how snappy it felt for an open source tool, the visual layout made branching choices way easier to keep track of than text scripts.
@edanurbaus7dhg Thanks for the feedback! a cool feature is that you can use shortcuts 1-9 to switch between tools and draw lines between the nodes. no need to go into the drawer on the side to connect and unlink nodes. fast and seamless.
Tried generating a dungeon with the ChatGPT prompt and was honestly surprised it parsed cleanly into the node graph first try. The Raspberry Pi cartridge idea is a fun touch too.
@kemalnlv4 Thank you! I'm really happy it worked first try for you. 😄 That's definitely the goal, although I'll be honest - it isn't a 100% success rate yet. Sometimes the generated game needs another attempt or a slightly tweaked prompt, especially for larger or more ambitious adventures.
The nice thing is that once you get a solid starting point, the node graph makes it easy to tweak and expand everything visually. And thanks! The Pi console is definitely the weirdest part of the project, but I couldn't resist the idea of bringing back that old "plug in a cartridge and play" feeling.