Unlucky Traveler runs right here. Saves stay in this browser.
Unlucky Traveler began in July 2020 as a C++ console game, one file, typed commands, never finished. The port keeps its world and its words and finishes what it left.
The bite. Something bit you on the way in. You have sixteen days of walking before it wins, and in the last four the poison spreads and costs you health as you go. A healer far out can fix it. Ask around in towns, two coins a rumour, for her town’s name and a bearing; listen to what people say for free; climb the water tower, the radio mast or the lighthouse for the smoke and for every place within sight. The cure lifts the clock, and then the road is still the road: keep walking for the score, or find a porch and call it there.
The map. A hundred by a hundred, with two roads crossing at the centre, where every run
starts. Roads are safe to walk along. The wild is not, and the farther from the crossroads you
go, the worse what lives there and the better what is left lying about. Places show as ?
until you enter them: towns, camps, caves and landmarks.
Towns. Trade with whoever has set up a wagon, see the weapon smith (upgrade, rename or sell your weapon), search the place, chat, pay for a bed, or attack the town and fight its protector, after which the town hates you for good. Each has a danger level, and the more dangerous, the more likely you are jumped on the way in.
The wild. Camps of bandits to clear one at a time for the chief’s tent, or travellers who let you sleep by their fire once. Caves of three rooms with a cache at the bottom and the choice to turn back between them. Twelve landmarks, each with its own two lines and something to find. Roadside scenes from the original, and a few new ones, each a yes or a no.
Fights. Attack, dodge or flee. The foe dodges a quarter of your swings; a dodge of your own that works puts it off balance so your next cannot miss. Fleeing gets harder the healthier the foe. Healing comes from a bag of twenty things and costs the round. Exp from kills becomes levels, and death ends the run with a score the device remembers.
The original’s bestiary walks the wasteland as it was written: the Rabid Squirrel, the Uncanny Bear, Baloo the Rabid Cat, the Cannibalistic Clown, the Crazed Chainsaw-Wielding Lumberjack, the Unicorn.
Log
What changed in Unlucky Traveler, newest first. Every entry · RSS
- gamesUnlucky Traveler has its something, a bite with sixteen days on it and a healer far out beside one of the roads, found by rumours bought in towns and smoke seen from a tower.
- gamesUnlucky Traveler, the 2020 console game ported to the browser as an ASCII roguelike, is live in beta at unlucky-traveler.pages.dev.
The first playable slice: the original’s map, towns, bestiary and words, plus the camps, caves and landmarks it planned, a bag, levels, a dodge that does something, and the far edges of the map being worth the walk. Still to come: the thing the traveler is looking for, and a daily seed with a board.