Solve the puzzles to get off the island before you are a permanent part of the eternal balance sheet.

Pirates, ghosts, whiskey, and bureaucracy.
You were the Ship's clerk. Now you’re a half-drunk, half-dead survivor trying to out-negotiate a spectral crew of backstabbing undead pirates. Welcome to the world’s most cursed accounting audit. Play through 7 twisted chapters of puzzles, dark humor, and rum-fueled sword fights.

The Last Audit of the Damned features seven short mysteries and puzzles.  It was built using the new story engine, Taleweaver++.  Don't just talk with NPCs - persuade them, threaten them, console them.  No more single moves with output from a brittle parser -- talk/type with multiple moves and commands -- all the while the objects in the story obey the laws of physics and reality.  

Notes on the Game

-- Click the word "Start" in the picture to begin.  Other areas of the map will become clickable as you progress.  

-- This is one of the first games written for the new AI-enabled interactive fiction parser, Taleweaver++, and each chapter highlights a new feature of the parser.  We are experimenting with new types of puzzles for interactive fiction, such as free-form crafting as solutions (graded on a rubric, not deterministic), sentiment- and emotion-based conversations with NPCs, 1st person shoot-em-ups within text, infinite spaces within finite scenarios, and large combinatorial possibilities of objects and object interactions. 

-- Warning:  lots of violence (though cartoonish -- still violence), lots of drunkenness, and lots of pirates who have not "done the work" in therapy.   Not a lot of sex or nudity, though -- that's Volume II.  

-- If you've played interactive fiction games before, you will recognize some of these devices/puzzles.  However, the new parser enables a whole new set of interactions and games -- so enjoy some new experiences, and let us know how to make them better.

-- The AI-parser is pinging a live server, so sometimes there is a lag.  Apologies in advance.  We are very, very interested in getting your feedback.  Our number one goal is to learn how to make this game fun.  Please help us get there.

How to Play

A note on this type of parser game:  This is not your grandfather's parser game -- we've tried to harness the full power of the latest LLMs.  Rest assured -- the story is entirely human-created -- the parser/interpreter/translator is a specially trained LLM.   

How to Play:  Just start talking or typing, depending on how you access the game.  If you are new to the genre, welcome.  You are in for a metric ton of fun.  Just start exploring the room, the objects, the other characters, etc.  And feel free to use them how you like -- pick them up, throw them, combine them, taste them -- whatever strikes you as a way to solve the puzzle.  However, sometimes the order in which you do things matters.  Proper grammar and spelling, on the other hand, rarely matter.  You are welcome to type in complete sentences -- or fragments -- or even grunts.  Just. Start. Talking.  

If you have played interactive fiction games/stories before, you will find that this new story engine, Taleweaver++, allows more freedom and unconstrained input.  Feel free to type in as many game moves as you like in a single command.  Examine six objects all at once. Use as many different verbs, nouns, and adjectives as you want.  The world should obey the laws of physics and reality, so many puzzles will have multiple solutions.  Your job is to JUST GET THE JOB DONE.  Creativity is rewarded.

In the before days, you might have needed to take 10 turns to get something done -- something like this:  "go north, open door, enter the kitchen, open drawer, open oven, examine drawer, take knife".  With TaleWeaver++, just say:  "Head to the kitchen, open every drawer and appliance, and tell me what you see. "  It'll save you a ton of typing and waiting -- and get you to the fun part:  solving the puzzle.  This is the value of no longer being limited by COBOL punch cards and shared time on Ross Perot's mainframe.  

About the AI/narrator:  The voice describing the room is simply a narrator – granted, a wise-cracking, slightly snarky narrator at times – but not an all-knowing one.  You can change the tone and the response length in the settings.  However, the narrator will not give you hints, help you solve puzzles, act as a calculator or translator, or generally give you advice on how to advance your romantic life, extract meaning from Plutarch's scribbles, or even reliably help you tie your shoes.  If you are looking for pleasant conversations, please feel free to engage the other characters in the story – they will have much to tell you, if you can persuade them.

The Artwork On This Page

100% AI-generated -- we used OpenAI Sonora.   But really -- it took me 40 edits to get it even close.   I spent my full knowledge of MS Paint 3D -- so I'm not ready to give AI the credit for this one -- but according to content rules, I need to . . .   so, I suppose this is the story of AI -- really unclear if using it or starting from scratch it easier.