I was able to do some Steam Deck testing this weekend. I'm sorry to say that Steam Deck is not a recommended Hadean Lands experience right now. The problem is the on-screen keyboard. It wants to pop up and obscure the lower half of the text window -- which makes it hard to play. You could manually open and close the keyboard every turn, but that's no fun. Anyhow, the keyboard tends to get confused; sooner or later it either flickers or gets stuck. I tried the "Web Browser" controller template, but that doesn't help. It might be possible to improve the screen layout and lock the keyboard in place. However, you'd then be playing on the top half of the Steam Deck's landscape-oriented screen. It's just not a lot of space for text. (Bluetooth keyboard? I couldn't get mine to pair. If you succeed, let me know if it works.) The upshot is that parser-based IF support is not a priority for Steam Deck right now. Apologies! I'll let you know if that changes.

Update to the UI framework! (No changes to the game content.) The game now supports OS dark theme. If you have your system OS theme set to "dark", all of the game windows (including the journal, map, preferences, and so on) will use a light-on-dark theme. The *story* window will still be set to the color theme you last selected (Dark, Light, Sepia, Slate). You can adjust this to match in the preferences. The preferences menu now has two system-responsive options: "Light/Dark" and "Sepia/Slate". These allow the story window to adjust if you switch your OS theme back and forth. I don't know why you would, but the game allows for it. (New players will see "Light/Dark" as the default preference.) Other changes: - The Electron framework has been updated to 8.4.1. This should fix the "harfbuzz" library error that some Linux users were seeing. - There is a "Display Cover Art" menu option in the View menu, should you wish to bask in that. - The Mac version is now notarized.

Various things that I've been meaning to clean up in the past year. (No changes to the game content.) - In the journal window, you can now sort items by name or by date (the order you discovered them in the game). - Added two new color themes: Sepia and Slate. - Changed the "Reset" menu item to "Reset Completely" (to match the in-game command for completely starting over). - Changed the "Close Window" menu item to "Close Game" for the main game window. (Except on Mac, sorry. The Mac's menu bar works poorly with this app framework.) - Fixed a slight size miscalculation in the status window. - Updated the Electron app framework to 1.4.16.

Various things that I've been meaning to clean up in the past year. (No changes to the game content.) - In the journal window, you can now sort items by name or by date (the order you discovered them in the game). - Added two new color themes: Sepia and Slate. - Changed the "Reset" menu item to "Reset Completely" (to match the in-game command for completely starting over). - Changed the "Close Window" menu item to "Close Game" for the main game window. (Except on Mac, sorry. The Mac's menu bar works poorly with this app framework.) - Fixed a slight size miscalculation in the status window. - Updated the Electron app framework to 1.4.16.

Added a few UI features. (No changes to the game content.) - "Full Screen" menu option. (F11 on Win/Linux, cmd-ctrl-F on Mac.) - "Find..." and "Find Next" menu options (ctrl-F/G or cmd-F/G). These let you do a simple text search in the story window. Note that the scrollback is not infinite -- sorry. - In the "Preferences" dialog, there is now an option for "Other Font..." This lets you enter the name of any font installed on your system. (Although you have to type it in rather than looking through a list. Enter the name as you would see it in a CSS file -- the game's display engine is HTML, after all.) - In the Alchemy Journal window, the list of rituals now shows "(*)" to mark rituals that you've learned but not yet tried. (Same as the RECALL RITUALS command in the story window.) - Fixed a bug where a formula description in the Journal window might not be updated when it should be.

Added a few UI features. (No changes to the game content.) - "Full Screen" menu option. (F11 on Win/Linux, cmd-ctrl-F on Mac.) - "Find..." and "Find Next" menu options (ctrl-F/G or cmd-F/G). These let you do a simple text search in the story window. Note that the scrollback is not infinite -- sorry. - In the "Preferences" dialog, there is now an option for "Other Font..." This lets you enter the name of any font installed on your system. (Although you have to type it in rather than looking through a list. Enter the name as you would see it in a CSS file -- the game's display engine is HTML, after all.) - In the Alchemy Journal window, the list of rituals now shows "(*)" to mark rituals that you've learned but not yet tried. (Same as the RECALL RITUALS command in the story window.) - Fixed a bug where a formula description in the Journal window might not be updated when it should be.

How do I play interactive fiction? This looks very weird. This is parser-based interactive fiction, a very old style of adventure game. I first played a game like this in about 1978. Here's an introduction to playing this kind of game. How come a text game takes 125 megabytes of space? Yeah, it's a little bulky. Hadean Lands is based on a cross-platform interactive fiction app called Lectrote, which in turn uses a framework called Electron, which is turn is based on Chrome. So basically you've got two megabytes of IF game file, plus a half megabyte of Javascript interpreter code -- plus Node.js and a bundled web browser. It's not the most efficient way to release a text game, but it was the best way to provide a great IF interface across Mac, Windows, and Linux. It's a bit slow. See above. The interpreter is written in Javascript. But it should be playable on any modern desktop computer. Now, if you were to look through the Steam app directory for a file called "HadeanLands.ulx" -- that would be a portable Glulx game file. You could copy that out and play it in a native IF interpreter such as Gargoyle, and it would be quite a bit faster. (And not take 125 megabytes.) But then you wouldn't have the nice map and journal interface. What's this about DLC? See the store page for more information about that. Where do I find hints? Hadean Lands does not come with hints or a walkthrough. If you decide you need a hint -- and you might not! -- then I recommend asking other players. Hint-giving works best in a community. The Steam forums will certainly have open topics for getting help. Failing that, there are also some very thorough fan walkthroughs out on the Net. I won't link to them, but a web search will lead you there. What other IF have you written? Hadean Lands is the only IF game that I am selling on Steam. Most of my older games are available on my web site for free!

How do I play interactive fiction? This looks very weird. This is parser-based interactive fiction, a very old style of adventure game. I first played a game like this in about 1978. Here's an introduction to playing this kind of game. How come a text game takes 125 megabytes of space? Yeah, it's a little bulky. Hadean Lands is based on a cross-platform interactive fiction app called Lectrote, which in turn uses a framework called Electron, which is turn is based on Chrome. So basically you've got two megabytes of IF game file, plus a half megabyte of Javascript interpreter code -- plus Node.js and a bundled web browser. It's not the most efficient way to release a text game, but it was the best way to provide a great IF interface across Mac, Windows, and Linux. It's a bit slow. See above. The interpreter is written in Javascript. But it should be playable on any modern desktop computer. Now, if you were to look through the Steam app directory for a file called "HadeanLands.ulx" -- that would be a portable Glulx game file. You could copy that out and play it in a native IF interpreter such as Gargoyle, and it would be quite a bit faster. (And not take 125 megabytes.) But then you wouldn't have the nice map and journal interface. What's this about DLC? See the store page for more information about that. Where do I find hints? Hadean Lands does not come with hints or a walkthrough. If you decide you need a hint -- and you might not! -- then I recommend asking other players. Hint-giving works best in a community. The Steam forums will certainly have open topics for getting help. Failing that, there are also some very thorough fan walkthroughs out on the Net. I won't link to them, but a web search will lead you there. What other IF have you written? Hadean Lands is the only IF game that I am selling on Steam. Most of my older games are available on my web site for free!

...And the community page looks lonely, so I'm posting this. Hi! I'm looking forward to this launch, yes I am. Over the next few weeks I'll be putting together an FAQ. Feel free to put your questions up.

...And the community page looks lonely, so I'm posting this. Hi! I'm looking forward to this launch, yes I am. Over the next few weeks I'll be putting together an FAQ. Feel free to put your questions up.