Introduction

I write these words as the creator of The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge, a text adventure game that has been my constant companion for the better part of my life. What began as a childhood dream has grown into a decades-long journey – a labor of love entwined with my own story. Now, looking back across the years of development, I want to share that journey with you. This report is part retrospective and part devlog, but above all, it is a manifesto of passion for a genre often deemed forgotten. It’s a heartfelt reflection on how one game came to be, the vision and beliefs that guided it, and why I believe text adventures are a uniquely powerful medium for storytelling.

My goal is to take you through the winding path that led to The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge, from its nascent ideas to the challenges and triumphs along the way. I’ll discuss the creative vision that shaped the game and the artistic philosophies I clung to, even when trends in gaming pulled in other directions. You’ll read about how the game’s world was painstakingly built, one line at a time, and how its design choices intentionally resist modern gaming conventions in favor of something more timeless. I’ll also share insights into the community’s response – those brave adventurers who have stepped into my labyrinth – and what I hope the future holds for this project and the text adventure genre at large.

This report is written in the first person, as a creator’s narrative. It is clear and structured like a long-form report, divided into chapter-like sections for easy reading, but it strives to remain engaging and literary in style. Think of it as sitting by the campfire while I, the game’s creator, recount the tale of how this game came to life. I invite you to journey with me into the labyrinth – not just the game’s labyrinth of ancient mysteries, but the metaphorical labyrinth of creativity, perseverance, and passion that has defined my experience in bringing Time’s Edge to fruition.

Before we delve into the details, let me set the stage with an image that encapsulates what this game represents to me: a doorway into an adventure built only with words and imagination. It’s a glimpse of the game’s welcome screen, the very first thing a player sees when they begin the journey.

The game’s opening title screen greets the player like an old friend. This ASCII-art welcome banner and prompt – “A Tale of Madness & Mystery Awaits… Press to read a story of ADVENTURE” – is a nod to the classic games of my youth, inviting you into a world limited only by imagination.

From this humble black-and-white screen, a vast universe unfolds in text. With that invitation in mind, let’s step back to where it all began – to the spark of inspiration and the vision that ignited this decades-long odyssey.

Origins of a Vision

Every creation starts with a spark. For The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge, that spark was lit when I was a kid in the late 1980s, long before I had the skills to make a game of my own. I grew up in an era when personal computers were just becoming household items and video games were simple by today’s standards, yet endlessly inspiring. I vividly recall sitting in front of my family’s PC, the screen glowing with possibilities, my mind racing beyond the edges of whatever game I was playing.

One formative memory stands out: playing Super Mario Bros. 3 on our old console and reaching the black curtain at the end of a level. I would stare at that edge of the screen and ask myself, What lies beyond? What if I could step past the boundary of the level and explore the world further? I remember imagining entire hidden realms beyond the confines of the TV screen. Around the same time, I discovered a different kind of game entirely – the legendary text adventure Zork. There were no graphics at all, just words painting a vivid world in my mind. When Zork began with “You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door,” I was instantly hooked. It felt as though I could step inside that white house and live there, uncovering its secrets at my own pace. My young mind hungered to see beyond the limits set by someone else’s design. I wanted to create a world that felt boundless, where the only limits were the edges of imagination.

That desire to see “beyond the screen” and to create a boundless adventure is the creative vision that birthed The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge. I started doodling ideas for my own game as early as elementary school. I didn’t have the terminology then, but essentially I was sketching out a text adventure on paper – drawing maps of labyrinthine corridors, populating them with fantastical creatures and ancient treasures, and writing snippets of descriptions for mysterious rooms. I was mesmerized by the idea of a labyrinth: a twisting maze that could hold infinite secrets. And the concept of time’s edge intrigued me – I imagined a place at the very boundary of time, where past and future blur, and where a great cosmic secret might be hidden for a brave adventurer to discover.

Of course, as a child I had no idea how to make a game. I just knew what I wanted it to feel like. I wanted it to feel ancient and mysterious, as if the world itself were alive with history. I envisioned crumbling temples, enchanted forests, and deep underground passages. In my sketches and notes, I gave names to characters and places: there was an evil witch (her name would later become Malthera), a fabled dragon (Vaelthoryn), and a haunted village (the village of Oathmoor, which would become the starting area of the game). These early ideas were raw and grandiose, drawn from a jumble of influences – fantasy novels I loved, mythologies I read about, and the games I played or imagined playing.

As I grew into my teenage years, two things happened that propelled my vision forward. First, I learned to program. On that same family PC, I discovered QBasic, a simple programming language that came with MS-DOS. QBasic was limited and old-fashioned even then, but it was accessible to me as a beginner. It allowed me to make the computer display text, accept input, and branch the story based on commands – the basic ingredients for a text adventure. The first “room” I ever programmed was just a couple of lines of text: “You are in a dark hallway. There is a door to the north.” It wasn’t much, but it was exhilarating to see my ideas come alive on screen, even in this primitive form.

The second thing that happened was that I started to deeply appreciate the art of storytelling. In school, I gravitated to literature classes and spent hours writing short stories of my own. I realized that a text adventure is essentially an interactive story, where the player is the protagonist. This realization cemented my creative vision: I wanted The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge to be not just a game, but a rich narrative experience – like a novel that you actively participate in. The creative vision behind the game became clear to me: create a world as immersive as a book, as interactive as a game, and as boundless as imagination allows.

Armed with youthful enthusiasm, I set out to bring this vision to life. Of course, I had no clue how long it would truly take. In my naïveté, I thought maybe a couple of years of tinkering would produce the sprawling epic I imagined. Little did I know that this would become a magnum opus spanning decades. In the following section, I will chronicle that journey – the many years of development, the setbacks and breakthroughs – and how Time’s Edge evolved over time from a simple dream into the sprawling adventure it is today.

A Journey of Decades: Development History

Standing here now, in the year 2025, with The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge finally released in a substantial form, I can hardly believe how long the road has been. The development history of this game is intertwined with my own life’s story. What was once a hobby project I toyed with as a teenager became a persistent creative quest that I carried through adulthood. This section is a retrospective on that decades-long development – reflecting on how the game started, how it changed over the years, and the key turning points that shaped its evolution.

The 1990s – The First Steps: I wrote the very first lines of code for Time’s Edge sometime around 1997. I was a teenager with a second-hand MS-DOS computer with Windows 3.1 in my bedroom. The code was written in QBasic, and it was extremely primitive. I built a tiny prototype consisting of maybe 5 or 6 “rooms” connected by simple commands. For example, you could be in a room described as “a dusty chamber with stone walls” and type “NORTH” to go to the next room, which might be “a narrow tunnel lit by unknown phosphorescent moss.” In truth, it wasn’t much more than a digital choose-your-own-adventure. But to me, it was magical. I remember inviting my younger brother to play my little creation. He’d type commands like “look” or “open door,” and I would quickly hard-code responses on the fly when he tried something I hadn’t anticipated. We spent an afternoon essentially play-testing a game that was being written in real-time. That memory encapsulates the wonder of those early days: the game felt alive and full of possibility, even if it was only a few rooms in size.

During those early years, I was also absorbing influences that would later find their way into the game. I played many classic PC adventure games – not only text adventures like Zork and Colossal Cave, but also graphical ones like King’s Quest and The Secret of Monkey Island. Each taught me something different: King’s Quest showed me the importance of creating a vivid world of lore and legend; Monkey Island taught me how humor and witty writing can give a game soul. Meanwhile, I continued to read fantasy literature voraciously. Tolkien’s descriptions of deep time and decaying ruins, for instance, inspired the sense of ancient mystery that I wanted in Time’s Edge. All these influences were swirling in my mind as I built the foundations of the game.

The 2000s – Expansion and Ambition: As the new millennium arrived, while many of my peers headed off to college, I pursued my own path of self-directed learning, diving deep into computer science entirely on my own terms. Libraries became my classrooms, vintage manuals my professors. I spent countless hours experimenting with the various versions of QBasic, from the foundational 1.1 to the increasingly sophisticated 4.5, and even the notoriously challenging 7.1. To broaden my understanding, I also began exploring Visual Basic, gleaning valuable insights into modern programming concepts. In stolen moments between shifts at work and late-night study sessions, my game gradually expanded. Dozens of rooms evolved into hundreds, each painstakingly crafted. I implemented conditional events, puzzles, and a straightforward inventory system enabling players to TAKE items and use them strategically. My ambitions for the game grew increasingly grand—what if the labyrinth wasn’t merely a single dungeon, but a vast kingdom filled with interconnected regions? What if the narrative could unfold across multiple chapters, offering numerous possible endings?

It was during this time that I made a bold design decision that would define the game’s structure: I chose to create an open-world text adventure. Classic text adventures usually have a relatively linear or guided progression, even if the player can explore a bit. But I envisioned Time’s Edge as a place you could truly get lost in. I started designing the game more like a world than a linear story – with sprawling maps, optional areas, and secrets that only the most curious players would find. This was both exciting and intimidating. On one hand, it gave the game a unique identity; on the other, it meant my workload to fill this world with meaningful content was massive.

Challenges and Hiatus: No long journey is without its dark tunnels, and I certainly encountered my share of challenges. In the late 2000s, after graduating and starting a full-time job, I hit a wall with the project. “Real life” responsibilities took over my time and energy. Weeks would pass when I hadn’t written a single line of code for the game. At times I questioned whether The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge would ever be completed, or whether it was destined to remain an endless hobby project. There were moments of doubt where I felt I was clinging to a youthful dream that the world had moved on from. After all, the gaming landscape by 2010 was dominated by 3D graphics, big-budget titles, and online experiences. Text adventures were a relic of the past in the eyes of the mainstream. I wondered if anyone would even care about this gigantic text-based game if I ever finished it.

On a couple of occasions, I nearly walked away from the project entirely. Around 2012, I went through a difficult period personally – health issues and general life stress – and I took a long hiatus from development. The code sat untouched on an old USB drive for over a year. And yet, the story and world of Time’s Edge stayed alive in my mind. I found myself daydreaming about the game even when I wasn’t actively working on it. I’d scribble down ideas for puzzles or locations in a notebook, telling myself, “I’ll add this when I get back to it.” In hindsight, I realize that I never truly let go of the project; I just kept it on the back burner until I could gather the will to continue. The labyrinth was a part of me, and I wasn’t ready to abandon it.

The 2010s – Renewal and Breakthroughs: My passion was reignited in the mid-2010s by a combination of community and nostalgia. I discovered that there was still an interactive fiction community out there – niche, but vibrant – that celebrated text-based games. Websites like the Interactive Fiction Database (IFDB) and communities on forums and Reddit showed me that a dedicated group of people still loved these kinds of experiences. I read about modern text adventures and even tried a few made by fellow enthusiasts. This inspired me to pick up Time’s Edge again and push it forward. I thought, even if the audience is small, if someone out there experiences the magic I felt with Zork or other text adventures through my game, it would be worth it.

With renewed determination, I set some concrete goals for the game. First, I wanted to finish a playable complete arc of the story – a clear objective that a player could achieve from start to “an” ending (even if I planned more beyond that). This meant focusing on the core storyline: the quest given by the King of Oathmoor to stop Malthera from awakening the dragon Vaelthoryn. I decided that the player’s journey to gather the Five Treasures (keys to keeping the dragon sealed) and confront Malthera would form the backbone of the game’s main plot. By 2018, I had implemented this entire storyline in the game, which was a monumental milestone. You could actually play from the beginning to an end – slaying the evil witch in a climactic showdown – and it felt like a satisfying conclusion. Yet, in my heart I wasn’t done; I had always envisioned that defeating Malthera would not be the true end, that there could be something beyond the apparent ending for players who sought it.

This brings me to another breakthrough that occurred as I fleshed out the later stages of the game: the idea of a second ending and a broader exploration beyond the final battle. I wanted The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge to reward curiosity. If a player “wins” by doing the obvious heroic thing (killing the villain), that’s fine – roll credits. But what if the player makes a different choice? Specifically, I designed the scenario so that if you choose not to kill Malthera – a decision most players wouldn’t even consider on a first playthrough – the world remains open and even expands. The witch flees, and the game doesn’t end; instead, new paths open that delve deeper into the mysteries of Time’s Edge. In essence, the game transforms from a quest to save the kingdom into a more personal journey of discovery. This was a risky design choice, because it means a lot of players might miss a huge portion of content (unless they replay or hear about the alternative). But it felt true to the spirit of Time’s Edge: it’s a game about exploring the unknown and looking beyond the obvious.

One memorable turning point was when I implemented an illusionary wall deep in the labyrinth. This wall is passable in only one direction – once you go through, you cannot easily go back. It was a subtle puzzle and a point-of-no-return rolled into one. Designing it was tricky; I wanted to convey through description that this threshold was special and that crossing it was momentous. When I finally got it working in code, it felt like I had opened a door in the game that I myself had been looking for, thematically – a door to the “edge of time,” so to speak. Beyond that wall lies a region I call The Eclipsed Empire – “a land swallowed by the void of time,” as I describe it in-game. This region represents a major expansion of the world and delves into the more philosophical side of the story (more on that in a later section). In terms of development, adding the Eclipsed Empire and other late-game content pushed the room count of the game well past 2,000. At this point, by the end of the 2010s, I realized I had created something enormous – quite possibly the largest text adventure ever built in QBasic.

2020 and Beyond – Completion and Release: Entering the 2020s, I faced the final leg of this marathon. The world was fully mapped, the main story and the secret extended storyline were implemented. What remained was a lot of polishing, bug fixing, and writing – so much writing – to bring everything up to the level of quality I wanted. I often say that The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge has been in development for decades, but in truth the work was intermittent and often solitary. There’s something poetic about polishing a text adventure in an age of virtual reality and ray-traced graphics: there I was, hunched over a keyboard, making sure a room description conveyed the right mood, or that a puzzle’s logic was sound, as outside my window the world marched on with cutting-edge technology. I felt like a bit of a time-traveler, a craftsman practicing an almost lost art.

By late 2024, I felt the game was finally ready to share with others in a significant way. I prepared a public release of The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge on the indie game platform itch.io. It wasn’t the “final” version – in fact, I labeled it Version 1.0, then quickly updated to 1.1, 1.2 and so on as feedback started coming in – but it was feature-complete enough to stand on its own. I cannot overstate the emotion of that moment when I hit the “upload” button and realized people around the world could download and play this thing that had lived in my head (and on my hard drive) for so long. It was exhilarating and terrifying. I knew that given the niche nature of text adventures, it wouldn’t be a large crowd, but even a single stranger wandering into my labyrinth and experiencing it was a victory for me.

To my delight, the game found a small but appreciative audience. I’ll talk more about community response in a later section, but I mention it here because it feeds back into development. Early players gave me feedback that led to new updates – for instance, I added more interactivity to certain areas after one player noted they wanted to TAKE items and talk to characters more. I iterated quickly, releasing version 2.0, 2.1, and beyond, each time expanding or enhancing the game’s content. As of this writing, the game’s latest build (internally I call it v4.1.11, but the public release might be labeled differently) includes over 2,300 rooms, multiple questlines, and countless secrets that I’m excited for players to discover. And I am still not done. I consider The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge a living project – one I intend to keep improving and expanding. It has become, truly, my life’s work.

In reflection, the decades-long development of Time’s Edge has been more than just coding and writing – it’s been a journey of personal growth. I started this project as a wide-eyed kid dreaming of endless worlds. I pushed through years where it felt like I was the only person in the world who cared about it. I learned how to break a monumental task into bite-sized pieces and how to find motivation even when the finish line seemed out of sight. This journey taught me patience, resilience, and the importance of staying true to one’s vision. There were times I walked away, but I always returned, guided by the same spark that started it all. In creating a labyrinth for others to explore, I often felt like I was exploring the corridors of my own mind – confronting doubts, discovering new ideas, and continually moving forward.

With the history covered, I want to turn now to what the game actually became: the world, the story, and the design that make up The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge. In the next sections, I will talk about world-building and narrative, the themes and philosophy behind the game, and the unique power of text as a medium that allowed me to realize this vision.

Weaving the World of Time’s Edge: Lore and Legend

Designing the world of The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge has been an exercise in world-building through words. Without graphics to fall back on, every location, character, and event in the game must be conveyed with carefully chosen prose. This section delves into how I built the lore and legend of Time’s Edge – the fictional realm in which the game takes place – and how writing and storytelling are central to the experience.

From the outset, I wanted the world of Time’s Edge to feel immense and alive. The core concept of the game world is that it’s a kingdom standing on the precipice of time – hence the name. I imagined a place where ancient forces literally and metaphorically reach into the present. Time itself is almost a character in the game: remnants of the past persist, and hints of possible futures glimmer at the edges of perception. This high-level concept gave me a lot of freedom to blend traditional fantasy with more surreal, cosmic elements. For example, one of the pivotal locations in the game is the Timewound Spire – a mysterious clocktower where the veil between eras is thin. In that spire, if you climb high enough, you begin to encounter scenes that feel as if they are from a different epoch, ghosts of another time. World-building moments like this are meant to instill a sense of wonder and unease, as if the player is never quite sure which laws of reality hold true in each new area.

The lore of the game grew organically over years. I did not sit down at the start and create a massive encyclopedia of the world (as tempting as that sounds to a fantasy writer!). Instead, I would often design a new area of the game by first thinking of an emotional or thematic purpose for it, then wrapping a story around that. For instance, I wanted a place in the game that reflects decay and abandonment, to underscore some of the game’s themes of lost beauty and the passage of time. This idea eventually became The Withered Orchard, an area in the game where dead, gnarled trees stand as a silent testament to something once vibrant now forgotten. In writing the descriptions for the Withered Orchard, I tapped into personal feelings of regret and nostalgia. The orchard has no enemies to fight, no obvious treasure – it exists largely to create atmosphere and provoke reflection. Some players might pass through it quickly, but for those who linger, the environment tells a story of its own. A few lines from the game capturing this mood:

The twisted remains of trees reach toward the sky like brittle fingers. No birds sing. No insects stir. Just the crunch of bone-dry leaves beneath your boots.

Every location in Time’s Edge has a similar backstory or intention behind it. The Village of Oathmoor, where the adventure begins, was designed as a microcosm of the kingdom’s plight – once thriving, now beset by fear as dark forces gather. I populated Oathmoor with villagers who each have a snippet of dialogue or a small role that hints at the wider world (a blacksmith worried about his missing son, an old woman who speaks of a temple where the dead don’t rest, etc.). These little touches aim to make the world feel interconnected and storied. The capital city (which the player reaches later) contains an archive of lore where you can read about the kingdom’s history – essentially, I allowed myself a place to infodump all the legends and myths that would have cluttered the main narrative if told elsewhere. Yet, I placed those texts as optional finds; a player who loves lore can spend time reading them, and a player who prefers action can skim through and move on. This is one way text adventures can handle world-building elegantly: by hiding depth for those who seek it, without forcing every detail on the player.

One of my proudest aspects of world-building in The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge is the mythology and pantheon I created for the game’s universe. The conflict with Malthera and Vaelthoryn isn’t just a random “evil villain wants to end the world” scenario; it ties into the cosmology of the world. In the lore, Vaelthoryn the dragon is known as the Giver of Life and Bringer of Destruction – a paradoxical deity-like figure who once brought the sun (life) to the world but could also unmake creation. The Five Treasures the player seeks are not mere plot tokens; each is an artifact tied to an element of creation (for example, one treasure is the Heart of the Mountain, a gem said to contain the first spark from when the world was forged). By giving mythic significance to these objects and beings, I wanted the player to feel that their quest has weight and meaning in the context of the game’s universe.

Writing the narrative and descriptions has truly been where the artistry of this project lies for me. While coding can be complex, it’s ultimately logical – but writing requires channeling emotion and painting pictures with words. I approached writing Time’s Edge almost as if writing a novel in the second person present tense (the traditional narrative style of text adventures: “You stand in a dark chamber…” etc.). I had to constantly balance detail with brevity. Too much detail in a room description can overwhelm or bore the player; too little can make the world feel sparse. I aimed for an evocative, literary style in many places – not just stating facts of the environment, but also the mood. For example, consider an important location like the Sanctum of Chronos (a hidden chamber related to the time theme): a dry description might say “There is a clock on the wall.” Instead, I wrote something like: “An immense clock of obsidian and gold looms on the far wall, its hands frozen at one minute to midnight. The air here is heavy, as if time itself hesitates to move.” Such touches are intended to immerse the player and also to drop subtle clues (in that case, the clock’s time might hint at something).

Character interactions in a text adventure are another avenue for storytelling. While The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge isn’t a heavily dialogue-driven game like some modern interactive fiction (it has a classic adventure feel where exploration and puzzle-solving are primary), there are characters to talk to and learn from. I wrote dialogue for various key NPCs that not only serve gameplay (giving hints or items) but also reveal lore or theme. The King of Oathmoor, who gives you the initial quest, speaks with a tone of weary desperation that hopefully conveys the gravity of the kingdom’s situation. A friendly scholar character you meet later can fill you in on historical legends (if you choose to engage with him), effectively serving as a storyteller within the story.

One interesting challenge in writing was handling the player character’s identity. In many text adventures, the protagonist is an unnamed, undefined “you.” I wanted to give a bit more context without fully defining the protagonist’s personality (since I want the player to project themselves). I decided to give the protagonist a name and backstory offered by the game’s narrative but still keep it second-person. For instance, the game refers to you as Drakhan, “a chosen adventurer promised the great treasures of Oathmoor.” By doing this, I create a slight persona – you are the champion summoned by the king – but I still avoid dictating your inner thoughts or feelings beyond what any adventurer might feel (fear in a dark place, courage facing a foe, etc.). This approach attempts to strike a balance between story context and player agency.

To illustrate the narrative tone and how the writing sets up the world, let me share a snippet from the game’s introduction text, which appears right after the title screen when you begin a new game:

The introduction text that sets the stage for the adventure. In this prologue, rich with descriptive language, the player character stands at the threshold of Time’s Edge, where moonlit arches and distant echoes beckon. It establishes the mythic and eerie tone of the game, inviting the player to step forth into the unknown.

As you can see from the above, the language is intentionally atmospheric. Phrases like “moonlit arches pulse with starlight” and “the glow of crystal runes guides your path” are there to light up the player’s imagination. Since there are no graphics, these words are the visuals. My hope is that a player reads that introduction and immediately feels transported to a mystical place, eager to explore.

World-building also extends to the puzzles and design of the game. Good adventure game puzzles often reflect the logic or culture of the game world. In Time’s Edge, one of the early puzzles involves navigating the Maze of Whispers, a labyrinth where each wrong turn echoes a riddle or a hint spoken by unseen voices. This not only serves as a navigational puzzle but also conveys how the very environment of Time’s Edge is imbued with an almost sentient quality – as if the labyrinth knows you are there and is teasing or testing you. In another instance, when assembling the Five Treasures, I wrote lore for each treasure that hints at its use. The Tear of the Sun (a golden crystal said to be a drop of sunlight) is used in a puzzle where you need to bring light to a dark altar. The game’s text when you find that item mentions “its glow has been known to drive away the deepest darkness,” foreshadowing its purpose. My aim was that the lore and gameplay always support each other.

In summary, the world-building and writing of The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge are labors of love that grew with the project. The world is a patchwork quilt of ideas I had over the years, each patch rich with detail, stitched together with the thread of a central narrative. It’s a world where nearly every room has a purpose, whether it’s to challenge, to inform, or to evoke emotion. Writing thousands of lines of descriptions and dialogue was no small feat, but it was also the aspect of development I found most rewarding. There were times, especially in the quiet hours of late night, when I would write a description for a new area and get chills, feeling like I’d successfully captured a piece of the dream that inspired this game in the first place. It’s those moments that make the countless hours of typing and editing worth it.

Now that I’ve described the world and story, it’s important to talk about the deeper layers – the artistic and philosophical beliefs that shaped this world. In the next section, I will discuss the themes and philosophies woven into Time’s Edge, and how they reflect my own beliefs about art, creativity, and the value of what many consider a bygone form of game.

Themes and Philosophy: The Heart of the Labyrinth

Creating The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge has been as much an artistic and philosophical endeavor as a technical one. From the very start, I intended the game to carry meaning – to be about more than just solving puzzles or slaying monsters. This section is a reflective commentary on the deeper themes embedded in the game and the personal beliefs and messages I’ve attempted to convey through its narrative and design.

One of the central themes of Time’s Edge is the passage of time and the legacy we leave behind. This is evident not only in the story (where time’s manipulation and ancient history play a key role) but also in how the game was developed – over such a long span that it inevitably became a meditation on time for me. I often found myself thinking about how the game itself is a product of decades, and that inevitably seeped into the writing. There are many instances in the game’s text where you encounter the remnants of those who came before: crumbling journals of long-dead adventurers, ruins of civilizations, ghosts that literally are echoes of the past. These aren’t just fantasy tropes; they’re deliberate reminders of mortality and legacy. Through the game, I wanted to pose questions like: What happens to dreams and creations when their creators are gone? What remains of us when time moves on? In the game’s narrative, the Withered Orchard (which I described earlier) symbolically asks this – beauty left untended becomes decay. But decay is not the end of the story; from decay can come reflection and rebirth. That idea parallels my own journey of picking the project back up after long pauses – just because something has been dormant or “withered” doesn’t mean it’s dead.

Another major theme in the game is choice and consequence, particularly the moral choice represented by the two possible endings (slay Malthera or spare her and explore further). This was born from a philosophical stance I have: that life (and by extension, stories) is seldom a simple battle of good versus evil. Traditional fantasy games often end with “you, the hero, killed the evil enemy, congrats.” I wanted to subvert that. By offering a continuation if you don’t perform the typical heroic execution, the game quietly questions the cycle of violence. Is Malthera purely evil, or is she a product of a broken world? If you defeat her without killing, what does that say about mercy or curiosity? In truth, the game doesn’t give a heavy-handed lecture on this – it simply provides the opportunity. But the existence of that choice is meant to get players thinking about alternate perspectives. In one part of the extended content, you even get to glimpse a bit of Malthera’s own past in a vision, hinting at what turned her down her dark path. This doesn’t redeem her actions, but it adds shades of gray to the morality of the world. Philosophically, I believe in the power of understanding and second chances, and I’ve tried to weave that belief subtly into the fabric of the game.

Perhaps the most personal belief that shaped the game is the conviction that art should have soul and depth. This game is, in many ways, my answer to what I perceive as an entertainment industry too often obsessed with surface-level flash and immediate gratification. In recent times, I’ve felt disheartened seeing how many creative works (not just games, but movies, music, etc.) are churned out to chase trends, optimized for algorithms, or designed primarily to keep us addicted rather than to make us think or feel deeply. The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge is my rebellion against that. I wanted to create something that absolutely could not be mistaken for a mass-produced, trend-chasing product. It is intentionally old-school, slow-paced, and demands the player’s patience and imagination. This is not to say modern games are bad – far from it, there are many wonderful contemporary games – but the overall trend of minimizing risk and depth in favor of quick rewards is something I consciously resisted.

One of the blog posts I wrote while developing the game included a line: “We are a generation starving for real art in a world stuffed with algorithms and cheap dopamine. We are watching the death of risk. The death of soul. The death of meaning.” This might sound dramatic, but it captures how I feel and why I kept pushing forward with Time’s Edge even when it seemed futile. I see Time’s Edge as a statement that meaningful, heartfelt creations still matter, even if they’re not what’s commercially booming. There’s a philosophy underlying the game that art for art’s sake is worthwhile. I poured my beliefs about creativity, perseverance, and authenticity into this project. In the narrative, this comes out through metaphors. The labyrinth itself can be seen as a metaphor for a creative journey – full of dead ends, surprises, and discoveries, and at its heart lies something precious if you persist.

A particularly poignant example of theme-meets-design in Time’s Edge is the portrayal of the Withered Orchard, which I keep returning to because it embodies many of my beliefs. In that area, as shown in the excerpt earlier, the orchard is a metaphor for neglected creativity (“what happens when the fruit of creation is no longer tended to”). The quiet, haunting atmosphere of the orchard serves as a mirror to our world: if we neglect the things that are beautiful and meaningful (like deep art, personal dreams, etc.), they wither. Yet, the player pressing on through the orchard despite its sadness is symbolic of the idea that we can continue to carry the torch, to seek and nurture meaning even in a world that sometimes feels barren. When writing that section, I was very much channeling my own resolve to continue developing the game despite facing personal hardships and a world that often seems indifferent to a text adventure.

Another philosophical aspect of the game is its take on knowledge and curiosity. There are many hidden rooms and Easter eggs in Time’s Edge that serve no purpose other than to reward inquisitiveness. For example, there’s a secret library in a remote corner of the map that contains whimsical short stories and fables of the game world. A player could completely miss it and still finish the main game, but if found, it’s a trove of lore and also a statement: exploration for its own sake can be rewarding. I firmly believe that curiosity is one of the most important human traits – it leads to discovery, empathy, and growth. By designing the game to honor curiosity (through hidden content, multiple solutions, etc.), I’m embedding that belief into the player’s experience. When someone finds something in the game that wasn’t required, I hope they feel that spark of Oh, there’s more to this world if I really look. That’s exactly how life is: the more you seek, the more you find.

On a broader level, the game touches on existential questions, albeit in fantastical form. The overarching storyline about preventing the end of the world and then possibly venturing beyond the ‘end’ can be seen as a quest for meaning in the face of oblivion. I won’t claim that The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge is a philosophical treatise – it is, first and foremost, an adventure – but I deliberately wove in layers that invite contemplation. Some players might purely enjoy the gameplay and story, while others might pause to think about, say, why a certain character chose self-sacrifice, or what the cyclical nature of the game’s history says about fate versus free will. It’s all in there for those who want to engage at that level.

A very personal element I included is a kind of creator’s message hidden near the game’s finale. Without spoiling too much, if you reach the furthest depths of the labyrinth (the content beyond the standard ending), you encounter a sort of shrine or mural that speaks directly about creators and dreamers. The text in that part, in a roundabout way, conveys my own feelings: that creating this game was my purpose, that every struggle was worth it, and that I offer it as something meaningful in an increasingly chaotic world. It’s almost a breaking of the fourth wall, though still couched in the game’s lore. I debated including something so overt, but ultimately I felt it was honest and earned by that point in the journey. If a player has made it that far, I suspect they resonate with the game’s ethos, and perhaps they wouldn’t mind a heartfelt note from the person who built it all.

All of these themes and philosophies – legacy, morality, authenticity in art, curiosity, meaning – converge to form the heart of The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge. They are what elevate it, in my eyes, from a mere game to a piece of personal expression. When I was younger, I just wanted to create a fun adventure. As I matured, I realized I wanted to say something with this work. This game has become the medium through which I’ve expressed some of my most deeply held beliefs and emotions. In doing so, I’ve also come to realize one of the beautiful things about text adventures as a form: they naturally lend themselves to depth and introspection. This isn’t to say other game forms can’t be deep, but text – being akin to literature – can reach into the player’s mind in a unique way. You’ll see me expand on that in the next section, which is all about why I believe text adventures are uniquely powerful.

Before we move on, I’d like to summarize the philosophy of Time’s Edge in a more manifesto-like tone, because after all, this is a manifesto of sorts: I refuse to accept that we must relinquish depth for breadth, or meaning for convenience. I reject the notion that a game must be shallow to be fun, or that it must hold the player’s hand at every step to be engaging. I believe in the value of getting lost – in a story, in a maze, in an idea – and finding yourself in the process. I believe that every creative work we leave behind is a statement that we were here and we cared about something. The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge is my statement. It’s a world where everything fades but meaning does not; where even at time’s edge, purpose and hope persist.

With that said, let’s turn to the medium itself. Why choose a text adventure to convey all this? Why, in an age of visual spectacle, rely on words on a screen? In the next section, I’ll champion the text adventure format and explain what makes it such a powerful and timeless medium for storytelling and gameplay.

The Unique Power of Text Adventures

In a world where video games often boast hyper-realistic graphics, orchestral soundtracks, and cinematic cut scenes, a text adventure might seem antiquated – like comparing a radio drama to a blockbuster movie. Yet, I firmly believe that text adventures have a unique power that no other gaming medium can replicate. Developing The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge over the years has only strengthened this belief. In this section, I want to celebrate the text adventure format and articulate why I find it so potent for storytelling and engagement.

Imagination as the Ultimate Graphics Engine: When you play a text adventure, the “graphics” are rendered in your mind’s eye. The game provides descriptions, and your imagination builds the scene. This means that the player becomes an active participant in creating the experience. Two players might picture the Village of Oathmoor or the Withered Orchard differently based on their own experiences and creativity, and both visions are correct. I often say that text adventures have infinite budget for visuals – if I want the sky to crack open with a thousand dragons emerging, I can just describe it, and there it is, vividly, without needing a Hollywood effects team. There’s an unparalleled freedom in that. As a creator, it allowed me to design grandiose scenes and environments that would be impossible for me to render in a graphical game. As a player (yes, I play text adventures too), I find that the experiences born from my own imagination linger longer and more personally than pre-rendered ones. The images you conjure in your head can be far more affecting because they’re uniquely yours.

Deeper Immersion through Interaction with Words: In a text adventure, you interact with the world by typing commands. This means you are communicating with the game in a way that feels like actual thought rather than just reflex. For example, if you encounter a locked gate, in a graphical game you might just see a pop-up “Press X to open (requires key).” In a text adventure, you’ll try things: “open gate,” “examine gate,” “search area,” perhaps even “climb gate” or “kick gate” – you are thinking about the situation and expressing that in words. This engages a different part of the brain, blurring the line between the player and the protagonist. You have to formulate your intentions into language, which is exactly what your character is doing in the story world (albeit abstractly). In Time’s Edge, if you want to persuade a guard to let you pass, you might literally type “TALK TO GUARD” and then perhaps something like “SAY I am on a mission from the King.” There’s a gratifying sense of agency when the game understands you and responds. Even though the parser (the system that interprets your commands) has its limits, when you hit on the right command and the game responds appropriately, it feels like a small victory of wit – you figured out what to do and expressed it.

Pacing and Reflection: Modern games often push players along at breakneck speed – there’s always the next waypoint, the next objective marker, the next cutscene. Text adventures, by their nature, encourage a slower pace. You can stop and think without pressure (unless the game specifically has a timed puzzle, which Time’s Edge mostly doesn’t except in a few dramatic moments). This slower pace can lead to a more contemplative experience. Players often keep notes, map out the world on paper, and mull over riddles. In a way, playing a text adventure can resemble reading a book: you might pause at a beautifully written passage and just imagine it for a moment, or ponder a clue before moving on. With Time’s Edge, I hoped players would take their time to absorb the atmosphere. If someone spends extra minutes in the quiet of the Withered Orchard or rereads the description of the star-filled caverns beneath the Timewound Spire just because it moved them, I consider that a success. The format grants the luxury of reflection, which I think is increasingly scarce in interactive media.

Unlimited Possibilities for Interaction: In a graphical game, your interactions are often limited to what the developers anticipated and animated: maybe you can move, jump, shoot, talk to NPCs via dialogue trees, etc. In a text adventure, if the developer has anticipated something, you can do it by typing it – even if it’s a very specific or odd action. Want to sing a song in an empty hall just to see if something echoes? If the developer thought of it, it might respond (“You sing a lonely tune; your voice echoes off the stone walls hauntingly.”). If not, usually nothing happens, but the sheer breadth of verbs a player might try leads to a delightful sense of experimentation. I tried to accommodate a variety of interactions in Time’s Edge. For example, many background objects mentioned in room descriptions can be examined (EXAMINE TAPESTRY might reveal a clue woven into its pattern). You can LISTEN in certain locations to get an auditory description (maybe you hear distant dripping water in the caves). These nuances reward players for treating the world like a real place where any sensible action might yield something. Of course, I can’t cover every possibility, but when I heard from a player that they tried something playful like DANCE in the tavern and got a funny response I had put in, it made both of us happy. Text input allows for this kind of richness that’s hard to match elsewhere.

Intimacy of Reading: There is an intimacy in reading text that creates a strong connection between the story and the player. When the game narrates “Your heart pounds as you descend the stairs into darkness, the sound of each step swallowed by the abyssal silence below,” it’s speaking directly to you. It’s a one-on-one conversation between the game’s author and the player, mediated by the player’s own inner voice as they read the words. This is fundamentally different from watching a character on-screen experience fear – here the fear is described as your experience. Good text can pull you inwards in a profound way. Many players (myself included) have felt that text adventures can be strangely immersive despite (or because of) the lack of audiovisual bells and whistles. When I first played text games as a youngster, I would lose track of my surroundings; I was there in the story completely. I’ve aimed for that level of immersion with Time’s Edge. By writing in second person and present tense, and focusing on sensory details (what you see, hear, feel), I try to make the player forget the outside world for a while. It’s a bit like reading a good book – you might look up and be surprised that you’re in your room, not in Middle-earth or Narnia or wherever the book took you. A text adventure strives for that same magic.

Accessibility and Timelessness: Another wonderful aspect of text adventures is their simplicity and accessibility. They don’t require high-end hardware or fancy graphics cards. They age more gracefully because they’re not judged by graphical fidelity. A well-written description from 30 years ago can still be as evocative today, whereas a 30-year-old game’s graphics might look dated. There’s a timeless quality to words. This means text adventures remain playable and enjoyable across generations as long as the language is understood. I love that someone decades from now could pick up Time’s Edge and get essentially the same experience from it that a player today would – nothing gets lost to obsolete technology or aging visuals. As long as a basic interpreter for the text exists (which it will, since I plan to keep it updated for modern platforms and likely open source it fully), the game stands as is. There’s also a low barrier to entry in terms of controls: you just need a keyboard (or even voice-to-text, theoretically) and the willingness to read. In an era where controllers have a dozen buttons and games come with long tutorials, the text adventure’s interface – just typing and reading – is refreshingly straightforward. It invites anyone who enjoys reading or storytelling to participate, even if they’re not typically “gamers.”

To illustrate some of these points, imagine a scene from The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge in both a modern graphical game and as it exists in the text adventure. In the game, there is a moment when you stand on a cliff overlooking a vast chasm known as the Void of Ages. In a modern 3D game, you might get a sweeping camera angle showing a dramatic canyon. It would be impressive, no doubt, but you’d be a spectator to what the developers chose to show. In the text adventure, that moment is described to you, and perhaps you as the player decide to do something like SHOUT into the void, just to see how deep it is. The game might respond with “Your voice echoes back an eternity later, a faint and warped version of itself, as if the abyss is speaking back to you.” Now in your imagination, not only do you see the chasm, you hear that eerie echo, and perhaps you feel a chill because it’s described as warped – you start imagining why, perhaps the echo wasn’t just an echo? The text leaves just enough room for your own interpretation to make the experience personal and maybe even spookier than any defined visual could achieve. This collaboration between author and player’s imagination is the secret sauce of text adventures.

Another anecdote: A player told me that while playing Time’s Edge, they took out a notebook and wrote down the titles of books they found in the in-game library, because those little details intrigued them and they wanted to piece together if there was a hidden message in them. That kind of engagement – treating the game world’s minutiae as meaningful – is more common in text adventures where every piece of text could be a clue or hint. The player was effectively doing detective work, not because an objective list told them to, but out of pure curiosity and engagement with the content. I consider that a success of the medium; it fosters a proactive mindset in the player.

It’s worth acknowledging that text adventures are not for everyone. They demand literacy, patience, and a willingness to fill in gaps with your mind. Some people find them frustrating or too slow-paced, especially if they’ve grown up on fast, visual games. But for those who are open to it, a text adventure can deliver an experience that’s richly immersive in a different way. It’s like the difference between watching a movie and reading a novel: each has its merits, but the novel invites you to co-create the world in your head, making it a deeply personal journey.

I also want to address the notion of difficulty and challenge in text adventures. Many classic text adventures are known for their difficulty – obtuse puzzles, the possibility of making the game unwinnable by missing an item, etc. This has historically been both a draw and a repellent. In Time’s Edge, I aimed to find a balance. I wanted the game to be challenging enough that players feel accomplished when solving things, but not so unforgiving that only a masochist with endless time could finish it. The power of text adventures here is that, when balanced right, the challenge feels intellectual rather than reflexive. Solving a riddle by piecing together lore from different locations, for example, can feel like an epiphany. Because the game is words and you solve it with words or thinking, it can feel like a meeting of minds between you and the game’s creator. Some players have told me solving certain puzzles in Time’s Edge felt like “figuring out how the creator thinks.” Indeed, that’s accurate – each puzzle is a bit of my design thinking encoded, and the player decodes it. There’s almost a dialogue happening: I posed a question in the form of a puzzle, the player answers through their actions. That intellectual handshake is very satisfying.

In summary, text adventures wield the power of imagination, language, and interactivity in a pure form. They provide a canvas where the game maker and the player collaborate to create a story. They encourage careful thought, creativity, and immersion in ways that flashy graphics sometimes can’t replicate. The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge exists as a text adventure not because I couldn’t make a graphical game (though as a one-person team, that would indeed be hard), but because I genuinely believe this medium best serves the experience I want to share. It strips away the non-essentials and leaves us with story, player agency, and the written word – which, as centuries of literature attest, is a timeless technology for conveying human experience.

Having extolled the virtues of text adventures, it’s time to discuss how Time’s Edge deliberately stands apart from modern gaming trends. In the next section, I will examine how this game is a conscious throwback and why I chose to resist certain trends in favor of what I consider more enduring qualities of gameplay and storytelling.

Against the Current: Resisting Modern Trends for Timeless Storytelling

Throughout this manifesto, I’ve touched on how The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge is something of an outlier in today’s gaming scene. In this section, I want to more directly address the modern trends in gaming that I intentionally avoided or countered, and explain the rationale behind those choices. This is not to bash contemporary games – many are wonderful – but rather to highlight the value of alternative approaches that harken back to an older philosophy of game design.

One of the most noticeable ways Time’s Edge resists modern trends is in its non-linear, unguided exploration. Many modern games, especially big-budget ones, use a plethora of aids to ensure the player is never lost or confused: quest markers float on your HUD, an NPC might constantly remind you of what to do next, maps are fully laid out or auto-filled, etc. While these conveniences make games more accessible to a broad audience, they also fundamentally change the experience of exploration. In Time’s Edge, I wanted the player to truly wander and wonder. There is no automap (players are encouraged to draw their own or mentally keep track). There are no glowing arrows pointing where to go. If you receive a quest (like “find the Five Treasures”), the game doesn’t then highlight exactly where each one is; you have to piece it together from clues, descriptions, and sometimes by stumbling into the right place after searching. This design can frustrate players used to constant direction, but it can also be incredibly rewarding for those who embrace it. The thrill of actually being lost in a dangerous maze and then finding your way out is something modern guided experiences rarely offer. The tension and triumph are amplified when you realize you did it on your own. I recall a comment from a player who said that figuring out how to navigate the crypt maze in Time’s Edge without any hand-holding gave them a rush akin to solving a really tough crossword puzzle – a mix of relief, pride, and exhilaration. That feeling is exactly why older games often stuck with us; they didn’t just hand over victory, you earned it, and it became your story of overcoming.

Another trend I quietly oppose with this game is the obsession with speed and instant gratification. So many modern games (mobile games especially, but also many AAA titles) are designed to give you quick dopamine hits – constant rewards, flashy level-ups, or endless streams of content that you consume rapidly. Time’s Edge goes in the opposite direction: it asks for patience. Victories are spaced out and meaningful. Some puzzles might stump you for a while. Progress might feel slow in places as you soak in descriptions or scratch your head at a riddle. This slower pace is intentional, as I believe a story sinks in deeper when you have to slow down for it. If a player comes away from Time’s Edge and remembers a particular scene or puzzle vividly a week later, that’s more valuable to me than them binging through the game in one night and forgetting it the next day. It’s the difference between savoring a multi-course meal versus snacking on junk food. The latter is fine for a quick fix, but the former is what you remember and treasure.

Modern gaming has also trended towards excessive monetization and commercial design decisions – think microtransactions, loot boxes, battle passes, endless sequels and franchise tie-ins. Obviously, as a free indie text adventure, Time’s Edge stands completely outside that world. There’s not even a price tag, let alone any in-game purchases. This game exists purely as a creative work to be experienced, not a product to maximize profit. I mention this because it influences design philosophy: I never had to worry about making something “marketable” or diluting a feature to appeal to focus groups. Every decision could be made purely in service of the game’s vision and the players’ experience, not business goals. In an age where even artistic mediums are heavily monetized and creators are pressured to make money, I find it liberating and important that projects like this exist. Time’s Edge is, in a sense, a bit old-fashioned: a game made for the love of making a game. And that is increasingly rare.

Let’s talk about difficulty and failure in modern vs. old design. Many current games have trended towards forgiving difficulty – quick saves, frequent checkpoints, hints that pop up if you take too long, etc. Some even have “story mode” difficulties where challenge is minimal, to allow players to just experience the narrative. I actually think offering those options is fine, but I also think there’s value in a game that says: I’m not going to go easy on you, but I promise if you keep at it, you can overcome. Time’s Edge can be unforgiving in places. You can die if you make a poor choice (though I try to foreshadow dangers). You can get stuck on a puzzle and progress grinds to a halt until you solve it. In a few cases, if you neglect something important, you might make the endgame harder for yourself (though I aimed to avoid outright unwinnable states as that can be too harsh). By modern standards, this is tough love. But it trains a mindset that I find very rewarding: carefulness, perseverance, and learning from failure. When you know the game isn’t going to spoon-feed you, you start paying more attention to details. You might save your game before doing something risky (yes, saving/loading is the main concession to modern convenience – I wouldn’t ask anyone to restart the entire game after a death like some 1980s adventures did!). You experiment more thoroughly, and when you finally crack a problem, your sense of accomplishment is real. It’s your victory, not something the game practically handed to you. I often compare it to finishing a lengthy novel or completing a challenging hike – it’s not easy, but that’s exactly why it feels so good at the end.

Modern games are often very polished and slick, with every little rough edge filed off by large teams and QA testers. By contrast, Time’s Edge has some quirks and rough edges – it’s largely hand-crafted by one person. Rather than seeing this as a downside, I embrace it as part of its charm. It feels human. If there’s a typo somewhere (despite my best efforts to catch them), or if a response to an odd command is unimplemented, it reminds you that this is a humble creation, not a corporate product. Some might find that annoying, but others find it endearing. Many retro gamers enjoy the idiosyncrasies of older games for this reason – they reflect the human creators behind them, complete with their unique styles and even mistakes. Time’s Edge resists the sanitized, everything-is-perfect approach and instead says, here is my imperfect but sincere creation. I believe many players can feel the difference; a game with soul, even if technically imperfect, often resonates more than a flawless but soulless one.

To summarize some key points of divergence from modern trends, it might help to list them clearly:

• No Hand-Holding: The game does not provide GPS-like guidance. You must navigate, map, and deduce on your own.
  
• Slow, Deliberate Pacing: It rewards taking your time over rushing. The narrative unfolds at the player’s exploration speed.
  
• Single-Player, Offline Experience: In a time where many games push online features and social connectivity, Time’s Edge is a solitary journey – almost meditative.
  
• No Monetization or DLC: The game is complete in itself; there’s no additional content to buy, no advertisements, no skins or expansions sold separately. This is a self-contained piece of art.
  
• High Challenge, High Reward: It harks back to an era when games expected you to struggle and learn, treating the player as an capable problem-solver rather than trying to please every moment.
  
• Respect for the Player’s Intelligence: The writing doesn’t dumb things down. It uses rich vocabulary and expects players to pay attention. It trusts that you can handle complex puzzles and storylines.
  
• Timeless Aesthetics over Cutting-Edge Tech: Instead of chasing the latest graphics or trends (which would anyway be irrelevant in a text game), it focuses on story and atmosphere, which never go out of style.
  
• Personal Touch: This is a handcrafted world with Easter eggs, secrets, and a personal voice, not something designed by committee to maximize engagement metrics.
  

Now, one might ask: why swim against the current like this? Why risk making a game that could alienate modern players with its old-school approach? The simple answer is conviction. I genuinely believe that these “timeless” qualities have merit and that there are players out there, even today, who crave them – perhaps even some who don’t know they do until they experience it. It’s a desire to preserve a style of game that meant so much to me growing up. I remember how I felt playing those early adventures that didn’t hold my hand; sure, I got frustrated at times, but I also felt like an actual explorer or detective in a way hyper-polished modern games seldom replicate. I want to pass that feeling on, to share it with a new generation or kindred spirits.

Furthermore, resisting these trends is also a statement of authenticity. It’s saying that The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge is not trying to be something it’s not. It fully embraces what it is: a throwback, a passion project, a work of art that values depth over breadth. It’s comfortable in its identity. There’s something inspiring about works (in any medium) that stick to their guns and don’t compromise just to chase popularity. They might not become mainstream hits, but they often achieve cult status and enduring respect. In the community of interactive fiction, I’d rather Time’s Edge be remembered as that huge, uncompromising, fascinating oddity rather than a lukewarm attempt to modernize the text adventure for mass appeal.

In a way, Time’s Edge serves as a bridge between eras. It’s built with modern knowledge (I have decades more experience and better tools than early devs did), and it’s released on modern platforms, yet it carries the torch of an earlier philosophy. It’s showing that some of those old-school principles still have life in them. I’ve heard phrases from players like “this scratches an itch I almost forgot I had” or “they don’t make ’em like this anymore.” Comments like that reassure me that, while niche, the audience for this kind of experience is real and grateful.

To illustrate the contrast vividly, consider a popular modern open-world game versus The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge. In the modern game, you open the map and see dozens of icons telling you where to go and what to do – camps to clear, collectibles to find, story missions marked clearly. You might enjoy systematically clearing those and the game’s systems push you along to the next. In Time’s Edge, when you open the “map” (which is in your mind or notes), at first you have nothing but vague directions and descriptions. You hear of a place called Veylith or the Eclipsed Empire not because a UI element pinged it, but because an in-game character or text mentioned it. The intrigue comes naturally: What is that? How do I get there? You might find a locked door with a strange symbol, and there’s no tooltip saying “find the matching key in dungeon X.” Instead, you soak in the description, maybe recall seeing that symbol somewhere else, and connect the dots. Or you set it aside, explore elsewhere, and eureka – stumble on what you need, then remember the door hours later. The game never explicitly says “good job, you completed quest #27.” The reward is intrinsic: you progressed in the story, you unlocked a new area, you feel clever for figuring it out. To me, that’s timeless game design – it feels like real adventure and discovery.

In conclusion, The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge stands proudly against certain modern trends, not out of contrariness but out of a belief in the value of those older ways. It is a bet that there are people who still want that kind of challenge and immersion. It’s also a love letter to the art of storytelling in games, asserting that some stories are best told at their own pace, in their own style, without bending to every contemporary expectation. By resisting the current, Time’s Edge aims to offer an experience that, while perhaps unfamiliar to some today, is deeply fulfilling in a way that many contemporary games – for all their strengths – might not be. In making these choices, I hoped not only to create a better game, but to make a statement about the kind of experiences worth having and preserving in the medium of games.

Now, having explored the creation, content, and philosophy of the game, I would like to acknowledge the community – those who have played, responded to, and become part of the game’s ongoing story – and then share some thoughts on the future. The final sections will cover the community response and my hopes for what comes next, for both Time’s Edge and the wider world of text adventures.

Community Response: Voices from the Labyrinth

When you work on a project in isolation for so many years, finally sharing it with the world can be both thrilling and nerve-wracking. As I released The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge and people began to play it, a community – however small – started to form around the game. In this section, I want to comment on the community response: what players have said, how they’ve engaged with the game, and what that has meant to me as a creator.

Firstly, I must admit that I had modest expectations for player numbers. Text adventures are a niche within a niche these days. I anticipated maybe a handful of downloads, mostly from the interactive fiction community or curious retro gamers. So it was a pleasant surprise to see that news of the game spread a bit through word of mouth and niche gaming forums. It’s far from a viral hit, but a few hundred people have at least tried it, and a subset of those have delved deeply into it. The response has largely been heartwarming and validating. Seeing strangers discuss aspects of Time’s Edge that I spent countless hours on – as minor as a single puzzle or as major as the overall narrative – is a surreal and wonderful experience. It transforms the solitary act of creation into a shared story between me and the players.

One of the earliest bits of feedback I got was from a fellow text adventure enthusiast on an online forum who declared Time’s Edge “the largest, wildest text adventure I’ve seen in decades.” They were particularly impressed (and a bit bewildered) by the sheer scale – over 2,000 rooms, dozens of items, multiple endings. That comment made me smile because massiveness for its own sake was never the goal; rather, the scope grew from my ambition to create a whole world. But I can understand how, in an era where text adventures are often short or experimental, a sprawling epic feels novel again. This player went on to say that exploring the game felt like “unearthing a lost game from the 80s that somehow no one had heard of – in the best possible way.” I treasure that description: a lost game from the 80s, because it means the game successfully invokes the feeling of those classics.

Many players have commented on the atmosphere and writing. I’ve received messages about how certain descriptions gave them goosebumps or how they felt genuinely scared in some of the horror-tinged sections (like wandering alone in an abandoned monastery at night, hearing faint chanting – something I wrote to unnerve, and apparently it worked!). Some appreciated the quieter moments too, like stumbling upon a serene hidden grove amidst the darkness. It’s immensely gratifying to know the writing connected emotionally. One player wrote, “I found myself screenshotting lines of text because they were just beautiful or poetic.” As someone who labored over the phrasing of those lines, that kind of feedback means the world. It tells me that yes, it was worth it to pour care into the prose, because it’s reaching receptive minds.

Of course, not all feedback was glowing – and that’s good, because constructive criticism helps me improve the game with updates. Some newer players, who perhaps had never played a text adventure before, found the lack of guidance frustrating. I received a polite email from a gamer in their early 20s who was born well after the heyday of text games; they admitted they got lost in the very beginning and had no idea what to do after wandering around Oathmoor. However, they stuck with it and eventually “got into the groove,” as they put it. Their suggestion was to possibly include an in-game hint system or a beginner’s guide in the documentation, to help ease players in. I took that to heart. While I didn’t want to break immersion with blatant hints, I did add an optional command HELP that gives some general guidance on parser usage and suggests what to do if you’re stuck (such as re-read descriptions, try examining objects, etc.). I also made sure the itch.io page and game manual had a clearer introduction for players new to the genre. This has helped because I saw fewer comments later on about people being completely at a loss initially.

Another common thread in community response has been sharing experiences and tips with each other. There have been a couple of threads on forums where players ask each other for hints (with spoiler tags, thankfully) on particularly tricky parts. It warmed my heart to see those who had finished or gotten far help newcomers by nudging them in the right direction without outright spoiling. It’s the kind of camaraderie that existed in the early days of gaming – I remember playground conversations about how to get past a certain level or puzzle. Here it was happening online for my game. One amusing anecdote: a player nearly finished the game but was missing one of the Five Treasures and was baffled because they were sure they’d scoured everywhere. They asked in a forum if anyone knew where the “Emerald of Tears” (one of the treasures) was, since that was the only one eluding them. Another player responded cryptically, “Have you looked beneath the throne?” with a winking emoji. That was enough for the first player to have an epiphany – I later saw them post “Got it! I can’t believe I missed that, very sneaky.” Moments like that make me chuckle; it shows the game’s mysteries can encourage collaboration and discussion, which is fantastic.

The hardcore text adventure community (like those on the IF forums or text adventure Discords) had a particularly enthusiastic response. To them, Time’s Edge was seen as a throwback but also somewhat unique in its scope and persistence. One person called it “a modern Zork on steroids,” which might be the funniest tagline I could imagine. They meant that lovingly, noting it’s got the exploration of Zork but with even more to find and a more elaborate narrative. A few veteran players took it upon themselves to map out the entire game and even put together an unofficial walkthrough. Discovering that someone had created a sprawling ASCII map of my game’s world was surreal – it was like seeing the geography of a place I’d only visualized in pieces all stitched together through someone else’s effort. The map-maker commented that mapping Time’s Edge was “an adventure in itself,” due to one-way passages and secret connections that they had to verify. I wear that as a badge of honor: the labyrinth is indeed labyrinthine!

One aspect of community response that deeply moved me is hearing how the game’s themes or story resonated on a personal level. After I posted the reflective “Withered Orchard” blog entry (which I excerpted earlier in this manifesto), a player left a comment saying that they were going through a tough time in their life and that reading my post and playing the game felt comforting in a strange way. They said, “It’s like the game acknowledges darkness and difficulty, but it’s ultimately about hope and perseverance. It inspires me to keep going in my own labyrinth.” I’ll be honest – when I read that, I teared up. It was exactly the kind of meaningful impact I could only dream that my creation might have. To know that my fantasy world and my words could help someone in the real world feel a little less alone in their struggles… there’s no greater reward as an artist. It reinforced my belief that games, especially narrative-rich ones, can touch lives beyond just entertainment.

The community has also expressed curiosity about the development process and the person behind the game. I’ve done my best to be transparent and present – via the development blog, responding to comments, and even a short Q&A on a forum. Players seem fascinated that this was a one-person project carried over decades. I’ve fielded questions like “How did you keep track of everything in such a huge game?” (Answer: lots of spreadsheets, notes, and the aforementioned coordinate system) and “Did you ever think of giving up, and what kept you going?” (Answer: Yes, I thought of it, but the love of the game and what it stood for kept pulling me back). Some folks have even asked if I’d consider doing a post-mortem talk or writing an article about making the game. That might be something I’ll do in the future, given enough interest, but for now my focus is still on finishing what I started in terms of content.

Not all community interactions have been praise or deep discussions; some have been lighthearted and fun, such as fan-made memes or jokes about the game. Surprisingly, a couple of creative individuals made image memes referencing Time’s Edge. One meme image humorously contrasted an elaborate illustration of a knight lost in a maze labeled “Me playing The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge” with a second panel showing the knight just cutting through the maze walls labeled “My friend asking for the solution.” It’s a playful jab at how different players approach the game – some methodically explore every nook, others just want the answers. I got a good laugh out of it, and it circulated a bit in the small community. Another person drew a little pixel art of the main character holding a lantern aloft, with the caption “Keep your lantern lit” (a phrase I often use in the game’s writing and my blog). It was charming to see a visual interpretation of something from my textual world.

It’s also worth noting the support the community has shown beyond just playing the game. A few people have offered to donate money on itch.io (even though the game is pay-what-you-want, and I expected nothing). Some have offered their skills – one individual offered to compose a piece of music inspired by the game (which blew my mind; maybe I’ll put it on the website if that comes to fruition), and another offered to help with proofreading or even coding if I ever wanted assistance. I haven’t taken them up on coding help because the codebase is idiosyncratic and frankly, I’m not sure I could adequately onboard someone into my QBasic quagmire! But the offers alone show a level of investment from the community that’s truly touching.

In summary, the community response to The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge has been a rewarding aspect of this journey. It transformed the project from a monologue into a dialogue. Players have, through their feedback and discussions, become part of the game’s ongoing story. They’ve validated the things I hoped would work (atmosphere, immersion, the joy of exploration) and pointed out areas to improve (accessibility for newcomers, the occasional bug or unclear puzzle). They’ve also taken the experience and run with it – mapping, streaming, discussing lore theories, and more. This kind of engagement breathes life into the game beyond what I put into it myself.

As the creator, I feel a deep sense of gratitude to everyone who has ventured into Time’s Edge and shared their thoughts. In the often-cynical realm of the internet, to have a pocket of people appreciate and celebrate something so earnest and old-school is a gift. It makes me optimistic not just for my own work, but for the potential of niche, passion-driven projects in general. It proves there is an audience, however small, that hungers for genuine, heartfelt experiences.

With the community’s voices in our ears, it’s a good moment to pivot to the final part of this report: the future. What lies ahead for The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge? What are my hopes for the game and perhaps the text adventure genre moving forward? I will wrap up this manifesto with a look to the horizon, carrying forward the torch that so many have helped ignite.

Future Hopes: Carrying the Flame Forward

As I conclude this long journey of words, my mind turns to the future – both the immediate future of The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge and the broader future I envision (or dare to hope for) in the realm of text adventures and storytelling games. This final section is about dreams and aspirations, fittingly so given that the entire project was born from a dream.

For The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge itself, my foremost goal is to see it through to true completion. While the game is fully playable and has a rich storyline, I consider the current state to be perhaps 30% of what I ultimately want it to be. There are a few areas in the game that I have outlined but not yet implemented – for instance, an entire sub-region called the Isle of Reveries that is hinted at in some lore books but not yet accessible. I intentionally left a couple of “doors” closed in the game world that say something along the lines of “This path will open in a future update.” Having come this far, I owe it to myself and the players to fulfill those promises. I anticipate releasing a Version 5.0 (or maybe I’ll call it 5.5, numbering is arbitrary) that will include these final areas, likely along with the fabled “second ending” sequence fully fleshed out (as of now, the second ending is achievable but somewhat open-ended; I plan to extend it to give a more satisfying closure for those who go that route).

I also want to continue polishing the game based on feedback. That means fixing any lingering bugs (text adventures can have lots of little bugs like unrecognized synonyms or small continuity errors, and I strive to squash those as they’re reported). It also means possibly adding more quality-of-life features while maintaining the game’s spirit. For example, I’m considering adding a command that lets players review important notes or clues they’ve found, sort of like a journal, so they don’t have to scroll back or keep their own notes if they don’t want to. I resisted that at first (feeling it was too modern), but given the length of the game, a basic note-recap might be welcome to many without really diminishing the challenge. I would implement it in a diegetic way (maybe an in-game “travelogue” item the player carries that automatically logs significant hints).

From a technical standpoint, I have a hope to port or adapt the game to more platforms. Right now, it runs on Windows (since it’s essentially a QB64 compiled program). I’d love to see it playable on web browsers or mobile devices, which would lower the barrier for many potential players. There are tools to convert QB64 or I could embark on translating the code to another language (which would be a hefty task, but not impossible). This may be a long-term project, but in the spirit of being timeless, the more accessible the game is, the longer it can live. I’ve even mused about possibly integrating it into an interpreter like Frotz (used for Infocom games) by converting it to Inform or a similar modern IF language, but that would practically be a rewrite. Whether I attempt that depends on time and energy, but it’s on the “dream” list.

Today, the source code and new additions are available for download on the website, including regular updates to the interactions.txt and rooms.txt files for anyone wishing to explore, modify, or build upon the game. Speaking of dreams, one of mine is to someday publish the source code and assets of Time’s Edge openly. Not only would this preserve it for posterity, it might let others learn from or even modify it (imagine fan-made expansions or mods – a crazy thought, but who knows!). I have to clean up and document the code a lot more before I’d be comfortable releasing it into the wild; right now it’s a tangle that only I fully understand. But the principle of open-sourcing a passion project appeals to me: it’s my way of giving back to the community and ensuring the game can outlive me in the hands of enthusiasts.

Beyond the scope of my game, I harbor broader hopes for the text adventure and interactive fiction genre. I would love to witness (and contribute to) a renaissance of sorts for these kinds of games. We already see small sparks of it – the existence of an IF community, the success of some modern text-based games on platforms like Steam or mobile (for instance, narrative choice games and interactive fiction apps have their audiences). I hope that The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge, in its own small way, demonstrates that there’s still magic to be found in this format. Perhaps it can inspire other creators to attempt ambitious text-based projects, or inspire players to seek out more games like this once they realize how rewarding they can be.

I recall a message from a younger player saying that Time’s Edge was their first text adventure and that it opened their eyes to a whole new genre – they were eager to play more and even try making one themselves. That made me extremely happy. If nothing else, if this game serves as a gateway for some into the wider universe of interactive fiction, then it has done a service beyond itself. I envision a future where text adventures reclaim a bit of spotlight, not as a mainstream juggernaut but as a respected niche – much like how tabletop role-playing games had a resurgence, or how vinyl records made a comeback among audiophiles. Old doesn’t mean dead; it can mean classic, waiting to be rediscovered.

On a personal note, I also consider The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge as possibly just the beginning of my journey as a storyteller in the gaming medium. It’s my magnum opus, yes, but I don’t intend for it to be my only opus. I have ideas for other games – perhaps a sequel or spiritual successor, or something entirely different genre-wise but carrying the same design philosophy of depth and narrative richness. One dream I have is to create a hybrid game that combines text with other elements (like simple graphics or sound) to enhance immersion while still leaning on imagination. However, I’m very mindful that I don’t stretch myself too thin. For the near future, Time’s Edge remains my primary focus until I am satisfied it’s as good as I can make it.

Let me outline a few key hopes point by point, as a sort of future manifesto bullet list:

• Complete the Vision: Finalize all planned content for The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge, delivering the full intended experience to players.
  
• Preserve and Extend: Ensure the game remains accessible by exploring ports or platform expansions; release the source so that the game’s legacy can continue.
  
• Community Growth: Cultivate the community by staying engaged, maybe hosting a competition (imagine a speedrun contest or a fan-fiction contest based on the game’s lore!), and encouraging players to share their experiences.
  
• Inspire Creation: Use the game as a springboard to encourage others to create – perhaps by writing about its development or participating in interactive fiction workshops/jams, I can help demystify the process for newcomers.
  
• Innovate in Text Gaming: Experiment with ways to enhance text adventures without losing their core charm (like optional audio atmospheres, or dynamic text that changes on replays to keep things fresh).
  
• Lifelong Storytelling: Personally, continue writing and designing. Whether it’s more games, or perhaps writing a novel set in the Time’s Edge universe, I want to keep the creative flame alive beyond this one release.
  

Looking at the horizon, I feel a mix of optimism and realism. Realistically, text adventures will likely remain a niche interest – I don’t foresee them overtaking FPS or MOBA games in popularity, and that’s okay. The goal isn’t to dominate, but to endure and enrich. And optimistically, I do think we’re at a point in time where there’s a yearning for authenticity and substance in entertainment, and text adventures can answer that call for certain people.

One of my more poetic hopes is that someday, perhaps many years from now, someone who played The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge today will look back on it with the same fondness that I look back on the games of my youth. Maybe they’ll tell a friend or their child, “That’s a game that meant a lot to me,” and in doing so, pass on the torch. There’s a kind of immortality in that – a chain of inspiration that goes on. It’s the same chain that began with those who inspired me (the creators of Zork and all the other works that lit up my imagination). To be a link in that chain is a beautiful thing.

To wrap up, I envision the future of The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge and text adventures not as a fading sunset of a bygone era, but as a campfire that continues to crackle and warm those who gather around it. The mainstream may be a neon-lit city of high-tech marvels, but at the edge of the woods, there will always be a quiet place where a traveler can sit by the fire and listen to a tale woven in words, and that tale can transport them to infinity. I’ll do my part to keep that fire lit.

Conclusion

Writing this manifesto-style retrospective has been an adventure in its own right. In these pages, I’ve traveled back through the corridors of time – my own personal time – to recall how The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge came to be and why it matters so much to me. We began with a spark of inspiration in a young dreamer’s mind and followed the winding path through decades of development, creative challenges, and triumphant breakthroughs. We explored the depths of the game’s world, uncovering not just its fantasy lore but the very real philosophies and passions woven into its fabric. We celebrated the unique strengths of text adventures and defended the choice to stand apart from modern gaming conventions. We listened to the voices of a community that took this creation and made it part of their stories. And we set our sights on the horizon, daring to hope for a future where the torch of interactive fiction burns ever bright.

At its heart, The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge is more than just a game – it is my love letter to the art of the text adventure, to the power of storytelling, and to every soul who yearns for a bit of magic and meaning in their interactive experiences. It stands as proof that a game doesn’t need cutting-edge graphics or massive budgets to touch players; it needs heart, imagination, and perseverance. Each room in the labyrinth, each line of description, carries a piece of me – my memories of childhood wonder, my questions about life and purpose, my defiance against cynicism, and my unwavering belief that stories, especially interactive ones, can illuminate the human spirit.

For general readers who may have never played a text adventure, I hope this manifesto has offered insight into why someone would devote so much time to such a project. Perhaps it has even piqued your curiosity to try one yourself, to step into a world made of words and find that those words can be as vivid as any CGI panorama. For fellow enthusiasts and creators, I hope my journey resonates with your own and reaffirms that the passion we pour into these niche projects is worthwhile. We carry forward traditions that might otherwise be lost, and in doing so, we carve out new paths in the ever-evolving landscape of games.

In closing, I find it fitting to return to the metaphor of the labyrinth one last time. Creating and playing The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge has taught me that life itself is much like a grand text adventure. We wander through twists and turns, sometimes in the dark, armed with nothing but hope and whatever knowledge we’ve gathered. We face puzzles and challenges that test our resolve. We encounter moments of beauty that take our breath away, and stretches of difficulty where we must persist on faith. We make choices that shape our journey’s course. And through it all, we learn – about the world, about ourselves, about what truly matters.

My journey through this labyrinth of time – the making of this game and the writing of this report – has reaffirmed what I felt as a kid staring beyond that Mario end-screen or immersed in the first text adventure I ever played: that there is always something more to discover if we dare to look beyond the obvious, if we keep our hearts open to wonder. Text adventures, with their boundless scope and reliance on imagination, are a perfect embodiment of that idea. They allow us to see beyond the literal and into the possible.

To anyone reading this, whether you’re a gamer or not, whether you ever play The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge or not, I leave you with the core message that has guided this entire endeavor:

Keep your torch lit, your heart open, and your spirit ever curious. In the grand adventure of life and in the stories we share, these are the things that will guide you through the darkest passages and into the light of discovery.

Thank you for reading, and perhaps someday, we’ll meet on the paths of Time’s Edge – two travelers swapping stories beneath the ancient arches, at the very edge of time, where every ending is just another beginning.