Blacksite

An experiment in immersive text-based roleplaying. Named for its experimental nature and minimalist visual theme.

What?

This is an experimental platform for immersive text-based roleplaying. It is intended to be used to play something similar to a tabletop roleplaying game but in a manner that deliberately reduces the game master to a faceless stream of text and removes direct access to the other players. I built this to see how this impacts the game experience. I don't imagine this will be useful to terribly many people, but I'm releasing it just in case.

Usage

This project is written in Crystal with no dependencies aside from the standard library. Run with crystal run src/main.cr or ./src/main.cr and then visit http://localhost:3077 to interact with the application.

• To start a session simply type a name into the provided field.
• Names must contain only lowercase letters and the - symbol.
• Players can join your session by typing the same session name, then a name for themselves.
• Players can then interact with the game master as though blacksite was a normal chat program.
• The game master can send a message to a specific user by clicking their name or one of these messages to target them.
• The game master can return to sending global messages by pressing escape.
• A player's messages can only be seen by the game master, not by other players.
• The theme can be switched from light to dark by clicking the square in the top left corner.

Storage

The program records the content of each session into a text file named session_SESSIONNAME.txt in the directory in which it is run. These files are not read by the program and exist only for user reference.

License

Developed by Amini Allight and licensed under the GPL 3.0 license. Includes files from the Open Sans font under the SIL Open Font License.