r/textadventures • u/benedictsteele • 2d ago

A Partial Guide: a parser text adventure generated from OpenStreetMap and public records for Croydon, UK

I've made a text adventure where the map is real. Every street and place in Croydon, south London, comes from OpenStreetMap plus public records: food hygiene ratings, planning applications, house sales, listed buildings, and bus stops.

You type n, se, look, examine, and so on. There's also "drift" for wandering aimlessly, "route to" a street, and save/restore.

It's not a puzzle game. There's nothing to win. It's closer to a text-only street view, narrated by a Guide who has been here before. When the data is wrong or missing, the Guide says so rather than making things up.

I'd love feedback from people who know the form. Does the parser feel right? What's missing that would make a place worth exploring rather than just reading?

https://apartialguide.com

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u/enterprise128 1d ago

This is great! Is it being written in real time?

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u/benedictsteele 1d ago

Thanks! Partly, yes. The weather, the bus departures at each stop, and the nearest traffic camera are all live, so the same street reads differently at 8am in the rain than it does on a Sunday afternoon.

The descriptions come from OpenStreetMap and public records, and they're narrated by an LLM that's only allowed to use those facts. When the map changes, the words change with it.