Hamlet – The Game

I used to think you’d never see it, but here it is: Hamlet as a text adventure.

It does sort of work as far as I’ve gotten, but probably because the juxtaposition between the play and the text adventure is so jarring as to be fun.

> n
Balcony
A ghost is here.
An exit leads south.

> tell ghost “hello”
“Hey Dad,” you say cheerily. “What’s up?”
“Hamlet,” says the old man after a sigh, “you remember how I was found mysteriously dead in the orchard a couple of weeks back? Well… it’s like this. Your uncle Claudius poisoned me so he could become king and marry your mother. I’d be awfully grateful if you could kill him for me.”
“All right,” you say, “I’ll do it!”
Your life suddenly seems to have purpose.

Update: The game has been relocated to http://rdouglasjohnson.com/hamlet/

7 thoughts on “Hamlet – The Game”

  1. I think a lot of sites (such as BoingBoing) were linking to the game.

    If the author of the game reads this, I would like to host the game for you – just drop me a line.

  2. I may be resurrecting old, abandoned topics, but I was doing some research on the web and came across this: http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/william-shakespeares-hamlet-a-murder-mystery/cover-art/gameCoverId,61545/
    It immediately reminded me of your funny hypothetical advertising for the game “Hamlet” in Half-Real, so I thought I’d share it with you. It looks like the game per se is an “alternate” version of Hamlet which is winnable, and you can access the canonical version at any time and switch between them.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *