emailrpg.com
Emails are basically ancient technology right?
Send an email to [email protected]
Controls will be in the email :)
- Added a web UI so that if you're having trouble playing you can use emailrpg.com as a fallback (note: you have to start with emails to begin with)
- Made chat messages stick around for longer
The game's input is pretty strict right now. If possible, you should get rid of your email signatures. You may also need edit replies so that it only includes your message, depending on your email client (On gmail things should work ok?)
Your replies should just say exactly what you want to do. So:
- When asked for your name, say only your name
- Movement commands: some examples of valid movement command are `up`, `down`, `left`, `right`, `up 2`, `left 1`, or `e3`. Don't add anything else in the email
- Sorry if the parsing is too strict... hard to implement something rigorous in a jam timeframe!
Most email clients add a delay before sending an email to give you time to undo it. That delay will make each turn feel longer. If possible, I'd recommend adjusting that. Here's the default delay for each platform, for reference:
Trying to put a game in an email like this is not really a normal thing to do, and the various email platforms might not handle it well, e.g. Gmail was rate limiting my emails for a bit. So if you don't receive replies, let me know, I'll see if there's anything I can do.
---
AI usage: Used Gemini for research. For coding, used Antigravity mostly and Claude a little bit for set up + adding features in the second half of the jam. (Here's the full list of my prompts if you're curious!)
All art and text done by me :)
How to play:
Send an email to [email protected]
Controls will be in the email :)
Post compo changes:
- Added a web UI so that if you're having trouble playing you can use emailrpg.com as a fallback (note: you have to start with emails to begin with)
- Made chat messages stick around for longer
Email tips
The game's input is pretty strict right now. If possible, you should get rid of your email signatures. You may also need edit replies so that it only includes your message, depending on your email client (On gmail things should work ok?)
Valid commands
Your replies should just say exactly what you want to do. So:
- When asked for your name, say only your name
- Movement commands: some examples of valid movement command are `up`, `down`, `left`, `right`, `up 2`, `left 1`, or `e3`. Don't add anything else in the email
- Sorry if the parsing is too strict... hard to implement something rigorous in a jam timeframe!
Make the game feel better by reducing email delays
Most email clients add a delay before sending an email to give you time to undo it. That delay will make each turn feel longer. If possible, I'd recommend adjusting that. Here's the default delay for each platform, for reference:
| Email Platform | Default Delay | Smallest Possible Delay |
|---|---|---|
| Gmail | 5 seconds | 5 seconds (cannot be disabled 🙁 ) |
| Apple Mail | 10 seconds | 0 seconds |
| Outlook | 0 seconds | 0 seconds |
| Proton Mail | 10 seconds | 0 seconds |
Other email weirdness
Trying to put a game in an email like this is not really a normal thing to do, and the various email platforms might not handle it well, e.g. Gmail was rate limiting my emails for a bit. So if you don't receive replies, let me know, I'll see if there's anything I can do.
---
AI usage: Used Gemini for research. For coding, used Antigravity mostly and Claude a little bit for set up + adding features in the second half of the jam. (Here's the full list of my prompts if you're curious!)
All art and text done by me :)
Comments5
Sorry the instructions aren't that precise, I guess that's something where I wrote text that's obvious to me but not as obvious to someone else... I did try to put decent error messages in there so that it was clear when you did something wrong
I hope this 'email' finds you well :-)
I played your game a bit and I think I got the overall idea of it. The technical implementation is awesome I think, did you register that domain just for this game? It seems to work pretty good. I tried to sign my emails with my name, but the system did not like that when I needed to give direct commands 😁
There were other people on the island, are those NPC's? Or real LDers? I tried to say Hi, but did not really know how to do that yet.
After a while I found the gameplay to a bit stale to be honest. However, the game is so much more fun than I was prepaired for!
Love,
Wouter52
P.S: I just got a late reply from one of the commands that seemed to be lost in the system. (received around 17:17 CET)