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[DrMaxKurt]

I have just released an adventure game I have been working for the past year:



This is a video game in PDF format,
with a gameplay based on exploration and logic puzzles,
in the tradition of dungeon crawlers.

Featuring:

* ~ 200 000 PDF pages
* retro aesthetics: 160x120 resolution & a 16 colors palette
* grid-based world with 50+ distinct tiles & 10 maps to explore
* more than 30 treasure items, weapons & spells to pick up in order to face 15 enemy monsters
* 20 music tracks
* thousands of "Game Over" pages, and a single path to victory
* 4 hidden secrets & a concealed epilogue
* an online hall of fame

If your curious about it, check out https://lucas-c.itch.io/undying-dusk

[mtorc1]

Okay, wait a second. You made a game based on a single PDF file?
I don't know what to say to that. I haven't played the game yet but if your PDF has like 200 000 pages, you probably used any kind of game maker and rendered different (i.e. all possible?) scenes into a PDF file linking them to each other faking player input. Anyway, why not publish it as an "actual" game then?
Can you explain what lead you to the decision to use PDF as "game engine"?

[gamedeveloper0]

I'm not even sure I can open a pdf with 200,000 pages, what sorcery are you using?

[mtorc1]

I'm not even sure I can open a pdf with 200,000 pages, what sorcery are you using?

Well, he recommends Sumatra PDF viewer which obviously can handle larger files.

[DrMaxKurt]

Can you explain what lead you to the decision to use PDF as "game engine"?

This was a challenge I gave myself. A creative constraint somehow.
I wanted to see how PDF interactive features could be used to build a video game inside one.

I'm quite satisfied of the result in that regard.
There are even a couple of puzzles that are specific to the PDF format,
and could not have existed in a non-PDF game.

But I'm fully aware this is not really user-friendly ^^

About "how" I did it, the source code is on GitHub if you're curious.
It's basically Python code using the fpdf2 library.
And it's heavily based on Clint Bellanger Heroine Dusk game.

[MPRart]

This is such a great concept, I just purchased it on Itch.io. You are the kind of devs I'm looking to collaborate with, nice job.