Dungeons and Directories: A Game in Your File Explorer

"You wake up inside a cold and terrifying dungeon. You have a bump on your head the size of a grapefruit. You struggle to your feet, and your only option to move forward is a narrow corridor, dimly lit by a torch..." Do you want to know how the story continues? If so, you need to download a copy of Dungeons and Directories, a game inspired by the classic D&D that runs on your operating system's file explorer.

One of the most notable aspects of classic role-playing games is that you don't need much to enter their multiverse. A good story, some sheets of paper, three or four pencils, and a couple of dice are more than enough to spend hours in parallel planes, dirty taverns, and magical castles. Computers have only multiplied the potential of RPGs, and today we have access to true wonders with inexhaustible gameplay.

However, classic adventures haven't gone anywhere, and today we're sharing a very special one. It's Dungeons and Directories developed by Tom Mason. What's different about it? First of all... there's no interface. All the game's action takes place in your operating system's file explorer, combining files and folders to present the story.

Dungeons and Directories: Role-Playing with Files and Folders

The game doesn't offer much in the way of customization. In fact, there are no classes or anything like that. Your character was thrown into a dungeon with a brutal blow to the head, and their only goal is to escape. Navigation is based on double-clicking folders that indicate north, south, east, and west directions, so it's not a bad idea to prepare a small map.

If you're interested in the technical side of Dungeons and Directories, you should visit Tom Mason's profile on GitHub. The game makes extensive use of symbolic links, variables, and booleans, but its limiting factor is that the number of folders grows exponentially with the number of variables. The current version of the game has almost 200,000 files and 41,514 folders/directories, but it takes up no more than 35 megabytes on disk.

Even so, Dungeons and Directories is just a demo, and I'm convinced it won't take you too long to reach the end. Its developer said that if public interest is great enough, they will create a full edition..

Official site and download: Click here