Jumbo Grove: Interactive Fiction in JavaScript

Jumbo Grove is a tool for writing hypertext interactive fiction. Hypertext means text with links. Interactive fiction is a medium for storytelling that crosses over into video games.

Jumbo Grove requires beginner-level knowledge of JavaScript, but more experienced developers will find plenty of useful stuff!

Jumbo Grove is free and open source under the MIT License.

Features

Desktop, mobile, and gamepad support
Fully documented API with tutorials
Packaged as a single JS file or as an NPM package
Many games require no "coding"
Friendly template language; never write raw HTML

Quick Start

You can put up a fresh site with Jumbo Grove in less than 30 seconds by remixing this project on Glitch. You can edit the game in a browser and it will live-update a real site!

If you're using a bundler like Webpack, you can simply npm install jumbogrove and import {jumbogrove} from 'jumbogrove'.

If that's too much trouble for you, please grab jumbogrove.js and jumbogrove.css.

Docs

If you're new, read the tutorial.

If you're not, check out the API.

Demo

Jumbo Grove was used to make this unfinished Ludum Dare game.

If you are on the Jumbo Grove documentation site (as opposed to reading the Readme on GitHub) then you will see a quick demo here:

There are many more live demos in the guides!

Demo source code

Here's the source code for the above demo:

jumbogrove.jumbogrove('#firstdemo', {
  id: 'demo',
  situations: [
    {
      id: 'start',
      content: `
      ### The Jumbo Grove Experience
      You are looking at a [web page](>write:web_page).
      `,
      snippets: {
        web_page: `
        It is the documentation for Jumbo Grove. What do you want to do?

        * [Make a game](@make-a-game)
        * [Admire the beautiful CSS](@admire-css)
        `
      }
    },
    {
      id: 'make-a-game',
      content: `
      You type until your fingers are [sore](>replaceself:sore_fingers).
      You make something incredible.
      `,
      snippets: {
        sore_fingers: "sore (like, really sore)"
      },
      choices: ['admire-css'],
    },
    {
      id: 'admire-css',
      optionText: 'Admire the CSS',
      content: `
      Your eyes trace the loving lines of the sidebar and the curves of the fonts.

      ### The End
      `
    },
  ]
});

"Jumbo Grove"?

Interactive Fiction = IF
I + 1, F + 1 = J, G
J[umbo] G[rove]

Beginner

Twine.

Intermediate

The biggest inspiration for this project is Undum and the Raconteur layer on top of it. This project was prompted by a desire to make "Undum done right," with 2017-era best practices and great documentation.

Salet is another similar project with slightly different goals, a different API, and different features. If Jumbo Grove isn't quite right for you, Salet is probably what you're looking for.

Expert

Windrift is very linear-story-oriented, and requires a high level of JavaScript expertise, but has been used to make some really great stuff and is well-designed.