DORK is a text adventure like they used to make — except you're blind, and
tonight that turns out to be the best thing that ever happened to you.
Long Beach, California. Friday, July 14th, 1995, 9:47 PM. Your best friend
Louie left a message on the machine: tonight is THE NIGHT. The band plays a
backyard show at midnight. The bonfire burns till dawn. You have until sunrise
at 5:52 AM to have the best night of your life.
You were born blind, so the city comes to you the real way — LISTEN, SMELL,
FEEL. Waves you can hear three blocks off. A taco truck you can smell from
around the corner. A braille deck at a card table that already knows your name.
Every room, every object and every person answers all three senses. LOOK is
always the joke answer.
WHERE THE NIGHT GOES
★ 15 places to haunt: the boulevard, the pier, the breakwater jetty, an
all-night record store, a taco truck, a card room off the old Pike, a
backyard show, a bonfire on the sand — and a bus that runs all night out to
a very large, very haunted ocean liner.
★ A live band that actually PLAYS. Three songs of ska generated on the fly,
right out of your speakers, and the whole room changes when they kick in.
★ 11 collectables hidden across the city, and a 13-trophy wall that keeps
every trophy you earn, across every night you ever play.
★ Blackjack with a braille deck. Pinball played by pure sound. A lottery
scratcher Mr. Kim has to read out loud for you. A payphone that matters.
★ A dog named Lou Dog who will follow you anywhere for one (1) Slim Jim.
★ RAD points for every legendary thing you pull off. Six endings, two of them
secret. Speedrun seeds (type SEED 777) and a real-time clock in the tally.
TAKE YOUR TIME
★ No timers. No reflexes. Time only moves when you enter a command, so you can
take all night on one room if you want.
★ No typing required. A tap-only path runs the whole game: the sense buttons,
the exits, HINT, STATUS, and the card table.
★ Three text sizes, a reduced-flash mode, and text contrast that passes
WCAG AA everywhere.
★ Your night lives on your phone. No account, no sign-in, no cloud, no server.
The whole game runs with the connection switched off.
★ Ads stay out of the way: one when the night ends, one about every 25 minutes
as you leave a place for the next one, and one you can choose to take for
twenty bucks if you go broke before dawn. Never mid-room, never mid-hand.
Type HELP. Type HINT whenever the night stops making sense. Then go be
legendary.
One purchase turns every ad off, for good. Nothing else is behind it — the
whole night is free either way.
No sign-in. Plays fine on a plane.
Long Beach, 1995. You're blind. One night to be legendary.