A retro detective text adventure where you type your own commands and investigate a midnight university murder — atmospheric, with a lo-fi soundtrack and strong pixel art, but hard to find the words the game will accept.

Stories Terminal is a detective text adventure from the studio OddlyGames, inspired by the classic parser games of the past. You do not pick from a list of choices. You type your own commands, and the game works out what you mean. The first case, “KAD-43: The Marek Nowak Case,” takes place on the campus of Vilnius University at midnight, where you investigate the death of a biology teacher. The Steam page promises evidence-driven investigation, pixel-art locations, several endings that depend on what you find, and an interface in English and Polish.

On screen, the game looks like an old computer terminal. A pixel-art picture of your location sits on the left, with the place name above it. The story text and a command line are on the right, and the top bar has a case file, a menu and a help button. Before a case, you choose it from a wall of old television sets, with your best score shown out of 24 points. It runs on Windows.

We played the free demo on Steam, with nothing beyond the public download. The atmosphere is the reason to try it: the mood, the pixel art and the lo-fi soundtrack all work, and the game gives you room to think. One problem held it back in the build we played, and it has its own section in our first look:

It is hard to find a command that works. We tried many wordings to inspect an object on the floor, and many more to walk into a lab the game kept pointing at. When a command fails, the game says only that it could not match your words to an available action, and gives no suggestion of what to try instead.

Models

The developer told us the game uses AI. The Steam page does not say so, or say how. It describes “flexible command recognition” and “contextual hints,” and Steam users tag it “Artificial Intelligence” and “Dynamic Narration,” but it never explains what is behind them, so we cannot name a model or say what the AI does in the game. We will add it if the developer publishes it.

Pricing

The Steam page does not list a price, and the game is not yet on sale: it is wishlist-only, with a release date still to be announced. A free demo, which covers the first case, can be downloaded now. We will add a pricing table once the game has one.

Content and age rating

Steam lists no age rating for Stories Terminal. The story is a murder investigation, set in a noir mood.

We haven’t rated Stories Terminal, and won’t while it is a pre-release demo. See our first look for what we found — a rated review follows at launch. (Stories Terminal is an independent game by OddlyGames; Arcanum is unaffiliated with it.)