A text-based medieval game that remembers your village.
A low river, a hungry year, and a tax collector due at the new moon. Hide the grain, swear the oath, sell the horse, lie to the priest or trust him. The Game Master writes the village, the manor and everyone in them around what you do, and it keeps track of every debt, every promise and where the seed is buried.
Or start from a first line, no setup:
Free to play in your browser and on Android. The full memory system is on every plan, including free.
A real session, recorded
This is what the village sounds like
The river is low, exposing the slick, mud-caked rocks of the banks where the water used to run deep. You press a heavy stone over the boards covering the old, dry well behind the chapel, your heart hammering against your ribs.
> I go to the chapel and ask the priest, in private, whether the collector can be shown an empty granary and sent away.
You duck into the cool, incense-heavy air of the chapel, finding Father Thomas dusting the altar. When you pull him aside and whisper your plan, his eyes dart to the heavy oak door before he leans in close.
> After dark I lower a lantern into the dry well behind the chapel to check the seed grain is still there.
The day drags on with the nervous anticipation of the impending tax visit. When the sun finally dips below the horizon and the village settles into a heavy, quiet darkness, you slip out to the well. You lower the lantern into the gloom, and the flickering light reveals the burlap sacks resting undisturbed in the dry mud at the bottom, just as you left them.
Recorded on 2026-10-16 on the free-tier model: a fresh account, the first line "a text-based medieval game: I am a miller's daughter in a river village in a hungry year, the lord's tax collector is due at the new moon, and I hid the village's seed grain in the dry well behind the chapel", then the two actions above typed in. The AI named the story "Secrets of the Dry Well". The dry well, the new moon and the hidden grain all come from the first line; two turns later the sacks are at the bottom of the well just as they were left, and in between the Game Master gave the priest a name and an opinion. The Game Master's lines are cut to their opening sentences here; the whole exchange, every word, is published as a JSON file.
A text-based medieval game is a story you play by typing, turn by turn, with an AI writing the village, the manor and whoever is riding in. You set the situation in a sentence: a miller's daughter hiding the seed grain, a knight with a debt and no land, a monk copying a book that does not exist. The Game Master writes the world around you. Then you decide what to do in your own words: "show the collector the empty granary," "sell the horse before the fair," "tell the abbot the truth." The village answers with what it costs.
There is no list of commands to learn and no menu of choices. You can feed the village or your family, keep the oath or break it, hide the grain or hand it over. A village only feels real if the game remembers who owes whom, what was sworn and what is buried behind the chapel, which is why memory decides whether a text-based medieval game is worth playing.
What you can do
How a text-based medieval game plays
Work the land, the road or the court
The mill, the manor, the market, the monastery. What you grew, sold, swore and owed carries into the next season.
People, not targets
Priests, reeves, tax collectors, pilgrims and the lord's men want things, lie, help and turn on you. Every one of them is played by the Game Master in their own voice.
Debts that keep
Auferet keeps characters, places and events in structured libraries, so the collector you sent away at the new moon can be back with soldiers at the next.
Your kind of life
A peasant, a knight, a monk, a merchant, a reeve. Your first line decides who you are and what you owe. No magic unless you ask for it.
Any kind of middle ages
A river village in a famine, a crusader port, a plague town, a court of rival heirs. Grit or romance, history or your own kingdom. The opening sets the world and the Game Master keeps to it.
Free to start
Play whole seasons before you pay anything. Auferet's free tier includes the full memory system and 10 free daily credits, in your browser.
Why memory decides it
A village means nothing if the AI forgets it
Most AI games feed the model one fixed window of recent text each turn. In a medieval story that breaks the game. The grain you hid is back in the granary, the collector you bribed never came, the oath you swore is forgotten by the one you swore it to. When nothing you did lasts, there is no village to save.
That is measurable, so we measured it. Five facts were planted in the first turns of a story on the free model and asked about at turn 20, 40 and 60: once with only recent conversation to read, the way most AI games work, and once with persistent memory, the way Auferet works.
| Asked at | Recent conversation only | Persistent memory |
|---|---|---|
| Turn 20 | 3 of 5 facts | 5 of 5 facts |
| Turn 40 | 1 of 5 facts | 5 of 5 facts |
| Turn 60 | 1 of 5 facts | 5 of 5 facts |
Run on 2026-08-22 and again on 2026-08-27: both runs fell to 1 of 5 by turn 40 on recent conversation and held 5 of 5 with memory. Every question and raw answer is in the result file; the method is on the benchmark page, and how the memory works explains what it stores.
How it compares
Text-based medieval game with an AI vs a choice-based medieval story vs a medieval browser game vs a character chat
| Text-based medieval game with an AI (Auferet) | Choice-based medieval story | Medieval browser game | AI character chat | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Who writes the story | The Game Master, around what you do | Writers, in advance | Nobody; the systems and other players | The AI, as one character |
| What you can do | Anything you can put into words | The choices on the page | What the game allows | Talk |
| The village | Characters with their own motives | Scripted characters | Other players, and scripted NPCs | One character |
| Consequences | Carried across the whole story | The branches the writers planned | Mechanical: gold, troops, timers | Rarely tracked |
| Memory | Persistent across the whole story | Flags the writers set | A database of the world, not of your story | Varies, often a short window |
Want dragons with your castles? Play the fantasy AI RPG. The same engine runs every text-based game and every AI story game.
FAQ
Text-based medieval games, answered
Is there a free text-based medieval game?
Yes. Auferet is free, with 10 daily credits to claim, and the free tier includes the full memory system. It runs in your browser; unlimited actions start at $10/mo.
How does a text-based medieval game work?
You describe who you are and where you live in a sentence, or pick one above, and the Game Master builds the village, the manor, the church and whoever is riding in. You decide what to do in your own words, and the story answers with what it costs.
Does the AI keep track of the village, the lord and what I hid?
That is what Auferet is built for. It keeps characters, places and events in dedicated libraries and can search the whole story, so the grain you hid, the oath you swore and the priest you let into the secret are still there weeks later.
Can I play a peasant, a knight, a monk or a merchant?
Yes. Your first line sets the game. A miller's daughter in a hungry year, a landless knight, a monk with a forbidden book, a merchant on the wrong road, and the Game Master writes the world around that choice. No magic unless you ask for it.
Can I play with friends in the same village?
Yes. Auferet has multiplayer: one player hosts, friends join, and everyone plays their own character in the same story, each with their own Game Master.
Can I play online without downloading anything?
Yes. Auferet runs in the browser on desktop and phone, and there is an Android app if you want it on your home screen.
The collector comes at the new moon. What do you do?
Start a text-based medieval game free in your browser and see whether the village remembers what you hid.
Start your season free