A text-based school game that remembers the term.
A boarding school on a cliff, a book the headmaster has banned, and your own copy locked in the map cabinet. Teach the lesson, ask the librarian, start the rumour or stop it. The Game Master writes the school and everyone in it around what you do, and it keeps track of every rumour, every lie and who knows what you keep in that drawer.
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 term sounds like
The salt spray from the crashing waves below rattles the tall, leaded windows of your classroom, a constant reminder of how isolated this boarding school on the cliff truly is. You sit at your heavy mahogany desk, your hand resting on the locked brass handle of the map cabinet where you keep the banned copy of the Chronicles of the Unseen. The Headmaster has made it clear that possession of such material is grounds for immediate termination, if not worse.
> I ask the librarian, over tea in the staff room, why the book was banned and who asked for it.
The staff room is quiet, save for the soft clinking of china and the distant, rhythmic roar of the surf against the cliffs. Elara Vance pours a steaming cup of tea, her eyes flickering toward the door before she leans in, her voice dropping to a low, cautious murmur.
> After the last lesson I unlock the map cabinet to check my copy of the book is still there.
The morning's lessons drag on, the students' voices blending into a dull hum against the relentless thrum of the ocean outside. Once the last student files out and the heavy door clicks shut, you turn your attention to the mahogany cabinet. Your heart hammers against your ribs as you slide the brass key into the lock; it turns with a smooth, almost silent click.
Recorded on 2026-10-16 on the free-tier model: a fresh account, the first line "a text-based school game: I am a new history teacher at a boarding school on a cliff, the headmaster has banned one book from the library, and I keep my own copy of it in the locked drawer of the map cabinet in my classroom", then the two actions above typed in. The AI named the story "The Headmaster's Unseen Secret". The cliff, the ban and the map cabinet all come from the first line; the Game Master named the book and the librarian, had the headmaster appear in the doorway in the opening, and two turns later the copy is in the cabinet exactly where it was left. The Game Master's lines are cut to a few sentences each here; the whole exchange, every word, is published as a JSON file.
A text-based school game is a story you play by typing, turn by turn, with an AI writing the staff room, the dormitories, the library and whoever is keeping a secret. You set the situation in a sentence: a new teacher with a banned book, a scholarship student with a key on the pillow, a prefect who found something under the chapel floor. The Game Master writes the school around you. Then you decide what to do in your own words: "ask the librarian over tea," "tell the headmaster I have a copy," "give the key back." The school answers with what it costs.
There is no list of commands to learn and no menu of choices. You can keep the book or hand it in, protect the student or report them, start the rumour or kill it. A school only feels real if the game remembers who said what in which corridor and what is locked in which drawer, which is why memory decides whether a text-based school game is worth playing.
What you can do
How a text-based school game plays
Work the school
The staff room, the library, the dormitories, the chapel, the headmaster's study. Who you talked to and what you said there carry into the next lesson.
People, not targets
Students, teachers, the librarian, the groundskeeper, the headmaster at the door. Every one of them is played by the Game Master in their own voice, and every one has a reason to keep quiet.
Rumours that keep
Auferet keeps characters, places and events in structured libraries, so the thing you let slip in week one is the thing the headmaster quotes back in week ten.
Your kind of term
A teacher, a student, a prefect, a headmaster, the new arrival nobody explains. Your first line decides who you are and what you are hiding.
Any kind of school
A boarding school on a cliff, a city comprehensive, an academy for something no brochure mentions. Mystery, drama or quiet dread. The opening sets the tone and the Game Master keeps to it.
Free to start
Play whole terms 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 term means nothing if the AI forgets it
Most AI games feed the model one fixed window of recent text each turn. In a school story that breaks the game. The librarian forgets what she told you, the rumour you started never spreads, the book you locked away is back on the library shelf. When nothing you did lasts, there is no secret to keep and no term to survive.
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 school game with an AI vs a choice-based school story vs a school browser game vs a character chat
| Text-based school game with an AI (Auferet) | Choice-based school story | School 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 people | 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: grades, 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 the dread turned all the way up? Play the text-based horror game. The same engine runs every text-based game and every AI story game.
FAQ
Text-based school games, answered
Is there a free text-based school 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 school game work?
You describe who you are at the school and what is going on there in a sentence, or pick one above, and the Game Master builds the staff room, the dormitories, the library and whoever is keeping a secret. You decide what to do in your own words, and the story answers with what it costs.
Does the AI keep track of rumours, lies 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 librarian you confided in, the rumour you started and the book in the map cabinet are still there weeks later.
Can I play a student, a teacher or the headmaster?
Yes. Your first line sets the game. A new history teacher with a banned book, a scholarship student who does not fit, a prefect who found something in the chapel, a headmaster with a secret, and the Game Master writes the school around that choice.
Can I play with friends in the same school?
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 headmaster is in the doorway. The cabinet is locked. What do you do?
Start a text-based school game free in your browser and see whether the school remembers what you kept.
Start the term free