A text-based space game that remembers your ship.
A hold full of cargo, a crew with their own plans, and a reactor that will not hold. Trade, explore, run or fight. The Game Master writes the ship and everything outside it around your orders, and it keeps track of what you fixed, what you promised and what you left behind.
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 ship sounds like
The Halcyon shudders, a low, bone-deep groan vibrating through the deck plates beneath your boots as the emergency klaxons scream to life. Red light pulses in sync with the alarm, illuminating the empty, silent corridors of the cargo ship where you are the only soul awake.
> I pull up the engineering board and work out how long the reactor can run on the leaking loop before I have to swap in that spare cell.
Your fingers fly across the cold interface, the screen flickering as you bypass the secondary safety protocols to isolate the data. The numbers scroll in a frantic, cascading stream of red; the leak is hemorrhage-heavy, stripping integrity at a rate that leaves you with only three minutes before the reactor core goes critical.
> I climb down to hydroponics, open the locker where I stashed the cell, and check it is still intact.
You sprint through the heavy, smoke-choked air, your lungs burning with every jagged breath as you force your way into the hydroponics bay. The scent of ozone and singed plastic hangs thick here, but the locker door stands firm against your frantic tugging. Inside, the spare coolant cell sits nestled in its cradle, the blue indicator light pulsing with a steady, reassuring rhythm that confirms it is fully intact and ready to bypass the damaged feed.
Recorded on 2026-10-15 on the free-tier model: a fresh account, the first line "a text-based space game: I am the only engineer awake on the cargo ship Halcyon, three weeks out from Mars, the reactor coolant is leaking, and I hid the last spare coolant cell in the hydroponics locker", then the two actions above typed in. The AI named the story "Descent of the Halcyon". The spare coolant cell planted in the first line is where the opening says it is, and two turns later it is in the locker, intact, with the three minutes the Game Master put on the clock in between still running. 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 space game is a story you play by typing, turn by turn, with an AI writing the ship, the crew and whatever is out there. You set the situation in a sentence: a freighter with a cargo you were told not to open, a survey ship that picked up a signal from a dead moon, a warship on a blockade line. The Game Master writes the ship around you. Then you decide what to do in your own words: "vent the aft hold," "offer the station master half the cargo for fuel," "tell the crew the truth about the signal." The ship answers with what it costs.
There is no list of commands to learn and no map of set missions. You can trade or steal, explore or run, keep the crew together or lose them one by one. A ship only feels real if the game remembers what is broken, what is aboard and who owes whom, which is why memory decides whether a text-based space game is worth playing.
What you can do
How a text-based space game plays
Run the ship
Patch the reactor, ration the air, pick a course. The cell you spent, the part you jury-rigged and the fuel you have left carry into the next jump.
A crew, not a menu
Crewmates, station masters and the people on the other channel want things, lie, help and turn on you. Every one of them is played by the Game Master in their own voice.
Deals that stick
Auferet keeps characters, places and events in structured libraries, so the buyer you cheated at one station can be waiting at the next.
Your kind of spacer
An engineer, a free trader, a survey captain, a smuggler, a fleet commander. Your first line decides who you are and what you fly.
Any kind of space
A lone freighter between planets, a dead derelict, a war across a dozen systems, hard science or pulp. The opening sets the universe and the Game Master keeps to it.
Free to start
Play whole voyages 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 ship means nothing if the AI forgets it
Most AI games feed the model one fixed window of recent text each turn. On a ship that breaks the game. The reactor you patched is leaking again for no reason, the cargo you sold is back in the hold, the crewmate you put off at the last station is at dinner. When nothing you did lasts, there is nothing to fly.
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 space game with an AI vs a space MUD vs a space sim vs a character chat
| Text-based space game with an AI (Auferet) | Space MUD | Space sim | AI character chat | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Who writes the story | The Game Master, around your orders | Builders, in advance; other players fill it in | Nobody; you make your own | The AI, as one character |
| What you can do | Anything you can put into words | The commands the game parses | What the systems allow | Talk |
| The crew | Characters with their own motives | Other players, and scripted NPCs | Usually stats on a screen | One character |
| Consequences | Carried across the whole voyage | The ones the builders wrote | Mechanical: fuel, hull, credits | Rarely tracked |
| Memory | Persistent across the whole story | A database of the world, not of your story | Save files | Varies, often a short window |
Want a whole campaign across a sector, with a rules system under it? Play the sci-fi AI RPG. The same engine runs every text-based game and every AI story game.
FAQ
Text-based space games, answered
Is there a free text-based space 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 space game work?
You describe your ship and your situation in a sentence, or pick one above, and the Game Master builds the ship, the crew and whatever is out there. You decide what to do in your own words, and the story answers with what it costs.
Does the AI keep track of the ship, the cargo and the crew?
That is what Auferet is built for. It keeps characters, places and events in dedicated libraries and can search the whole story, so the coolant cell you stashed, the cargo you promised and the crewmate you lied to are still there weeks later.
Can I trade, explore or fight, or play as a captain?
Yes. Your first line sets the game. Run a freighter, chart dead systems, smuggle, or command a warship, and the Game Master writes the ship and the crew around that choice.
Can I crew a ship with friends?
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 reactor holds for three more minutes. What do you do?
Start a text-based space game free in your browser and see whether the ship remembers what you did.
Start your voyage free