A text-based vampire game that remembers the nights.
Three nights turned, a job you cannot quit, and a cellar only you can open. Feed or starve, hide or hunt, keep the night desk or run. The Game Master writes the port city and everyone in it around what you do, and it keeps track of who knows, who heard the key and whose blood is on your hands.
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 night desk sounds like
The bell over the front door chimes, a sharp, metallic sound that cuts through the silence of the lobby. It is 3 AM, and the port city outside is thick with sea mist. A man in a drenched coat stands before your desk, water pooling around his heavy boots.
> A guest wearing a priest's collar asks for a room facing the cellar stairs. I check him in and ask, carefully, how long he plans to stay.
The man brushes a stray droplet of rain from his collar, his gaze lingering on the dark doorway that leads down to the cellar. He produces a small, worn pouch of coins, sliding it across the counter with a steady hand.
> Before dawn I reach under the front desk to make sure the cellar key is still on its chain.
You slide your hand into the cool, dark space beneath the counter, your fingers brushing against the rough wood until they find the iron ring. The cellar key is there, cold and heavy on its chain, just as it has been every night. When you withdraw your hand, Father Elias is still watching, his head tilted slightly, as if he heard the faint clink of metal against metal.
Recorded on 2026-10-16 on the free-tier model: a fresh account, the first line "a text-based vampire game: I was turned three nights ago in a port city, I still work the night desk at the harbour hotel, and I keep the only key to the cellar where I sleep on a chain under the front desk", then the two actions above typed in. The AI named the story "The Key at Midnight". The cellar key under the desk comes from the first line; the Game Master answered it in the opening with a stranger holding an identical key, and two turns later the real one is on its chain where it has always been, with the priest listening for the clink. 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 vampire game is a story you play by typing, turn by turn, with an AI writing the city, the nights and whoever is already looking for you. You set the situation in a sentence: turned three nights ago and still on the night desk, a hunter with four names, a nurse on a ward full of easy blood. The Game Master writes the city around you. Then you decide what to do in your own words: "check him in and ask how long he is staying," "feed on the drunk by the harbour," "tell my sister what I am." The night answers with what it costs.
There is no list of commands to learn and no menu of choices. You can feed or starve, hide the key or hand it over, keep the job or vanish. The nights only mean something if the game remembers who saw you, who you fed on and what you locked away, which is why memory decides whether a text-based vampire game is worth playing.
What you can do
How a text-based vampire game plays
Work the nights
The hotel, the harbour, the night market, the cellar. Who checked in, who you fed on and where the sun found you carry into the next night.
People, not prey
Guests, hunters, the old blood, the one person who still thinks you are alive. Every one of them is played by the Game Master in their own voice.
Secrets that keep
Auferet keeps characters, places and events in structured libraries, so the priest who heard the key on night three can be at the cellar door on night thirty.
Your kind of monster
Newly turned, centuries old, a hunter, a coven's keeper, a nurse who has not fed in nine days. Your first line decides what you are and what you owe.
Any kind of night
A fog-bound port, a modern city of cameras, a river town that tolerates you as long as nobody dies. Dread or romance. The opening sets the tone and the Game Master keeps to it.
Free to start
Play whole nights 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
The nights mean nothing if the AI forgets them
Most AI games feed the model one fixed window of recent text each turn. In a vampire story that breaks the game. The priest who heard the key forgets it, the guest you fed on checks in again unharmed, the cellar is suddenly unlocked. When nothing you did lasts, there is nothing to hide.
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 vampire game with an AI vs a choice-based vampire story vs a vampire browser game vs a character chat
| Text-based vampire game with an AI (Auferet) | Choice-based vampire story | Vampire 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: blood, levels, 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 fear without the fangs? Play the text-based horror game. The same engine runs every text-based game and every AI story game.
FAQ
Text-based vampire games, answered
Is there a free text-based vampire 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 vampire game work?
You describe who you were, who turned you and where you sleep in a sentence, or pick one above, and the Game Master builds the city, the nights and whoever is already looking for you. You decide what to do in your own words, and the story answers with what it costs.
Does the AI keep track of who knows what I am?
That is what Auferet is built for. It keeps characters, places and events in dedicated libraries and can search the whole story, so the guest who heard the key, the person you fed on and the cellar only you can open are still there weeks later.
Can I play a hunter, an old vampire or someone newly turned?
Yes. Your first line sets the game. Three nights turned and still working the night desk, a hunter with a list, a centuries-old creature running out of places to hide, and the Game Master writes the city around that choice.
Can I play 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.
He has a key just like yours. What do you do?
Start a text-based vampire game free in your browser and see whether the night remembers what you did.
Start the night free