RetroQuest: A Text Adventure Built with AI

Welcome to RetroQuest, a text adventure game built with GitHub Copilot! This project explores how far AI can go in creating a complete game with tests and game mechanics.

How It Started

I started working on this text adventure in December 2024, but the project went dormant after just the initial commits.

In May 2025, I decided to try an experiment: What if GitHub Copilot could help finish this game? Could AI write all of the code and tests with just guidance from me? That's how RetroQuest was reborn - not just as a game, but as a test of pure AI-agent development.

How Human and AI Work Together

Here's how I work with the AI to build this game:

• Planning: I give the AI prompts and describe what needs to be built.
• Review: I check all the code and tests the AI creates, giving feedback to make them better.
• Debugging: When the AI gets stuck or makes mistakes, I work with AI to find the issues and then let the AI do the actual fixing.

It's a partnership where I provide direction and the AI does all of the coding work. My role is to provide prompts and occationally do minor string edits, whitespace removals, etc.

How to Play

Starting the game

A simple command in your terminal gets the adventure underway:

python -m retroquest

This will run the game in Text mode, allowing you to immerse yourself in the adventure. If you instead want to run the game in more old-school terminal mode, you can use:

python -m retroquest -oldschool

Commands

The game supports a variety of commands to navigate and interact with the world. However, the only command you will need to use to complete the game is:

help

This command will show you the list of all available commands in the game. You can also use the ? command as a shortcut for help.

Found issues?

Write an issue on GitHub and I'll have copilot take a look at it.

Got stuck?

Likely a bug as well, look at the design files to see how to actually move forward or write an issue here as well.