Meridian House

How to start

1. Open it in your AI. Tap Open in ChatGPT or Open in Claude, and press send, or paste the play prompt into any assistant that can open links. No paid plan required.
2. The game loads. You stand inside the north door with an empty satchel. A sundial shadow on a brass line counts your moves: 34 marks before it reaches the wall.
3. Explore the House. Eleven rooms, three satchel slots, thirty-four marks. Read everything, because reading is free and walking is not.
4. Get the tin out. Load what you carry into the barrow by the north door and step out before the shadow runs out of marks. Nothing scores unless the tin comes out.

Questions

Is this a real text adventure, or is the AI making up the map as it goes?

It is a real map. Eleven rooms, their compass exits, eight objects with their slot costs, three documents and three mechanisms are all written into the card, and the card's rules tell the AI to run only what is written and never invent a room, an exit or a way through. The door it describes is the door that is actually there. Nothing is hashed: the House stays fixed because the text is fixed, hand-built and checked before release.

Can I actually lose?

Yes. A brass line runs across the floor and a shadow moves along it as you act: thirty-four marks, one for every room you walk and one for every mechanism you work. Looking and reading are free, so what runs you out is walking the same corridor twice. If the shadow leaves the line while the tin is still inside, the House shuts for the season and the run scores nothing. The best possible route clears everything in twenty-five marks, so a careful run has room to spare.

What is the satchel limit actually for?

It is the game. Your satchel holds three slots, some things take two, and the things worth points compete for the same space as the tools that get you through doors. Everything you pick up is a thing you have to come back for, and every trip back is light you do not get again. The barrow inside the north door holds whatever you carry to it, and what stands in it when the run ends comes out of the House, but nothing scores at all unless the tin is among it.

Do I need dice, an account, or any tools?

None. No dice, since the House has no randomness in it at all, and no account beyond the chat app you already use. Open it in ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini and you are standing inside the north door with an empty satchel. Say "save" whenever you stop; to resume, open the game again in a new chat and paste the code once it loads.

How is this different from the sealed cards in the library?

A sealed card hides its answer behind a SHA-256 hash published before release, so the AI cannot move the culprit or the code once you start guessing. Meridian House has nothing to hide: its map and its answers are in the card, in plain text, which is what stops the AI improvising a corridor that was not there a moment ago. The cost is that reading the card spoils the game, so play from the link and leave the card unread.