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Project dossier

Ike Quest

Tap-and-play text adventures designed for early readers. Players read short pieces of a story, then choose what happens next by tapping an Action and a Thing.

The story

When I was five or six, my dad sat down at our home computer and typed in a text adventure game from a book. The game was called "ITIT." This was incredible to me. I played this game a lot! I still remember learning to spell the words "cookie" and "sword" from this game. I thought they were spelled funny.

My son is six now, and learning to read. A friend of mine built Shimonopoly, a spelling game for his son, and it reminded me how important games were in my own reading journey. It was a great idea! He gave me the itch to do the same thing (or rather, to one-up him! 😉). I'm hoping this will serve a similar role in Ike's life as ITIT did for me.

How it works

  • Two-slot commands: Players tap word tiles to fill an action slot and a thing slot. The game evaluates the combination.
  • Categorized tiles: Actions (verbs), things (nouns), and inventory items are color-coded and sorted into trays.
  • JSON stories: Adventures are defined in plain JSON files. Easy to write new ones without touching game code.
  • Hint system: Stuck? After a few wrong tries, a hint button appears with progressive clues.
  • Smart fallbacks: Wrong commands get contextual, funny responses instead of generic error text.

Included adventures

The Lost Dragon Egg — 10 scenes. Find a dragon egg in a tree, figure out how to get it down, and return it to its mother.

Spiderdude and the Ghost Chain — 13 scenes. Help Spiderdude defeat Skull Rider by finding the weakness of his ghost chain.

Phone Trap — 8 scenes. You sneak Dad's phone at night. The screen pulls you in.

Shake Escape — 8 scenes. Your breakfast eggs need salt, but the saltshaker sucks you inside. Explore a tiny salt crystal world.

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NORBONICS INC.

Download

Get Ike Quest

Ike Quest is a free Android app. Download the APK from the latest GitHub release and install it on your device.

  1. Download ike-adventure.apk from the latest release.
  2. On your Android device, go to Settings → Security → enable "Install from unknown sources" (or allow it for your browser when prompted).
  3. Open the downloaded APK and install.
Latest Release on GitHub