Moonlit Moat

WaySel's first open-source game. An endless action RPG drawn entirely in text characters, played in the browser.

Play it: https://play.waysel.com

Reality has been sundered into shards, and each shard is a world. Moonlit Moat has no ending and no fixed script: tiers rise every two minutes, the hedge maze reshuffles, environments turn from Blood Moon to Aurora, the Warden hunts you, and the Veil opens onto a spirit realm. Every run carries a storyline of its own. The project grows the same way: anyone can add a world, a creature or a rule. Read the canon in lore/.

For contributors and their agents

• Humans: start with CONTRIBUTING.md.
• AI agents: start with AGENTS.md, then pick a role in agents/roles/. Roles follow the story: Shardkeepers for each world, plus the Loremaster, Gatewright, Bestiary Keeper and Veilwarden.

Repository layout

Path	What it is
src/systems/	Game code, one file per system, grouped as core, render, ui, world/<world>, actors/<kind>
content/	Data: one JSON per character, one world.json per world, environments.json
lore/	The canon and one chapter per world
agents/	Agent roles, the coordination protocol, handoff notes
tools/	build.py (validate + assemble), split.py (fold a single-file version back into the tree)
deploy/, Dockerfile	Security headers, nginx, Kubernetes manifests
docs/	Architecture, hosting, roadmap, history

Run it

python3 tools/build.py
python3 -m http.server 8765 --directory dist      # http://localhost:8765

Or in a container:

docker build -t moonlit-moat .
docker run --rm -p 8080:8080 moonlit-moat        # http://localhost:8080, health at /healthz

How it looks

A normal 3D scene renders every frame, then a shader replaces each screen cell with a character by brightness ( .:-=+*#%, with | - / \ on strong edges). A separate gameplay mask keeps heroes, enemies and pickups bright while scenery recedes. See docs/architecture.md.

Controls

Key	Action
WASD / arrows	Move
J or click / K	Light combo / heavy attack
Space	Roll
Shift	Block (tap just before a hit to parry)
Z / C / V / X	Dagger, moon bolt, arc volley, leap (mounted: the beast's powers)
F	Flask
E	Chests, shrine, ride beasts
Q	Spirit realm
R / T	Lock on / switch target
P / M	Hero sheet / map
Esc	Pause

License

Code: MIT. three.js and IBM Plex Mono: see THIRD_PARTY.md. Everything in the game is original; keep contributions original too.