From ROM to DOM
This project is my attempt to recreate the Atari 2600 game Adventure in TypeScript so it's easily playable in a browser. My goal is complete fidelity with the original assembled game, the source code of which is included in this repository.
You can play the game directly in your browser. No installation needed!
Play Adventure: Uncartridged online
Your goal is to find the Enchanted Chalice and return it to the Golden Castle. To do that, you'll need to explore a maze of castles and catacombs, gather items, and survive three dragons.
Items
| Item | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Sword | Defeat dragons (carry it to slay them on contact) |
| Bridge | Walk through walls |
| Keys | Unlock castles (each key opens one specific castle) |
| Magnet | Attract nearby objects to you |
Enemies
- Yorgle (yellow) — cowardly; flees from the sword and the gold chalice
- Grundle (green) — aggressive; hunts you relentlessly
- Rhindle (red) — fastest of all; difficult to outrun
The Bat will steal items at random and scatter them across the map.
The original Atari manual is included here for historical reference. It describes the physical cartridge and joystick controls, which don't map directly to how this browser version is played.
Game levels select how the world is laid out:
- Game 1 — simplified map; good for learning the layout and item locations
- Game 2 — full map with all castles and catacombs
- Game 3 — full map with randomized item placement each playthrough
Dragon speed and aggression are controlled separately by the difficulty switches, independent of which game level you choose.
This project traces its lineage through several prior efforts to bring Adventure off the cartridge.
The foundation is the 6502 assembly source included in this repository, which is a heavily commented disassembly created by Joel D. Park in June 2002, itself building on his earlier reverse-engineering work from November 1994. Park's disassembly turned a binary ROM into readable, annotated source code, which made understanding the original game's logic possible at all.
In 2006, Peter Hirschberg ported that disassembly to C++, releasing it as "Adventure: Revisited". That port was genuinely useful for understanding how the original game mechanics translated out of assembly.
In 2019, Hirschberg produced a TypeScript implementation. While the intent was right, the implementation was too far from idiomatic TypeScript to build on. This project is a ground-up rewrite rather than a port of that work.
I also found a great resource by Allen C. Huffman called Exploring Atari VCS/2600 Adventure.
This project uses Vite Plus as its unified toolchain. All commands below go through the vp CLI. To contribute, it's highly recommended to install it before proceeding.
Clone the repository and install dependencies:
vp installThis also runs the prepare script, which calls vp config to install the Git hooks in .vite-hooks/ automatically.
Start the dev server:
vp devThe pre-commit hook runs vp staged, which lints and formats only the files you have staged. It does not run the test suite. To catch test failures before pushing, run the full check locally:
vp check && vp testCommit messages must follow the Conventional Commits specification and commitlint enforces this on every commit.
To verify a production build locally:
vp buildThe main branch requires linear history. When working on a feature branch, rebase onto main rather than merging it:
git fetch origin
git rebase origin/mainStandard merge commits will be rejected. GitHub will only offer "Rebase and merge" or "Squash and merge" when submitting a pull request.
Made with 🤍 by Jeff Nyman
Written in TypeScript ✨ Compiles to JavaScript for distribution.
חֶסֶד וֶאֱמֶת אַל־יַעַזְבֻךָ קָשְׁרֵם עַל־גַּרְגְּרֹתֶיךָ כָּתְבֵם עַל־לוּחַ לִבֶּךָ
"Let not mercy and truth forsake thee:
bind them about thy neck;
write them upon the table of thine heart."
Proverbs 3:3
This project stands on the shoulders of an 8-bit legend: Adventure, which was written by Warren Robinett and published by Atari. The game was actually finished in 1979 but was not released until 1980. This reimplementation is a fan-made tribute to the game that proved a handful of colored pixels could conjure dragons, labyrinths, and one of gaming's first Easter eggs. This was the game that made a generation believe a little square dot was a hero.
The code used in this project is licensed under the MIT license.
Note: This license applies only to the code in this repository. The original game concept, design, and any original assets belong to their respective copyright holders.
✨ Long live the classics.