The City of Lost Secrets

The City of Lost Secrets

Story and gameplay by: Michael Amos

The City of Lost Secrets is a browser-based parser adventure for Unseen Lands. You play by typing commands, navigating hazards, and following evidence toward Kan Tun, a town that sits too neatly against the jungle.

You are not an adventurer. You are a trained problem-solver, built for hard proof and hostile details. A museum audit put a torn, weathered skin-map in your hands, and the curator who passed it to you vanished a week later. Two strangers asked about you in two different airports. You stopped waiting for explanations and started following the only thing that did not lie.

That trail led south to San Ixtal, a river town that survives on transit, contraband, and silence. From there, everything points inland. The map’s top edge is torn away, the ink is burned deep, and one name is cut harder than the rest: Kan Tun.

In the tavern, you start to notice the pauses. Outside town, the jungle offers false paths and repeating trails. Deeper still, the stonework behaves like a machine, and the city’s rules are still enforced.

play now (beta) web browser text adventure

Jungle atmosphere

What it feels like

Lantern smoke and wet stone, jungle heat that never really leaves your skin, and a city that answers curiosity with procedure. Expect exploration, traps, inventory puzzles, and clues that look like contradictions until you find the right angle.

You are not an adventurer. You are a trained problem-solver, hired to audit a batch of pieces with suspicious paperwork. The map arrived off the record: tanned leather, ink burned deep, the top edge torn away. One name was cut harder than the rest: Kan Tun. Within a week the curator stopped answering calls. Your emails bounced. Two strangers asked about you in two different airports, polite enough to be dangerous. You followed the only data that did not lie and ended up in San Ixtal, a river town that survives on transit, contraband, and silence. > look The tavern holds smoke the way a cave holds damp. Lanternlight puddles across scarred tables, leaving the corners to do what corners always do: collect what’s dropped and what’s forgotten. Laughter happens here, but it arrives late and leaves early. If you listen long enough, you start to notice the pauses, those little gaps where someone decides not to say the next part. > listen Over the clink of cups: “Don’t pay the shrine.” “Always pay the shrine.” The argument ends when someone stops talking mid-sentence, as if reminded.

About the story

You came to San Ixtal with a map that should not exist and a trail of paperwork that collapses under inspection. The town looks ordinary at first glance, but it holds its corners too carefully. People move through the square without lingering, and even laughter in the tavern arrives late and leaves early.

The jungle beyond San Ixtal is not neutral. Some trails are staged to look safe. Some loops are meant to keep you walking until you forget what direction means. When you start finding carved stone and deliberate thresholds, it becomes clear that the “ruins” are still doing their job.

Deeper inside, the city’s heart is not a throne room. It is a system: records, seals, permissions, and mechanisms that prefer procedure to argument. If you want what the map points to, you will have to learn how the city thinks.

Quick facts

For anyone searching for jungle interactive fiction and old-school text adventures.

genre: interactive fiction / text adventure / parser game / jungle adventure play style: exploration + traps + puzzles + discovery platform: web browser (no install) setting: San Ixtal + Kan Tun + surrounding jungle + the lost city’s inner works status: playable beta best first commands: look, examine, inventory, listen, take, use

If you love exploration and hidden places that feel real, this one is built for you.