Hamlet — An Interactive Tragedy

Hamlet — An Interactive Tragedy

A prince comes home to bury a father and finds a wedding instead. On the battlements at midnight, something wearing his father's armor tells him the death was murder — and asks what he intends to do about it.

This is a short interactive fiction adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet, written for people who have always suspected the play is less about revenge than about the cost of thinking too long.

How it works

Every choice feeds three hidden values — Resolve, Reason, Bond. They're not stats to optimize; they're worldviews. Do you swear the revenge before the ghost can vanish, or ask it how it knows? Do you name your uncle a murderer in front of the court, or take up the rapier he's arranged for you?

The final act resolves according to whoever you turned out to be. Four endings, none of them "good" or "bad" — each one a verdict on the life you chose. One of them lets Hamlet live.

What's in it

• Four acts, six choice nodes, real dilemmas — no fake choices
• A butterfly effect: a small moment with Ophelia in Act Two quietly determines how her death reaches you in Act Three
• Four endings, each with a shareable ending card
• ~15 minutes · free · plays in your browser · works on mobile

Credits

Adapted from Shakespeare's Hamlet (c. 1600), in the public domain. All prose, choices, and branching endings in this telling are original. Built with a reusable interactive fiction system — [source on GitHub: https://github.com/LindseyyZhang/lit-interactive-fiction].

Which ending did you get?