Questmark

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QuestmarkDialogue trees and hypertext fiction in Markdown

A language, compiler, interpreter, and TypeScript library for conversation trees and interactive fiction — built on the Markdown everyone already knows.

Start the tutorial
Why Questmark?
📝

Markdown-native

Every properly-structured Markdown document with headers and links is already a Questmark document. Prose stays readable; behaviour is added with small backticked code snippets.

🧭

Conversation trees

States and options model dialogue graphs — like Star Control 2 — and quests, hypertext fiction, text adventures, and visual novels — like Space Rangers 2.

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Context and side-effects

A context bag tracks what the player has done, gating options with preconditions and driving branching narrative and in-world side effects.

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Compiles to Tzo bytecode

Documents compile to a portable Tzo VMState that can be stored, shipped, and interpreted in a game, a CLI, or a browser.

Documentation ​

Questmark's docs follow the Diátaxis framework, which splits documentation into four complementary modes of use:

ModeAudiencePurposeStart here
TutorialsLearnersLearning-oriented lessons that take you by the handYour first conversation
How-to guidesDoersGoal-oriented steps for solving real problemsPlay a document
ReferenceEveryoneInformation-oriented descriptions of the machineryLanguage reference
ExplanationEveryoneUnderstanding-oriented background and contextWhy Questmark?

Quick orientation ​

  • New to Questmark? Start with the tutorial. It takes about ten minutes and gets you writing and playing your first conversation.
  • Trying to get something done? The how-to guides show you how to play a document, compile one to bytecode, and embed Questmark in your own app.
  • Need a fact? The reference pages describe the language, the CLI, and the library API precisely and completely.
  • Want to understand the design? The explanation pages cover why Questmark exists and how it works under the hood.
  • Tzo — the stack-machine bytecode and VM that Questmark compiles to.
  • questmark-webrenderer — render and play Questmark documents in the browser.

Questmark — released under the MIT license.