ARDEN

a tale of As You Like It

Shakespeare's comedy, rebuilt as a PS1-era JRPG. Act I is playable right now, in your browser, on a phone or a laptop. It saves as you go.

▶ Play Act I Watch the trailer

About 15 to 20 minutes. Keyboard: arrows or WASD, Enter, Esc; hold ↓ to fast-forward dialogue. Touch: d-pad and taps. Switch the text between Shakespeare's English and modern English on the title screen.

The trailer

Eighty-six seconds, cut from real gameplay, scored with the game's own music.

Play it here

Click inside to start. Arrows move, Enter confirms. Open it full screen if you'd rather.

How the fights work

All the world's a stage, so the battlefield is one too.

Orlando wrestles Charles before the court, with a timing ring over the foe

Cues

Every strike and every parry is a timing cue. When the rings meet, tap. Perfect cues hit harder and win the crowd.

The command list with a gold Couplet badge on a rhyming line

Couplets

Each move is a line of verse. Match the last line's rhyme and your party speaks a Couplet, then a Tercet, then a Quatrain, each stronger than the last.

Jaques delivers the Seven Ages of Man on a darkened stage

Applause

Good cues and clever rhymes fill one shared Applause meter. Spend it on skills, or hold forty for a Soliloquy, a showstopper built on a real speech.

What's in Act I

The Envious Court.

Orlando and old Adam in the orchard. The wrestling match. Rosalind banished, Celia following, Touchstone recruited. The disguises. The hounds in Arden. Duke Senior's table and the Seven Ages of Man. The poems on the trees, the cure for love, and one last stand against Oliver and Charles in the greenwood. To be continued in Act II.