Saltwrack
A crew of three. A lost city, far in the north. A thousand miles of toxic ice.
Plot your course, manage supplies, study apocalypse biota, and don't lose your mind. You'll find out why the world was ruined, or die trying.
Saltwrack is a post-post-apocalyptic hypertext horror novel. It was awarded fourth place in IFComp 2025, along with #2 Miss Congeniality and the Rising Star Award for highest-ranked first-time entrant of the year. It contains 78,000 words of prose and programming altogether, and the labor of around 6 years spent dreaming it into fruition.
"[T]eeming with novel ideas, a fresh setting, and some really good visceral writing." —Bruno Dias
"The wrack is probably the coolest... piece of frozen wasteland I’ve encountered in interactive fiction." —Kinetic Mouse Car
"I would call it immersive. I would call it art. I would recommend it for anyone who feels like getting lost in a story... I think it’ll haunt me for a while." —Passerine
[Author's note: a comprehensive edition, with some previously unimplemented features, may emerge at some later date, but no promises. The current edition reflects the changes made during IFComp to fix bugs.]
You feel flickers of a stirring apprehension. As though you can feel the contours of this land pressing into the edges of your mind.
Things are unlikely to go well for you.
Comments
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One note, you should maybe make the background of this page fixed, so that the comments are easy to read :D
aaa thank you, yes, I did so!
Annihilation, but with salt.
That’s not a throwaway review, I really felt the vibes of Annihilation (or perhaps of the Southern Reach as a whole, rather than just the first book). The sense of an intrusion into the world, the transformation of what is familiar into what is rich and strange and malevolent. People can approach the heart of the mystery, but they return changed and altered.
I suppose in that parallel Saltwrack would be set far later in the process of transformation than Annihilation, not when the infection begins, but once the alteration is already complete … or is it.
In case it’s not clear, I loved this.
Thank you so much!!! for seeing my world... Saltwrack was hugely inspired by the Southern Reach series >:}
This is very well written. So are the others you have up here. I love how you express a sense of the “alien” derived from the diversity and strangeness of earth’s own biological components. It’s definitely a unique perspective & it’s very effective in embedding the reader/player in your environments.
Thank you so much! I care deeply about ecology and landscapes; they tend to be the primary focus of anything I write. I'm always glad when that resonates with readers.
It seems clear to me that your particular knowledge of such topics is a fertile soil for growing ideas. Looking forward to seeing what else might emerge out of there!
<3