Cairn: Interactive Fiction

Cairn is a player for classic text adventures. It does not include any games — you bring your own story files.

Many classic and modern titles are available free from the Interactive Fiction Database and community archives. If you already own Infocom games, Cairn plays those too.

One app for iPhone, iPad, and Mac, included with a single purchase. Your stories, saved games, materials, and the maps Cairn draws all travel with you through iCloud — begin an adventure on your Mac, continue it on your iPad, and check a hint on your phone.

Rediscover the golden age of text adventures with automatic mapping, built-in reference materials, and a design that fits whatever you are holding.

Whether you are returning to beloved games from decades past or discovering interactive fiction for the first time, Cairn keeps the original text-adventure experience intact while making exploration easier to follow.

Unlike traditional interpreters, Cairn automatically builds a visual map of the world as you explore. Every room, connection, and pathway is tracked as you play, helping you focus on puzzles, story, and discovery instead of maintaining graph-paper maps by hand.

Cairn is a rich play desk for classic adventures. Attach your own PDFs and images to each story — manuals, maps, feelies, and other reference materials — then read them beside the game. PDFs include page navigation, single- and two-page layouts, fit and zoom controls, and remembered viewing preferences. Images support zooming and scrolling.

Cairn also supports user-supplied InvisiClues hint files in a compatible JSON format. Hints appear in their own tab, grouped into booklet-style sections, and reveal one clue at a time so you get only as much help as you want.

An at-a-glance inventory bar shows what you are carrying below the transcript, without typing an inventory command and without affecting your turns, score, or transcript. The live map is flexible too: rooms take custom shapes, and you can hide or restore any of them for a cleaner view.

The side panel adapts to the story materials you have attached, with focused tabs for the map, PDFs, images, and hints. On iPhone and iPad the story takes the whole screen and those panes are one tap away.

Cairn offers readable themes, including IBM PC Color and DEC VT241-inspired options, with previews and immediate Settings changes.

Cairn supports the complete classic Infocom Z3, Z4, and Z5 catalog and also plays Z-machine version 7 and version 8 stories, opening the door to modern Inform 6 and Inform 7 interactive fiction beyond the Infocom era. Beyond Zork and Version 6 graphical stories are not supported.

Compatible adventures include classics such as Zork, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Planetfall, Enchanter, Trinity, Bureaucracy, Suspended, Deadline, Wishbringer, Spellbreaker, and many more.

Features

- Automatic live mapping as you explore

- Visual room and connection tracking

- Support for Z3, Z4, Z5, Z7, and Z8 story files

- Attached PDF and image materials

- PDF page navigation, layouts, fit, and zoom controls

- Image zooming and scrolling

- InvisiClues hint browsing from compatible JSON files

- Spoiler-safe clue reveal controls

- At-a-glance inventory bar

- Adaptive side-panel tabs for maps, PDFs, images, and hints

- Custom map room shapes

- Hidden-room controls for cleaner maps

- Separate map and text presentation options

- Library management for your adventures

- One app for iPhone, iPad, and Mac with a single purchase

- Stories, saved games, and materials synced across your devices with iCloud

- Native menus and keyboard shortcuts on Mac and iPad

- Layouts that adapt from iPhone to ultrawide displays

- Designed for both newcomers and longtime interactive fiction fans

IMPORTANT! Cairn does not include any game files, manuals, maps, images, or hint files. You supply your own from your personal collection or other legal distribution channels.