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Arcane Journeys started in the summer of 2000 as an idea I had about making a simple web-game about exploring a labyrinth. I wanted to take a standard adventure or RPG game, and see what would happen when you abstracted it to some of its basic components. The result was the first game on Arcane Journeys, "The Well", which became playable when the site started, on January 15, 2001.

"The Great Desert" was the second game I added. The idea to have many games available to the players, to let them choose which ones they liked best, or were best at, really appealed to me. Also, in "The Great Desert" I wanted to explore abstraction further, so I removed all ideas of going from one place to another explicitly. You are just 'in the desert somewhere'. Another feature of "The Great Desert" which I wanted to explore is its complete lack of violence and combat. Could an adventure game be fun without fighting in it? The game speaks for itself.

"The Ruins of Ashkelon", the third game to appear on the site, was inspired by the idea of letting a player find different paths through the same game, a theme I started in the previous games with the choosing of artifacts and special powers but enchanced in The Ruins by having several different encounter paths to pursue. I also filled the game with secrets, so that the discovery of new features could last over many plays. All in all the game is one of the more replayable ones, and one of my favorites.

To see more about the specific things which have changed since those first three games, go to the recent changes page and look around.