The foundations

The game’s first commit dates back to spring 2026, but the project comes from further away: the Santa Maria already exists in the text adventure Il Relitto Silente and in the short story Frequenza di Servizio. This final chapter had to be different from both: a graphic adventure, but with text at its core.

The rules of the game

Before any code came the rules, and some were non-negotiable:

• Nine verbs: LOOK, TAKE, USE, OPEN, CLOSE, TALK, PUSH, PULL, GIVE. All interaction goes through them.
• No pixel hunting: location images are stage sets; targets are chosen from a contextual text list. The player reasons about words, not pixels.
• Every line written by hand: no generated text — the characters’ voice belongs to the author.

The technology

The game runs on Electron with React and TypeScript — the same foundation already proven with Il Relitto Silente, adapted and rebuilt. Native resolution is 1920×1080 with automatic scaling, designed to look right on any screen without breaking the layout.

Where this phase ended

A complete skeleton: the screen structure, the verb interface with its target list, the inventory, file-based saves, settings with colour themes. An empty game, but already playable — ready to receive the world it was meant to tell.