Frequently asked questions

Short answers. Email us if yours isn’t here.

What is Hard Canon?

A text adventure narrated by an AI language model, with one important difference from a chatbot: the game world is tracked by a conventional, deterministic game engine. The model writes the prose; the engine owns the facts (who is where, what you carry, what time it is, what has already happened) and hands the model only what is true. That is the “hard canon.”

Where can I get it?

Hard Canon is a desktop app for macOS and Windows. The first release will be on Steam; see the download page for status.

Why a desktop app and not a website?

Because you own it. The game runs on your machine, your saves are files on your disk, and the AI account it uses is yours. There is no Hard Canon server in the middle reading your stories, no account to lose, and nothing for us to collect. A web version is coming for people who prefer it, but the local app will remain the privacy-first way to play.

What does the AI cost? Do you take a cut?

No. You buy credits directly from your AI provider (for example OpenRouter) and enter your own key. We earn nothing on those tokens; the price you see in the app is the provider’s price. The app shows the cost of every turn, image, and narration as it happens, so there are no surprises. If you run a local model, the AI cost is zero.

Can I play fully offline?

Yes, with a local model. The engine supports small language models running on your own CPU/GPU. Quality and speed depend on your hardware; cloud models are currently stronger writers. Many players mix: a local model for play, a cloud model for illustrations or narration.

What data do you collect?

None from the app. No accounts, no analytics, no crash reporting to us. The only party that sees your story text is the AI provider you configured, under its own terms; where the provider supports it, the app asks for no-storage / no-training handling. Details in our privacy policy.

Which genres does it support?

Any you can describe. From a premise, the engine generates a world: locations, a cast with their own goals and schedules, and the relationships between them. Fantasy, contemporary, mystery, science fiction, cozy slice-of-life. The engine is genre-agnostic; the model does the voice.

Illustrations and voice?

Scenes can be illustrated on demand with a consistent art style and recurring characters, and narration can be read aloud with word-by-word highlighting synced to the audio. Both are optional and both use providers you choose and pay directly.

Why not just play this in a chatbot?

• Your inventory is real. In a chat, you can talk the AI into having a rope. Here, if it isn’t in your pack, you don’t have it, and the story has to work around that. Items break, run out of charge, and get lost for real.
• Characters have lives when you aren’t looking. Every character has a schedule, goals, and opinions about each other that the engine tracks. The baker is at the market on Tuesday morning whether or not you visit. Someone you wronged three chapters ago still remembers.
• Time actually passes and locations persist. A clock runs, travel takes time, and places you’ve seen stay where they were. No teleporting bakeries.
• The story doesn’t melt after an hour. Chatbots forget as the conversation grows; details drift and contradictions pile up. Hard Canon’s game engine preserves canon, so a 200-turn story stays as sharp as turn one.
• Promises come due. A deadline you were given, a debt you owe, a meeting you agreed to: Hard Canon’s game engine keeps the calendar, and the moment arrives whether you’re ready or not.
• You can’t argue your way to a win. Your character has real strengths and weaknesses, and the narrator doesn’t take bribes.
• Choices stick. Actions have consequences the world remembers.
• The writer still writes. None of this limits the prose. The engine only owns the facts; the model gets full freedom in how it tells them.

The model is the storyteller. The engine is the rulebook, the map, the calendar, and the save file. That’s the “hard canon.”

Who makes it?

Hard Canon is developed by The Thomas Nielsen, LLC, an independent studio in California. Say hello.