Yes, that Notepad. The one that comes with Windows, and that a million readme files are written in. Now you can use it to play an RPG—it's kinda astonishing.
Backing up a little, And yet it hurt is a thoroughly traditional fantasy game where you have to a) slay a dragon, and where b) your family is killed just a short way in. You, a heroic whelp, have to train and outfit yourself to destroy the dragon. And you do this, naturally, by futzing about with .txt files.
Taking place inside a custom version of Notepad, you interact with And yet it hurt by dragging scene files into the program, and by editing parameters once you've arrived at each location. To pick a dialogue option, for example, you type any character inside a check box. Then, to confirm it, you hit Ctrl+S to advance the game. That's, er, every time you basically do anything. Ctrl+S. Ctrl+S. Ctrl+S. It's bloody unwieldy. Ultimately, from what I've played, the game is worth it.
There's a lot here to like (the ASCII art, the refreshingly earnest writing), and some clever solutions to the extremely unusual format. Combat, for example. Yep, there's turn-based (and also timing-based combat), where you have to delete characters, and type them in, against the clock. There's a lot of smart thinking behind this, I guess, text adventure. If you're intrigued, you can download And yet it hurt from itch.io. (Thanks, Warp Door.)
For more great free experiences, check out our roundup of the best free PC games.
