# Cairn: Interactive Fiction — Classic Adventures, Mapped > Player for classic text adventures with automatic mapping and iCloud sync. (iPhone/iPad app by Daniel Ducat.) - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/cairn-interactive-fiction/id6773716278 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`) - Developer: [Daniel Ducat](https://appshunter.io/developer/1896283693) - Category: Games, Adventure - Price: $19.99 - Rating: 5.00/5 from 4 App Store ratings · 6 written reviews indexed - Age rating: 4+ - Requires: iOS 26.2 · 9 MB - Languages: American English - Released: 2026-06-15 - Data updated: 2026-09-09 - Monetization: paid - User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/cairn-interactive-fiction/id6773716278/reviews.md ## What is Cairn? 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 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. Unlike traditional interpreters, Cairn automatically builds a visual map of the world as you explore, so you can focus on puzzles and discovery instead of keeping 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, and fit and zoom controls. 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. Every playthrough carries a notebook. Write down door codes, maze mappings, and the thing to come back to once you find the lamp, in a tab beside the story rather than on paper. A button drops in where you are, what you are carrying, your score, the move count, or the last thing you typed. Notes travel in the saved game, so restoring a save brings back what you knew at the time along with the map and the transcript. An at-a-glance inventory bar shows what you are carrying below the transcript, without typing an inventory command and without costing you a turn. The live map is flexible too: rooms take custom shapes, and you can hide or restore any of them. On iPhone and iPad the story takes the whole screen, and the map, your notes, and every attached document 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 - A session notebook saved with each game - 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, notes, PDFs, images, and hints - Custom room shapes, hidden rooms, and per-connection line routing, stroke, and labels - Separate map and text presentation options - Library management for your adventures - Tag your stories however you think of them, then filter, group, and search by tag - Add several stories at once, with covers and descriptions from the Interactive Fiction Database - 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 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. ## Key features - Automatic live mapping - Visual room and connection tracking - Support for Z3, Z4, Z5, Z7, and Z8 story files - Attach custom PDFs and images - User-supplied hint file support - Inventory bar - Customizable themes ## Recent user reviews (6 of 6) All indexed reviews: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/cairn-interactive-fiction/id6773716278/reviews.md ### 5/5 — Wonderful interpreter *2026-08-25* Loads of polish and fun in this application. And with one purchase it’s on all supported devices. Hands down one of the best interpreters, library, and notes feature I’ve seen for interactive fiction. ### 5/5 — Amazing *2026-08-21* This app is great. The auto mapping feature is super helpful! **Developer response:** Glad you are enjoying Cairn! Keep an eye out for updates. We've got some mapping improvements planned in the coming months. Thanks for your support! ### 5/5 — Well worth the price! *2026-08-19* You would once upon a time pay $20 for a collection of Infocom games on CD-ROM. Today that gets you an app on which you can play not only the majority of Infocom’s catalog, but untold numbers of other interactive fiction games. The integration of mapping and hints is seamless, and the UX is excellent. Controls are intuitive and everything is highly customizable. A must-have app for any fan of text adventures, classic and/or contemporary. **Developer response:** Thanks for the review! IFDB is a great place to look for 3rd party stories. There is a robust community who are keeping interactive fiction alive. ### 5/5 — Simply Fantastic *2026-08-15* I’ve been looking for a replacement to The Lost Treasures of Infocom ever since Activision abandoned it and never made a 64-bit version. Enter Daniel Ducat. He made an app as good and even better than the original! You just need to do a little work to find the games and invisiclues, but that just adds to the fun. Now I can recycle my old 32-bit iPad. ### 5/5 — Brilliant idea and execution. *2026-07-20* Just, click buy. This app is polished, and so well done - such a great experience as well if you’re like me; having already mapped out by hand INFOCOM games as a teen way back when. **Developer response:** Be sure to check out the indie community of game authors on IFDB. There are some interesting non-Infocom stories being told out there, ### 5/5 — Old School Infocom Games *2026-07-11* This app is fantastic. Play those old nostalgic Inform games. Every update gets better and better. These are the types of developers that need your support. **Developer response:** Truth be told, I started working on this for me. I was feeling quite nostalgic and I knew what I wanted in a modern player. Glad the features are resonating with others. ## Frequently asked questions about Cairn ### Does Cairn include any games? No, Cairn is a player for classic text adventures and does not include any games. You must provide your own story files, which can be downloaded from various archives or are games you already own. ### What devices does Cairn support? Cairn is available for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Your progress, saved games, and materials sync across these devices via iCloud. ### What types of story files does Cairn support? Cairn supports the complete classic Infocom Z3, Z4, and Z5 catalog, as well as Z-machine version 7 and version 8 stories. It does not support Beyond Zork or Version 6 graphical stories. ### How much does Cairn cost? Cairn is a paid application priced at $19.99. This single purchase includes access on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. ### Does Cairn have ads? No, Cairn is ad-free. As a paid application, it does not contain any advertisements. ### How does the automatic mapping feature work in Cairn? Cairn automatically builds a visual map of the game world as you explore. It tracks every room, connection, and pathway, helping you focus on the game's puzzles and story without needing to manually create maps. ### Can I attach my own reference materials to stories in Cairn? Yes, you can attach your own PDFs and images to each story, such as manuals, maps, or feelies. These materials can be viewed alongside the game within the app. ### How often is Cairn updated? Cairn was last updated on August 15, 2026, with version 3.0.0. The release date for this version was June 15, 2026, indicating active development and regular updates. ## Version history (last 5 releases) ### 3.2.1 — 2026-08-30 Bug fixes on iPad regarding orientation changes/ Set your iPad down, pick it up, or turn it around, and the map, your notebook, or the manual you were reading stays open. Cairn was treating the iPad's own movement as a request to go back to the story. ### 3.2.0 — 2026-08-28 - Every connection is yours to draw: route it orthogonal, straight, or curved, stroke it solid, dotted, or dashed, write its label, choose which side of a room it meets, point it at either room or both, or hide it altogether. - More responsive maps: Exploring larger maps is smoother on all devices - Truer maps. Cairn now follows the story's own bearings rather than a drawing convention, draws a line dotted where the story states no bearing at all, keeps north up when a room has to overlap another, and lays out the same rooms the same way every time. - Tidier maps. A connection's labels stay on the line however it is routed, and notices drawn over the map take their colours from the theme you chose. - Changed your mind about a dismissed notice? Reset Notifications, on the Advanced settings screen, brings back the one-time notes you asked Cairn to stop showing. ### 3.1.1 — 2026-08-22 Characters who move around the story — Floyd in Planetfall, the suspects in Deadline and Witness — no longer leave a trail of themselves across the map. Each one now appears in the room you last saw them in, rather than in every room you have walked them through. Also fixes a bug where the inventory bar could show items belonging to a character in the story rather than to you. In Ballyhoo it listed a monkey, a trenchcoat and a trade card from the opening prompt — none of which you could examine, because they belonged to the detective — and nothing you picked up ever appeared. Suspect and A Mind Forever Voyaging were affected in the same way. Your inventory now updates the moment you take or drop something, in every story. ### 3.1.0 — 2026-08-19 - Every game has a notebook in a tab beside the story. Stamp in where you are, what you are carrying, your score, or the last turn; it saves with the game and syncs across your devices. - Stories carry tags instead of a single genre — already filled in from detail your files were always carrying — so you can filter, group, and search by them. - Add as many story files at once as you like. Cairn imports them together, names each story from what is inside the file, and offers covers and descriptions from the Interactive Fiction Database afterwards, on one page. ### 3.0.1 — 2026-08-17 This release corrects four mapping faults, most of them found in modern interactive fiction outside the Infocom catalog. - Rooms whose names run long — "At the Foot of the Lighthouse" — are drawn on the map again, along with the passage that led you into them. Rooms named this way were being left off entirely, and the map joined the rooms on either side as though they touched. - The map no longer invents places that are not places. Walking into a dark room, or taking inventory, could leave a card behind that no room ever matched. - A room's card lists what is in the room, not the landscape around it. The sea, the sky and the weather stay off the cards of every room you pass through. - A room's card lists the things you put there most recently first, so dropping an armful in a room shows what you dropped instead of whatever happened to sort first. - The theme you choose stays on the device where you chose it. Themes you create still travel to your other devices; which one is showing is yours to set on each. - Answering "no" to a story's quit confirmation no longer leaves a stray line of status text in the transcript, or adds a room you never visited to the map. - The name of the selected theme in Settings stays readable in every palette. - On a very wide window, a story's name and its actions menu no longer drift away from the cover art above them, and the story's details sit centered with even margins on both sides. ## More apps by Daniel Ducat - [Wyrth: Net Worth Tracker](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/wyrth-net-worth-tracker/id6751715725) - [Audire Audiobook Player](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/audire-audiobook-player/id6775681294) All apps by Daniel Ducat: https://appshunter.io/developer/1896283693 --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-09-09.*