---
title: Inkwell
url: 'https://wiki.teletypegames.org/engines/inkwell'
markdown: 'https://wiki.teletypegames.org/engines/inkwell.md'
lang: en
date: '2026-06-09'
description: 'Inkwell is a point-and-click adventure framework for Go, built on Ebitengine. You register plain struct literals into managers; the library does input, rendering, dialog trees, cutscenes, HUD, themes and lazy asset loading. Your code only declares content. What you get SCUMM-era skeleton — scene…'
taxonomy:
  tag:
    - engine
    - highlighted
---

# Inkwell

> Inkwell is a point-and-click adventure framework for Go, built on [Ebitengine](https://ebitengine.org/). You register plain struct literals into managers; the library does input, rendering, dialog trees, cutscenes, HUD, themes and lazy asset loading. Your code only declares content.

# What you get

- **SCUMM-era skeleton** — scenes with hotspots and walkboxes, verb-based interaction, inventory and item combinations, dialog trees, cutscenes.
- **One pattern** — every named entity is a struct literal passed to `Manager.Register`.
- **Composable actions** — `Seq`, `Par`, `If`, `Wait`, `Say`, `Walk`, … with lazy conditions over flags, vars and inventory.
- **Widget-tree HUD** — verb bar, verb coin, inventory, dialog box, speech bubbles, top bar, character panels, chat log. Anything Ebitengine can draw is a valid widget.
- **Themes and placeholders** — four color themes and deterministic placeholder art, so a game runs with zero assets on disk.
- **Save, load, validate** — JSON save slots for mutable state, plus a startup validator for every name reference.

**Module path:** `git.teletypegames.org/engines/inkwell`

The demo game "Morning Coffee" lives in [`inkwell-demo`](ssh://git@git.teletypegames.org:2222/demos/inkwell-demo) and consumes the library as a normal Go module.

# API reference

The manual and the reference live in the source: the package comments explain how the pieces fit, and every exported type, function and method carries a doc comment — CI fails if one is missing. Every `vX.Y.Z` release tag builds them with doc2go and publishes them here: **[API reference (Go doc)](https://wiki.teletypegames.org/godoc/inkwell/latest/)**.

[API reference (Go doc): /godoc/inkwell/latest/](https://wiki.teletypegames.org/godoc/inkwell/latest/)

How it gets here: [Go doc](https://wiki.teletypegames.org/development/godoc).

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---

## Navigation

- Parent: [Engines](https://wiki.teletypegames.org/engines.md)
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