Playing The Beach Mystery takes about five minutes from title screen to ending — but discovering all four endings and all seven storylines rewards every replay. This page walks through every stage of a playthrough: the title screen, the instructions card, the five personalization questions, the branching story itself, and the ending screen where your journey is summarized.Documentation Index
Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify.com/apursley2012/the-beach-mystery/llms.txt
Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
Stages of a Playthrough
Title Screen
Navigate to
/play. You land on the title screen with a full-size beach scene, the game logo, and the subtitle “An Interactive Choose-Your-Own-Adventure.”- Click Press Enter to Begin to start a new game from the personalization questions.
- If you previously saved mid-story, a second button — Continue Saved Game — appears below. Clicking it restores your exact position: current story node, inventory, choice history, and personalization variables.
Instructions
After clicking Press Enter to Begin, a card appears explaining the basics:
- You make choices by clicking buttons (Yes/No or Left/Right).
- The first five prompts are the personalization questions — you can type anything.
- All other prompts are story choices.
Personalization Questions
You are asked five questions, one at a time. A progress bar at the top shows your position (dots 1–5). Each question has a label, a placeholder, and a hint explaining how your answer will appear in the story.
Press Next → after each answer. After question five the button changes to Begin Adventure → and the story starts immediately.
| # | Question | Story use |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | What is your first name? | Greeting in the opening line; used throughout |
| 2 | What is your favorite color? | Colors the jewel you find in the chest |
| 3 | What is your favorite animal? | May appear on the island and in the cave guardian’s den |
| 4 | Who is your favorite cartoon character? | Appears on the watch you check beside the chest |
| 5 | What is your favorite jewel? | The gem hidden inside the pirate’s chest |
All five fields require a non-empty answer. If you submit a blank field, an inline error message appears and the question stays on screen. Shorter answers (one or two words) read most naturally once substituted into the narration.
Story
The story runs as a sequence of nodes. Each node has a type that determines what appears on screen.Narration nodes — Lines appear one at a time in an animated typewriter sequence (one new line every 600 ms). Scene artwork fills the top of the story panel. Once all lines have appeared, a Continue → button shows at the bottom. Click it to advance to the next node.Choice nodes — After all narration lines have appeared, a prompt and two buttons are shown. Depending on the branch, the buttons are either Yes / No or Left / Right. Click a button to make your choice and advance the story. Your choice is recorded in the Your Path sidebar list.Riddle node — A text box and a Submit button replace the choice buttons. Type your answer and submit. The answer is checked case-insensitively.
The Riddle
The riddle appears only if you opened the chest and chose to follow the treasure map. Two guards on the island ask:“I speak without a mouth and hear without ears. I have no body, but I come alive with the wind. What am I?”The correct answer is echo. After two wrong attempts a hint appears beneath the input:
“It is a sound that repeats what you say, bouncing back from canyon walls and empty halls.”
The Story Sidebar
During gameplay a sidebar is visible to the left of the story panel. It contains three sections:| Section | Contents |
|---|---|
| Inventory | Two slots: your jewel (💎) and the Treasure Map (🗺️). Each slot shows a lock icon (?) until that item is obtained by opening the chest. |
| Your Path | A running ordered list of every choice you have made, updated in real time. |
| Actions | 💾 Save Progress writes your full game state to localStorage. ↻ Restart resets to the title screen. |
Ending
When you reach the final narration node of a storyline, a See Your Ending → button replaces Continue →. Clicking it transitions to the ending screen.The ending screen shows:
- Ending artwork — a large scene illustration specific to the ending you reached.
- Ending badge — the ending’s icon and “Ending Discovered” label.
- Ending title and description — a one-paragraph summary of your outcome.
- Jewel callout — if you kept the jewel, a line confirms you carried it home.
- Your Journey — a full ordered recap of every choice you made during the playthrough.
- ↻ Play Again — resets the game to the title screen so you can try a different path.
- View All Endings — navigates to the
/endingspage.
beach-mystery-achievements in localStorage (if it wasn’t already there).The Four Endings
| Ending | Name | How to reach it |
|---|---|---|
| 🏝️ | The Island’s Secret | Open chest → Follow map → Solve riddle |
| 💎 | The Hidden Treasure Chamber | Go to cave → Take left passage |
| 🐾 | The Guardian’s Den | Go to cave → Take right passage |
| 🌅 | The Peaceful Shore | Skip the cave (either path) |
Saving and Resuming Mid-Story
Tracking Your Endings
The/endings page shows all four endings with a progress ring that fills as you discover each one. Endings you have not yet reached display a lock icon and the description is hidden. Once you reach an ending in any playthrough, it unlocks permanently on the Endings page for that browser.
Achievements are stored per-browser in
localStorage. Clearing your browser’s site data or using a different device will reset your discovered endings count.