04. Jabberwock — A 3D Game in Verse

# 04. Jabberwock — A 3D Game in Verse

Make a 3D game from a poem. That is the entire brief.

## The poem

```
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
      Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
      And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
      The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
      The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand;
      Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree
      And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
      The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
      And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
      The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
      He went galumphing back.

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
      Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
      He chortled in his joy.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
      Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
      And the mome raths outgrabe.
```

## What to make

A playable 3D game that tells this story. The model decides everything else: the camera angle, the gameplay loop, how to interpret the creatures, what the world looks like, how movement works, what the combat feels like, how to end the game.

The poem is not guidance. It is source material. The model must make it real.

### The model's creative decisions

Every word in the poem is a decision point. The model must commit:

- **Brillig** — what time of day is this? What does the light feel like?
- **Slithy toves** — what do they look like? What do they do? Do they move? Are they enemies? Ambient life?
- **Gyre and gimble** — what do these verbs look like? Are they animations? Are they physics? Are they visual effects?
- **The wabe** — what is this place? A field? A clearing? The ground itself?
- **Mimsy, borogoves, raths, outgrabe** — creatures or atmosphere or both?
- **Jabberwock** — the central encounter. The model must decide what it looks like, how it attacks, how it moves, how it dies.
- **Jubjub bird and Bandersnatch** — minor threats or absent entirely? The model decides.
- **Vorpal sword** — what does it look like? What does the strike feel like? The sound?
- **Tumtum tree** — a landmark. The model decides its shape and placement.
- **Uffish thought** — the pause before the battle. A moment. The model decides how to show it.
- **Eyes of flame, whiffling, tulgey wood, burbled** — all of these must exist in the game in some form.
- **Snicker-snack** — the kill. The model decides the animation, the feedback, the punctuation.
- **Galumphing back** — the victory lap. The model decides what this looks and feels like.
- **Frabjous day, Callooh, Callay** — the ending. The model decides how the game concludes.

Every decision the model makes is visible. A weak model makes no decisions and builds a generic fantasy scene. A strong model commits to a vision.

### What the game must have

- The player character must be controllable. WASD or arrow keys minimum.
- The Jabberwock must be present and must be defeatable.
- The vorpal sword must be part of the combat.
- The world must have at least three distinct visual zones: the wabe (the starting area), the tulgey wood (where the Jabberwock appears), and a victory moment (the ending).
- The poem text must appear at least three times in the game — at the start, before the Jabberwock encounter, and at the end.

## HUD

Top-right: FPS counter, updates every second.

## Hard requirements

- Single `index.html`. No build step.
- WebGL via Three.js, Babylon.js, regl, or raw WebGL2. Any CDN libraries listed in `manifest.json.externalAssets`.
- Smooth at 30fps on a 2020 laptop.
- The poem text must be legible — do not render it as unreadable ambient texture.
- No external textures fetched at runtime.
- `prefers-reduced-motion`: reduce or remove particle effects and camera shake. Movement should remain functional.

## Visual rules

- No default fonts. Pick a typeface that matches the world the model has built.
- The palette is the model's choice, but it must be consistent across the entire game — lighting, UI, creatures, and world all share the same visual language.
- Sound is optional. If included, it must not be a requirement to play.
- The Jabberwock must read as a threat from 20 meters away. Not a cube with eyes.
- The vorpal sword strike must feel like an event, not a collision.