Usborne's 1980s 'Creepy Computer Games' Recreated as Interactive Web Game

Simon Willison used Claude AI to build an interactive JavaScript version of 'Mad House', a game originally published in Usborne's 1983 book 'Creepy Computer Games'. The original book, part of Usborne's series of 1980s computer books, featured type-in programs for home computers like the Commodore 64. Willison fed the PDF of the book into Claude and prompted it to create a vanilla JS artifact that exactly recreates the game, ensuring mobile friendliness and a retro aesthetic. The project credits the book and links to Usborne's current computer and coding books page. Usborne had previously released free PDFs of their vintage computer books, which Willison discovered via Hacker News. The interactive version was posted on 24th May 2026. Willison also offers a sponsored monthly digest on LLM developments for $10/month.