I agree, but I swear it’s because that system did everything I wanted it to.
User Interface was set, but could be configured for different views - all text, side menu, location photo, baked in save and load system, settings for muting audio temporarily and permanently, adjusting text size and turning of transition animations. The interface automatically scaled and hid elements on the fly based on browser window size, and as long as you didn’t have a complicated Hanon-style game, it scaled for devices intelligently. If there wasn’t room for the location picture or menu, these became buttons in the interface so you could glance at the menu or picture then return to the text.
Built in macros for background music and individual sounds.
Easy ways to drop images inline or in a pop-up window, or change the location photo, and update the side menu.
Built-in countdown timers that could display ambient messages (which let me create “real time” chat in Cursed Pickle of Shireton) or cause something to unexpectedly happen and remove control from the player temporarily.
Support for inline text links as well as button choices that didn’t have to be all at the bottom of the screen.
Any passage could be navigated to with a specified link format. If you have a passage of text a regular link would just show it normally, putting a plus-sign before the link meant that passage’s text would be added to the existing page and macros in it would run, a preceding asterisk would show it in a dismissible pop-up window, a minus would make it so a link would gray out when selected - great to show a one-use “You drink the potion and gain +1 health” pop-up that the player couldn’t spam.
One big minus I’ve gotten feedback about is it wasn’t accessible due to all the graphical trickery and didn’t play with screen-readers, however one of the UI modules they were working on was an “audio book” adventure that did include features for accessibility.
I specifically was married to AXMA 6 - when they made it JavaScript it looked very powerful but I was unable to use that, not knowing JS and because they never translated the documentation for that version into English.
I would still be using AXMA 6 if it hadn’t fallen behind in program certification so it won’t run on newer Macs or PCs.