I was absolutely sucked in to A Dark Room yesterday, and I am still blown away at what the developer came up with. It is called a minimalist text adventure. What is amazing is the progression of game and story that the developer packed in to a relatively small space. I will do my best not to spoil much below.
The game starts out seemingly as a kind of true text adventure. Press a button, get some text, and then continue. But, it quickly becomes more like a resource management game, where the player grows a village in a hostile environment. What really struck me was that playing through the website (the game is also available in iOS form) the stark screen really drove home the feeling of despair. Animals come and rip up your villagers, and it’s all just there in black text on a white background.
Not long after the game shifts again to the player journeying outside the “safety” of the village limits. The story grows from there as the player wanders further away, and the game shifts to a nice finale at the end.
Couple hints:
- Weapons are additive. Use the bone spear and later weapons all at once.
- In the “Dusty Trail” portion use recovered areas (“P”) to refresh your water and get more meat. Clever usage of these will allow you to traverse much further.
- There are two renewable resources that can only be obtained by exploring and clearing bad areas in the “Dusty Trail”. Once you clear them they can be utilized by the village.
Good Luck!
–Ravious
Awesome game! Thanks for linking to it. I managed to overlook “Weapons are additive” for a bit and it got easier when I realized what you were talking about.
Fun.
Fun game indeed. Ended one, don’t think ‘correctly’.
First thing that came to mind when I saw ‘dark room’:
I would shoot magic missile… at the darkness.
You know I love games that cross styles and genres, so the switch is pleasant. I found the resource game to essentially be an idle game, which does not mix well with most other things. I feel like I spent most of the game waiting to play the game.