A Dark Room is a role-playing text-based game developed by Doublespeak Games. A Dark Room was originally released on PC in 2013 by Candy Box before releasing it in the App Store for IOS devices in 2014.
When you first start up the game, it gives a feeling of being cheated by the developer as noticed by most people who had just started. You will be thrown into a dark environment with only the option to “light fire” and almost immediately after clicking it the environment becomes brighter. You will have the option to “stroke fire” to make the room brighter.
Suddenly a stranger stumbles into your “firelit room”, not long after you are able to enter a silent forest to gather wood. The stranger then introduces herself, saying that she can build things for you. From then on she is known as the “builder”
The builder will construct items for you that will be beneficial for you. Some of the items are the traps to get meat or a one-time-build cart to allow you to cart wood instead.
Once your builder constructs a hut, you’re able to start housing wanderers from the wild to join your village. As your village progresses it grows even bigger and random events will pop up and it gives you some options for you to choose.
At one point of the game you’re able to travel out into the wilderness. This makes the player realise that A Dark Room is in fact a hybrid of two genres. Inside the room and in your village it is a text adventure while travelling out into the world it is a Rougelike with RPG elements.
Out in the wilderness, you will face many enemies to battle and as you travel out you will require food and water which can either obtained in an outpost that you captured or from your village.
While playing A Dark Room, there aren’t any bugs or glitches that I had encountered so there wouldn’t be anything game breaking from stopping your progress. It is well optimised and can run smoothly on most devices without much performance lost. The story is really intriguing and will be sure to make you satisfied at the end. Although it can be really long and time consuming but you do not need to sit through it all in one session as stroking the fire saves your game.
In conclusion, if you’re really interested in hybrids like A Dark Room, you’ll be really pleased to play this game. Despite its simplicity, it is still fun and yet engaging. It cost S$2.58 on the Appstore but it would definitely be worth the cost.
photo courtesy of: https://twitter.com/adarkroomios
#Hashtag 