A Dark Room is a charming text adventure that sports an almost ruthless economy of design.
Originally released on web browsers by Michael Townsend - of Doublespeak Games - before being ported to iOS devices last year with the help of Amir Rajan, A Dark Room draws direct inspiration from the minimalist gameplay of the Candy Box series, with Doublespeak honing some of the more vague mechanics that the genre is known for to create a tight and focused experience.
A Dark Room lacks any audio of any kind, and no visuals beyond the text that appears on your screen. But far from being a drawback, the sparse presentation plays into the minimalism of its gameplay design.
At the start of the story, you awaken in a dark and cold room. The fire pit has died down, leaving nothing but smoldering ashes behind. Your head throbs in pain and little is given about how you have found yourself in this predicament. Slowly, you gather your wits and struggle to stoke the ashes in the fire, bringing light - and, more importantly, heat - back to the room. As the room warms up a stranger stumbles in through the door, only to collapse beside your newly kindled fire.
Eventually you will need more wood to feed the fire and keep both you and the stranger alive, and you’ll need to venture into the forest for fuel. The stranger then suggests that you should gather enough wood to build huts and attract other travelers into settling down by the fire. At its core, A Dark Room is a game of resource gathering and management that sees you gradually expand out from your room and create a thriving village.
You manage your village from a home screen that consists of little more than a few buttons and a meter which ticks down over time. This meter represents your fire, and acts as a saving mechanic when the flames are stoked. You’re only provided with vague directions on what to do and it all starts out innocuously enough, before the game fully shows its hand. Even after you think you have discovered the big secret there are still a few cards hidden up A Dark Room’s sleeves, with just enough carrot-dangling to keep you tumbling down the rabbit hole.
It’s only as your village grows into a small town will you realize that A Dark Room is really a game about discovery, and much of its mechanics are hidden behind a time wall. Wandering villagers give up the freedom of the wilds for the warmth and safety of your fire, but there is always a cost for their safety.
The world in which the adventure takes place is largely left to your imagination. Unlike many text adventures which go into sometimes obsessive amounts of detail about your environment, here you’re presented with little more than the most basic description of your surroundings. The simple prose helps to craft a stark, oppressive atmosphere that stays with you long after playing. To say anything more about the story would spoil it, but we were floored by the direction that A Dark Room takes towards the end.
The game provides a well-paced sense of discovery hidden inside a minimalist text package, and it all comes at a good price - just $0.99. If you are looking for something a bit different on your iOS device then we highly recommend giving it a try. We were thoroughly surprised by every twist and turn that we discovered on our quest, and found ourselves astounded by where we finally ended up at the end.
A Dark Room is full of secrets, and it’s well worth your time - time that could be used gathering wood.
Brian Kale
@brianwkale
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