Play A Dark Room in Your Browser

A Dark Room background

Michael Townsend of Doublespeak Games released A Dark Room as a free browser game in 2013. It begins as a minimal incremental game and gradually reveals a village to manage, a map to explore, and a story told almost entirely through short lines of text.

An iOS port by Amir Rajan in 2014 brought the game a much larger audience, and the browser version remains free to play.

How to play A Dark Room

The game begins with a single button to light a fire. Keeping the fire going brings a stranger who becomes your builder, and from there you gather wood, check traps, build huts, and assign villagers to jobs. Eventually you leave the village to explore a map on foot, managing food and water while you discover new places and fight what you find there. Much of the appeal is discovering what the game turns into, so it explains very little up front.

1. Light the fire and keep stoking it so the room stays warm.
2. Gather wood and let the builder construct traps, carts, and huts.
3. Assign villagers to jobs to keep resources coming in.
4. Prepare food and water before heading out to explore the world map.