About A Dark Room
A Dark Room is an open-source, text-based role-playing game from Doublespeak Games, an indie studio in Canada, and Michael Townsend designed it. It was first published for web browsers on June 10, 2013. The game opens in a dark, cold room with a fire to light, and the project’s README sets the scene with the line “awake. head throbbing. vision blurry. come light the fire.” From there it grows. What begins as a text-only idle game turns into gathering resources, building a village and setting out on expeditions into a wider world. It is classed as an incremental game as well as a role-playing game, and it is single-player.
The browser game came first, and other versions followed. A Dark Room reached the App Store for iOS later in 2013, with Amir Rajan developing that version. A prequel, The Ensign, came out for iOS in 2014 and told more about the world and its characters. An Android version followed in 2016, and Circle Entertainment published a Nintendo Switch version on April 12, 2019. The Switch release was taken off the Nintendo eShop for a while shortly after launch, but the listing has since been restored and the game is on sale again. Those versions are paid; the browser one is free.
How it runs in your browser
A Dark Room plays right here in the player above, loaded from adarkroom.doublespeakgames.com, the creators’ own site. This is the official release rather than a port or an emulated copy, and it is built with JavaScript and HTML5. The official site allows embedding, which is why it can run on this page. There’s nothing to install and no account to make.
The code is open source under the Mozilla Public License 2.0, and the project on GitHub has about 8,400 stars. The official site also offers the game in many languages, including English, French, German, Greek, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and both Simplified and Traditional Chinese.
How the game keeps your progress isn’t stated on the host, so look at the game itself before you rely on picking up a long session later.
Controls and devices
A Dark Room is played in text, and it is listed for a mouse and keyboard as well as for touch. No key list is published for it, so follow what the game shows you on screen.
We haven’t tested the browser version on phones, and Chromebooks haven’t been confirmed. If you want it on a phone, the paid iOS and Android apps are the versions made for those devices.
Who it’s for
A Dark Room suits players who enjoy games that start small and slowly open up, and anyone curious about incremental games told through text. Because the full source is public, it also interests people who want to see how a browser game of this kind is put together.
Other games on this site that were made for the browser rather than ported to it include Cork7, a 3D freeski game, and Don’t Fall, a 3D climbing game.
Is A Dark Room Free, Safe and Official?
Can I play A Dark Room online for free?
Yes. The browser version is free on Doublespeak Games’ own site, and it plays right on this page with nothing to install and no account. Its code is open source under the Mozilla Public License 2.0. The iOS, Android and Nintendo Switch versions are paid.
Can I play A Dark Room on my phone?
There are paid versions for iOS and Android. We haven’t tested the browser version on a phone, though it is listed for touch as well as for a mouse and keyboard.
Can I play A Dark Room in other languages?
Yes. The official site offers many languages, among them French, German, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Russian, Japanese, Korean, and Simplified and Traditional Chinese. The project’s README lists them all.
