A Dark Room — free online Open Source game
Light the fire, gather wood and find out what lies beyond the dark.
A Dark Room is a free online text adventure that starts with a cold room and a dying fire. Stoke the fire, gather wood, build huts and traps, and slowly grow a village of wanderers. Then step outside: explore a dangerous world map, fight in simple real-time battles, manage water and food on the road, and uncover the story of why you are here. The whole game is told in plain text and grows far beyond its first screen. A Dark Room is open-source software by doublespeakgames; play it in your browser with no download and no sign-up.
Open-source credits
A Dark Room is an open-source game made by its authors on GitHub, not by this site. We host a copy under its original license; the copyright stays with the authors of the GitHub repository below.
- Copyright
- © the authors of doublespeakgames/adarkroom on GitHub
- Source code
- github.com/doublespeakgames/adarkroom
- License
- MPL-2.0
- Hosted version
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Bug reports, feature requests and the full source code belong to the upstream repository.
Quick start
- Press start, then light the fire and keep stoking it.
- When the stranger recovers, go out to the silent forest and gather wood.
- Build what the builder offers, starting with traps and huts.
How to play A Dark Room
- The game opens in a dark room. Keep the fire burning: a warm room brings a stranger who becomes your builder.
- Gather wood in the forest and check your traps to collect fur, meat and other goods.
- Huts bring villagers, and villagers can be given jobs that turn raw goods into useful materials.
- Once you have the right supplies, leave the village to explore the world map. Water and cured meat keep you alive on the road.
- Out in the world you find landmarks, fight simple real-time battles and bring loot home. The story unfolds the further you go.
Controls
- Click the buttons to take actions; buttons with a cooldown fill up before you can use them again.
- World map: move with the arrow keys or W A S D.
- Combat: click your attack and item buttons as they become ready.
Frequently asked questions
Who made A Dark Room?
A Dark Room is an open-source game by the authors of the GitHub repository doublespeakgames/adarkroom (github.com/doublespeakgames/adarkroom), released under the MPL-2.0 license. This site hosts a copy of it under that license and does not own it; bug reports and the full source code belong to the original repository.
Is A Dark Room free?
Yes. A Dark Room is free to play in your browser, with no download, no account and no purchases.
Is my progress saved?
Your progress is saved in your browser on this device, so you can close the page and come back later. Clearing this site's data deletes it. If you sign in, cloud saves can keep a copy of it on your account. The save option at the bottom of the screen can also export your save as text.
Does A Dark Room have sound?
Yes. The game asks whether to turn on sound when it starts, and you can switch it later from the links at the bottom of the screen.