v0.1 ⌊ALPHA⌉
Game

A Dark Room

doublespeak games' 2013 minimalist text adventure that grows into a village economy, with huts and traps priced linearly.

draftUpdated 2026-10-20
On this page
  1. Building costs
  2. Related
  3. References
  4. Sources

A Dark Room is a browser game by Michael Townsend’s doublespeak games, announced on 10 June 2013 as “a minimalist text adventure”1. Its economy grows around a village, with housing at 4 villagers per hut2, so the atlas files it with incremental games. The source is public under MPL 2.0.

#Building costs

Buildings get dearer linearly, the contrast case for exponential cost scaling. A hut costs 100+50n wood3 and a trap 10+10n wood4, where n is the number already built. With income that grows with the count owned, the wait for the next building settles to a constant. A hard cap, enforced by the build action, ends each run instead5.

Uses

  • Linear cost scaling · huts 100 + 50n wood (max 20), traps 10 + 10n (max 10)

See also

Linked from

Every claim about this game, by concept (5)
generaldoublespeak games announced A Dark Room as “a minimalist text adventure” in a blog post dated 10 June 2013.T2
Linear cost scalingA hut costs 100+50n wood, with n already built, up to 20 huts (11,500 wood for all 20).T4
A trap costs 10+10n wood, and at most 10 can be built.T4
The build action does nothing at the item's maximum count, so the cap, not the price, ends each building's run.T3
Each hut adds room for 4 villagers; the maximum population is huts × 4.T3

References

  1. ^doublespeak games announced A Dark Room as “a minimalist text adventure” in a blog post dated 10 June 2013. T2Townsend 2013
  2. ^Each hut adds room for 4 villagers; the maximum population is huts × 4. T3doublespeakgames/adarkroom · script/outside.js L177–179, L11
  3. ^A hut costs 100+50n wood, with n already built, up to 20 huts (11,500 wood for all 20). T4doublespeakgames/adarkroom · script/room.js L43–58probe probes/idle-costs/a-dark-room.mjs
  4. ^A trap costs 10+10n wood, and at most 10 can be built. T4doublespeakgames/adarkroom · script/room.js L13–28probe probes/idle-costs/a-dark-room.mjs
  5. ^The build action does nothing at the item's maximum count, so the cap, not the price, ends each building's run. T3doublespeakgames/adarkroom · script/room.js L1025–1027

Sources

Code

Primary