A Dark Room
It starts as a single button that says "light fire". By the end it is something else entirely, and explaining more would ruin it.
Michael Townsend released A Dark Room in 2013 and it is one of the most quietly ambitious games ever put in a browser. The screen is black text on a dark background and the only thing you can do is stoke a fire.
Then a stranger arrives. Then there is a village, and resources, and a map, and the game turns into something with far more mechanical depth than its opening suggests, changing genre more than once along the way. It is paced to be played in one sitting of a couple of hours, and it is best approached knowing nothing, which is why this description stops here.
Controls
Mouse only: click the buttons as they appear
Tips
- Keep the fire going early. Almost everything in the first section depends on it not going out.
- Stockpile before exploring. The map is unforgiving and running out of supplies away from the village is fatal.
- Read everything. The text is the game, and skipping it removes most of what makes this worth playing.