A Dark Room

 Switch
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User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 2
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 2
  3. Negative: 0 out of 2

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  1. nusco
    May 5, 2019
    6
    I was lucky enough to buy A Dark Room before Nintendo removed it from its shop due to an authorized easter egg. It's a weird game–an experimental work that must be commended for doing things that are rarely attempted in gaming.

    A Dark Room plays with time, sometimes requiring immediate action on your part, at other times encouraging you to put down your Switch and come back later (and    I was lucky enough to buy A Dark Room before Nintendo removed it from its shop due to an authorized easter egg. It's a weird game–an experimental work that must be commended for doing things that are rarely attempted in gaming.

    A Dark Room plays with time, sometimes requiring immediate action on your part, at other times encouraging you to put down your Switch and come back later (and in that sense, it shows its web/mobile origins). It plays with genres, starting off like a piece of textual Interactive Fiction, suddenly turning into a resources management game, and finally coming full circle, revealing itself to be story-based. It plays with the reinforcement cycles of mobile gaming, by hooking you into a very addictive loop, only to break it down almost entirely close the endgame. Above all, it plays with your expectations, surprising you with multiple left turns during its short gameplay time. After getting one of the "bad" ending, I'm curious to see what the other endings look like.

    As interesting as A Dark Room is, it's weighted down by a few annoying details. On my Switch, the game kept insisting that I should play with the joycons off–and that, besides not making any sense for this type of game, is also false, as I could reconnect the controllers and play just fine. The game is also very light on "quality of life" features. For example, the interface is ideal for a touchscreen, but the buttons are so small and cramped that I often ended up using the joycons instead.

    Overall, A Dark Room is an interesting experience that will stick with me. The game builds an atmosphere with a minimal toolset, and ends up being more immersive than its minimalistic interface suggests. I just hope that it will come back to the Nintendo Store, and possibly get an UI refresh.    … Expand
  2. CoolieCoolster
    May 21, 2019
    8
    Having previously played the browser and iOS versions of A Dark Room, I immediately got it on the Switch, not knowing that it would be removed from the eShop just days later. A Dark Room is generally categorized as an "incremental game" due to having incrementally increasing counters for various resources. Unlike many other incremental games, like "Cookie Clicker", A Dark Room has a basicHaving previously played the browser and iOS versions of A Dark Room, I immediately got it on the Switch, not knowing that it would be removed from the eShop just days later. A Dark Room is generally categorized as an "incremental game" due to having incrementally increasing counters for various resources. Unlike many other incremental games, like "Cookie Clicker", A Dark Room has a basic story, exploration, and a basic battle system. While the game is relatively short with a completion time of just a few hours, new gameplay mechanics are unlocked incrementally, giving the player a sense of progress and achievement. After finishing the game on the Switch, I did notice a few differences between the Switch version and the other versions, such as the inclusion of new story elements.

    The worst aspect of the game is how it is controlled. While the browser and iOS versions of A Dark Room were designed to be played with a mouse and touchscreen, respectively, the Switch version seems to attempt to compromise these two control methods, making both worse. I find the way that the controls are mapped to the controller to be very unintuitive, with several button presses having multiple buttons assigned to them, such as being able to move down in the menu with either left or down and moving up with right or up. While playing in tablet mode fixes the issue of the controller, I find that the on-screen buttons are a bit too small to be convenient for regular gameplay, making me reluctantly decide to use a controller.

    I also think that at its price point the game needs additional updates to its gameplay and UI to give the player more value than just playing the game's free browser counterpart. One interesting addition to the Switch version is very basic support for a second player, so making the game more multiplayer friendly would add value to the game as well.

    Aside from the issues with the controls, this version of A Dark Room is a good port of the previous versions, while still adding a few new story elements. If the game is put back onto the eShop, I hope that it is updated with better controls and more updates from the previous versions of A Dark Room.    … Expand

Critic Reviews

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No score yet - based on 1 Critic Review

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 1
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 1
  3. Negative: 0 out of 1
  1. Pure Nintendo
    May 31, 2019
    80
    A Dark Room succeeds because just when a part of the game gets familiar, it switches gears. The game keeps pushing you to explore, but why? In most other games, exploration is simply something you do because… well, it’s a game! You’re supposed to explore! But as A Dark Room hints more secretive reasons for your actions, you might wonder if you ever really had a choice at all.
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