HN Explorer

Show HN: A Dark Cave – Minimalistic Graphics in the Age of AI Slop (a-dark-cave.com)

12 points by julez_ ↗ HN
Almost a year ago I started building A Dark Cave, a dark text-based browser game.

The game intentionally avoids visuals and embraces minimalism.

I use only text, symbols, and sounds to create atmosphere and spark the player's imagination.

From time to time, I think about adding graphics to my game, since it is one of the most common requests I get from players.

I even made a post about what I call the AI Slop Temptation: https://www.reddit.com/r/incremental_games/comments/1tcs8ou/...

From the comments, it seems that players prefer no graphics at all over AI-generated graphics, at least when they can recognize them as AI-generated.

In my opinion, the growing abundance of easily available polished graphics means games will soon need main differentiators beyond visuals alone.

Maybe it will be storytelling, atmosphere, creating emotions, personalization, nostalgia, or the ability to leave space for the player's imagination.

When it becomes easy for every game to look good, what will be the things that actually make games great?

What do you think?

Also, I am grateful for any feedback about my game!

6 comments

[ 7.8 ms ] story [ 193 ms ] thread
inspector14
this is probably one of the most interesting/inspiring games i've played in a very long time. i'm only 30 minutes or so into it, but i'm excited to see where it goes.
anthonycoslett
I've been playing for about an hour now. I'm addicted. Where did my time go? LOL - I think a lot of people are starving for immersive and interactive experiences like this that doesn't lead to sensory overload. deep relaxing breath The mind fills in between the lines. Throwback to choose your own adventure books/RPG's of yore. It's so calming. Well designed. Not overwhelming - at all - and honestly allowed my brain take a breather despite it also being active enough to ensure resources/villagers/decisions were taken care of. Created an account and currently resting in the estate - thank you for creating and sharing slow clap
Lockal
From the Reddit: "Dude puts A Dark Room through an AI filter and called it his game".

Unfortunately, that's not the whole story. You added ads and micro-donations (to the incremental game, yes). Also original game is open-source - https://github.com/doublespeakgames/adarkroom, your clone is not.

nsnksjneej65
Fix the scrolltext, you can’t really see what’s going on. It’s too easy to ignore. Add some color feedback to that text. If you want a log, distinguish this widget more so it stands above the UI elements.

Started off fun, ADR vibe. Iron as an early gate was a little tedious. I stopped playing when the trading post came up and asked for money. Gross. Reminded me of every terrible mobile revenue extraction game. :-( it pulls one out of the game. Asking for money is 4th wall breaking. Also, why would it ever be worth spending money.

This is a clone of ADR, at least at the start, with some real money upgrades about 20 mins in (lol why, just edit the localstorage).

It would probably be more fun without all the UI jank (ads coming soon I bet), and add some “AI slop”, might differentiate it more from others. Use nano banana pro and veo to gen some textures, animations, etc.

What value is the “dark cave” place (opposed to “dark room”) anyway? You could easily substitute it with any early Mcguffin and remove the association with the earlier, more successful game. This feels like a try hard clone that’s trying to extract dollars from sucker players.

julez_
Thanks a lot for your comment! There's still a lot for me to improve, and some of your points really make sense to me.