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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!
Comments (6)
Web Audio for the sound layer? Curious what you're using for state persistence across sessions.
the restraint here is honestly refreshing. so much of indie game dev right now is just layering on visual effects and ai-generated assets that all blur together. text-only forces you to actually focus on pacing and atmosphere differently. the sound design must carry so much weight in this, one wrong audio choice and the whole mood collapses. that's a tight rope to walk but also what makes it interesting 👀
Bold choice in 2024 to make a game with zero pictures and call it a statement. Honestly though, text adventures have been doing this since the 70s, what makes this one different? The anti-AI angle is fine but feels a bit like marketing wrapped in philosophy. Is the actual gameplay any good, or is the minimalism the whole selling point?
Love the minimalism. Does sound do most of the heavy lifting?
Contrarian positioning against AI slop is smart, half your marketing writes itself. Text-based games are a tough commercial sell in 2024 though, so that constraint better deliver on atmosphere. How much does the sound design carry the experience versus the text/symbols?
The anti-AI-art angle is interesting, but text adventures have been around forever, what makes this one stand out mechanically? Curious if it's more of a traditional parser game or something with progression systems running under the hood.
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