19 ms·

A Dark Room: The Best-Selling Game That No One Can Explain

111 points by sizzle 12y ago

casey_lang 12y ago
It's fantastic to see this game finally get recognized. Amir is a great developer and it has been a lot of fun to watch the game progress over the past few months. He's maintained a developer blog throughout the process. It's a really interesting read: http://amirrajan.net/a-dark-room/ http://amirrajan.net/a-dark-room/ I first learned of A Dark Room when Amir presented it to the local Dallas Ruby group. His presentation on development in RubyMotion is worth a read as well: http://amirrajan.net/12k-lines-of-RM/ http://amirrajan.net/12k-lines-of-RM/
- Steuard 12y ago
  Reading his developer blog, I was completely caught off guard when he said (weeks in) that he had only then realized that there was a second phase of the game. Good for him for not just saying, "Oh, wow, never mind!" at that point! (But also, it's interesting that he found the first phase alone worth recreating. It's engaging, but most of the game's depth of story comes later.)
jmduke 12y ago
A Dark Room is a fantastic game, and I'm super happy for Michael and Amir's success on the App Store. That being said, I think the atmosphere is far superior on the browser: http://adarkroom.doublespeakgames.com/ http://adarkroom.doublespeakgames.com/ (But throw them the $0.99 too!)
kqr2 12y ago
Are they planning an android app? It looks like there is a clone currently on the app store but it would be nice to support the original: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ariyalion.darkroom https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ariyalion....
- james33 12y ago
  Yes, they are using Ruby Motion and are apparently testing the beta Android support right now, aimed at late summer launch.
orik 12y ago
I remember playing this with my co-workers as an in browser game when it got posted to HN last year. It's a must-download app IMO. Here's the previous discussion. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5961205 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5961205 EDIT: I didn't realize the game had been monetized. Is it worth the 0.99c over the HTML5 original?
- rweir 12y ago
  it seems likely that it is worth 1/3rd of a coffee, yes.
- tomrod 12y ago
  I enjoyed it. New content, even.
bherms 12y ago
Black Swan - Nassim Taleb http://www.amazon.com/The-Black-Swan-Improbable-Robustness/dp/081297381X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1402701647&sr=8-2&keywords=black+swan http://www.amazon.com/The-Black-Swan-Improbable-Robustness/d...
- gwern 12y ago
  Wow, because random apps have never shot to the top of the listings! Gee whillikers, that sure was an unpredictable black swan, totally outside previous reference classes!
  - chuckup 12y ago
    I see what he's saying. Maybe not "black swan", but it's pretty crazy. A Dark Room reminds me of a BBS door game from the late 80's. It blows my mind that this became the #1 app. Now, if it was Cookie Clicker (basically the same formula) I wouldn't be surprised - that actually has nice graphics, a broad appeal, lots of dark humor. This is a great game (the web version, at least) but not at all something I'd expect to go mainstream.
  - bherms 12y ago
    Taleb talks about books/movies/etc becoming successes with little to no predictability. Games fall into this category. Hard to tell which games will become runaway successes, especially from small studios. But you know, it's cool, you can just be a dick about it instead.
    - gwern 12y ago
      > Taleb talks about books/movies/etc becoming successes with little to no predictability No, Taleb loves to sophistically equivocate between meanings of 'black swan' to neutralize any criticism. Did a perfectly ordinary phenomenon in network dynamics and winner-take-all scenarios happen? Taleb takes this as an example. Does someone point out that this is consistent with all past experience and non-power-law distributions like log-normals? Oh, suddenly, he means black swans are totally unpredictable things like 9/11!
ironchief 12y ago
Interesting note, it is written in Rubymotion (not Obj-C or Swift). Here are his comments: "It just felt like everything was thought through, distilled down, and presented in a form that was immediately familiar to me given my Ruby background (and the “Ruby mindset”)." http://blog.rubymotion.com/post/82087136696/rubymotion-success-story-a-dark-room http://blog.rubymotion.com/post/82087136696/rubymotion-succe...
james33 12y ago
Amir was here in OKC this past Tuesday giving a talk on RubyMotion. It was pretty interesting hearing him talk about the process and how the game sat on tens of downloads a day for 3 months before seemingly randomly shooting to the top of the App Store and now to 600k+ downloads.
amirrajan 12y ago
I'd be happy to answer any questions if you have any.
- rooster8 12y ago
  Does the version in the market feel complete to you, or do you have other things you wish you could add? Also, any tips on recovering from a ranking hit after releasing a new version and losing all your current version ratings?
  - amirrajan 12y ago
    We wanted to add more to the game, but at some point you have to pull back on your urge to tack on more things. So from that standpoint ADR is done. If your rank is low, release, and release often. Don't sweat the reviews (use them as a means to gain feedback from the people who've downloaded the game). You can also make your app free for a couple of days which will bring in new eyes (you lose your rank if you do that, so just be aware). As for being a top ranked app (and in my case, a top ranked app that lives and dies by its reviews), I really can't release a new version unless I add something that significantly increases end user engagement. For example: v1.5 of the game hit the number one spot, and dropped to #2 18 days later. The moment it dropped I released v1.6 of the game which added developer commentary from me and Michael. We went back to #1 for 2 days after a week long slump. That being said, I compared numbers after the fact and our review conversion rates only increased by ~0.2%. Full write up here: http://amirrajan.net/a-dark-room/#secondwind http://amirrajan.net/a-dark-room/#secondwind
- sixQuarks 12y ago
  I'm surprised this game hasn't earned you enough to retire on. It's been #1 on the paid list for a long time, I figured you guys must be rolling in the dough, but in the article it says you would need to repeat the success of the game every year for you to quit your day job. That's unbelievable. How can flappy birds be making $50k per day, and your #1 paid app only makes $2k per day?
  - jaredsohn 12y ago
mcphilip 12y ago
There's a loosely defined sub genre of incremental games if you enjoy A Dark Room: http://www.reddit.com/r/incremental_games http://www.reddit.com/r/incremental_games
sillysaurus3 12y ago
“I want to kindle the creative spirit in others,” Townsend told me over e-mail. “My games are open-source because I want people to learn from them, or use them to build their own things.” Notice how open sourcing their product had no impact on their sales. I'll be so happy when defensive software licensing dies after people realize code isn't worth protecting. (Some code is worth licensing. It was most of Id Software's revenue stream. I'm referring to all other code that isn't designed to be licensed, which people still insist on being paranoid about protecting.)
- nanidin 12y ago
  It's worth noting that the web version is open source, but the version for sale on the iOS Appstore is not open source.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - kiba 12y ago
    That didn't stop people from creating flappy clones.
    - coralreef 12y ago
      When was flappy open source?
      - oneeyedpigeon 12y ago
        It wasn't. kiba's point was that just because it wasn't open source, it didn't stop people creating clones
  - hmsimha 12y ago
    Shouldn't it be open source under the terms of the original game's license? (https://tldrlegal.com/license/mozilla-public-license-2.0-(mpl-2) https://tldrlegal.com/license/mozilla-public-license-2.0-(mp...) Or is a port not considered a derivative work?
notastartup 12y ago
you should add google text ads. Buy Cheap Fireplace Don't miss out on our 50% discount offer. Limited time only. https://fireplaces.biz
- hyp0 12y ago
  An intriguing idea... the text content enabling relevant ads. The problem is it would break immersion (even text ads, because they bring in the outside world). I wonder if there is a way to incorporate ads, so that it does not break immersion? e.g. non-trading aliens visiting earth, being puzzled by the ads. Perhaps some way of mocking them. Or, a game based on ads - finding similarities between them; or links (similar to wikipedia-based games). Unfortunately, I would guess that reacting to ads might breach Adwords' terms of service. It could be done in a positive way, like TV shows about advertisement (The Gruen Transfer; those best-of compilations). This is kind of crazy, but: given text content, rating ads, for best targeting, worst targeting, controversial targeting, etc.
bcardarella 12y ago
Why do these articles never include links to the content they are reporting on? This is the web, not a print magazine.
- codyb 12y ago
  The New Yorker is a wonderful print magazine which posts some (all I think if you have a subscription) of its articles online, primarily for convenience. I think for many of its audience, the smattering of links that could accompany an article like this might truly take away from the intended atmosphere if you will the article and publication intends to provide. Certainly for me I find it refreshing and I try to read their magazine as much as I can. I've learned plenty and can choose what I'd like to follow up on myself as opposed to through the guidance of the editor, author, or web designer who is creating the online edition. And the flow is never disrupted by text which indicates a link whether in the traditional blue with underline or otherwise. We can all google, but to enjoy an article is a pleasure in its own right.
  - judk 12y ago
    It's not just about following up, it is about separating fact from fraud and building a culture of honesty and accuracy, especially in the modern era where fake information is so easy to create and spread.
adamsrog 12y ago
Bought this game right before a flight. (Come to think of it, the only time I've bought games on the App Store was prior to a flight.) Was intrigued by all the feedback left in the App Store. The hours of entertainment were well worth the $0.99.
moomin 12y ago
"The improbable best-seller is a variation on primordial text adventures like Colossal Cave Adventure and Zork" In as much as Doom is, yes.
0x0 12y ago
Reminds me a lot about http://game.notch.net/drowning/ http://game.notch.net/drowning/ - or is this the inspiration for that?
- mijoharas 12y ago
  I was just looking to see if anyone had commented that as I was thinking the same thing, does anyone know which was first?
  - 0x0 12y ago
    After playing a while, this game turns out to be a lot bigger than expected.
    - mijoharas 12y ago
      agreed, it's fun too!
    - NicoJuicy 12y ago
      Fastforward trick: window.setInterval(function(){ elems = document.querySelectorAll("a"); for(i = 0;i < elems.length;i++) { elems[i].click(); } },1000); Edit: Went to eat someting, the trick gave no money and a lot of broken hearts :P Afterwards, playing it fast. The game respresents making choices in your live. It's fundamentally good actually...
- amirrajan 12y ago
  Drowning came out ~5 months afterwards. And yes, it's such a nice, poetic experience.
NicoJuicy 12y ago
I'm going to eat now, cheat mode on: window.setInterval(function(){ $("#gatherButton").click() }, 5000); window.setInterval(function(){ $("#trapsButton").click() }, 5000); window.setInterval(function(){ $("#end").click() }, 20000);
- mathgladiator 12y ago
  If you want to directly cheat, you can just look at the memory and then set the values to things directly.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- Istof 12y ago
  You can also switch the language and then "gather wood" instantly...
VeejayRampay 12y ago
"A Dark Room doesn't require any particular permissions". I wish other game developers would take note.

111 points by sizzle 12y ago

It's fantastic to see this game finally get recognized. Amir is a great developer and it has been a lot of fun to watch the game progress over the past few months. He's maintained a developer blog throughout the process. It's a really interesting read: http://amirrajan.net/a-dark-room/ http://amirrajan.net/a-dark-room/ I first learned of A Dark Room when Amir presented it to the local Dallas Ruby group. His presentation on development in RubyMotion is worth a read as well: http://amirrajan.net/12k-lines-of-RM/ http://amirrajan.net/12k-lines-of-RM/

Steuard 12y ago
Reading his developer blog, I was completely caught off guard when he said (weeks in) that he had only then realized that there was a second phase of the game. Good for him for not just saying, "Oh, wow, never mind!" at that point! (But also, it's interesting that he found the first phase alone worth recreating. It's engaging, but most of the game's depth of story comes later.)

jmduke 12y ago

A Dark Room is a fantastic game, and I'm super happy for Michael and Amir's success on the App Store. That being said, I think the atmosphere is far superior on the browser: http://adarkroom.doublespeakgames.com/ http://adarkroom.doublespeakgames.com/ (But throw them the $0.99 too!)

kqr2 12y ago

Are they planning an android app? It looks like there is a clone currently on the app store but it would be nice to support the original: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ariyalion.darkroom https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ariyalion....

james33 12y ago
Yes, they are using Ruby Motion and are apparently testing the beta Android support right now, aimed at late summer launch.

orik 12y ago

I remember playing this with my co-workers as an in browser game when it got posted to HN last year. It's a must-download app IMO. Here's the previous discussion. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5961205 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5961205 EDIT: I didn't realize the game had been monetized. Is it worth the 0.99c over the HTML5 original?

rweir 12y ago
it seems likely that it is worth 1/3rd of a coffee, yes.
tomrod 12y ago
I enjoyed it. New content, even.

bherms 12y ago

Black Swan - Nassim Taleb http://www.amazon.com/The-Black-Swan-Improbable-Robustness/dp/081297381X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1402701647&sr=8-2&keywords=black+swan http://www.amazon.com/The-Black-Swan-Improbable-Robustness/d...

gwern 12y ago
Wow, because random apps have never shot to the top of the listings! Gee whillikers, that sure was an unpredictable black swan, totally outside previous reference classes!
- chuckup 12y ago
  I see what he's saying. Maybe not "black swan", but it's pretty crazy. A Dark Room reminds me of a BBS door game from the late 80's. It blows my mind that this became the #1 app. Now, if it was Cookie Clicker (basically the same formula) I wouldn't be surprised - that actually has nice graphics, a broad appeal, lots of dark humor. This is a great game (the web version, at least) but not at all something I'd expect to go mainstream.
- bherms 12y ago
  Taleb talks about books/movies/etc becoming successes with little to no predictability. Games fall into this category. Hard to tell which games will become runaway successes, especially from small studios. But you know, it's cool, you can just be a dick about it instead.
  - gwern 12y ago
    > Taleb talks about books/movies/etc becoming successes with little to no predictability No, Taleb loves to sophistically equivocate between meanings of 'black swan' to neutralize any criticism. Did a perfectly ordinary phenomenon in network dynamics and winner-take-all scenarios happen? Taleb takes this as an example. Does someone point out that this is consistent with all past experience and non-power-law distributions like log-normals? Oh, suddenly, he means black swans are totally unpredictable things like 9/11!

ironchief 12y ago

Interesting note, it is written in Rubymotion (not Obj-C or Swift). Here are his comments: "It just felt like everything was thought through, distilled down, and presented in a form that was immediately familiar to me given my Ruby background (and the “Ruby mindset”)." http://blog.rubymotion.com/post/82087136696/rubymotion-success-story-a-dark-room http://blog.rubymotion.com/post/82087136696/rubymotion-succe...

james33 12y ago

Amir was here in OKC this past Tuesday giving a talk on RubyMotion. It was pretty interesting hearing him talk about the process and how the game sat on tens of downloads a day for 3 months before seemingly randomly shooting to the top of the App Store and now to 600k+ downloads.

amirrajan 12y ago

I'd be happy to answer any questions if you have any.

rooster8 12y ago
Does the version in the market feel complete to you, or do you have other things you wish you could add? Also, any tips on recovering from a ranking hit after releasing a new version and losing all your current version ratings?
- amirrajan 12y ago
  We wanted to add more to the game, but at some point you have to pull back on your urge to tack on more things. So from that standpoint ADR is done. If your rank is low, release, and release often. Don't sweat the reviews (use them as a means to gain feedback from the people who've downloaded the game). You can also make your app free for a couple of days which will bring in new eyes (you lose your rank if you do that, so just be aware). As for being a top ranked app (and in my case, a top ranked app that lives and dies by its reviews), I really can't release a new version unless I add something that significantly increases end user engagement. For example: v1.5 of the game hit the number one spot, and dropped to #2 18 days later. The moment it dropped I released v1.6 of the game which added developer commentary from me and Michael. We went back to #1 for 2 days after a week long slump. That being said, I compared numbers after the fact and our review conversion rates only increased by ~0.2%. Full write up here: http://amirrajan.net/a-dark-room/#secondwind http://amirrajan.net/a-dark-room/#secondwind
sixQuarks 12y ago
I'm surprised this game hasn't earned you enough to retire on. It's been #1 on the paid list for a long time, I figured you guys must be rolling in the dough, but in the article it says you would need to repeat the success of the game every year for you to quit your day job. That's unbelievable. How can flappy birds be making $50k per day, and your #1 paid app only makes $2k per day?
- jaredsohn 12y ago

mcphilip 12y ago

There's a loosely defined sub genre of incremental games if you enjoy A Dark Room: http://www.reddit.com/r/incremental_games http://www.reddit.com/r/incremental_games

sillysaurus3 12y ago

“I want to kindle the creative spirit in others,” Townsend told me over e-mail. “My games are open-source because I want people to learn from them, or use them to build their own things.” Notice how open sourcing their product had no impact on their sales. I'll be so happy when defensive software licensing dies after people realize code isn't worth protecting. (Some code is worth licensing. It was most of Id Software's revenue stream. I'm referring to all other code that isn't designed to be licensed, which people still insist on being paranoid about protecting.)

nanidin 12y ago
It's worth noting that the web version is open source, but the version for sale on the iOS Appstore is not open source.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- kiba 12y ago
  That didn't stop people from creating flappy clones.
  - coralreef 12y ago
    When was flappy open source?
    - oneeyedpigeon 12y ago
      It wasn't. kiba's point was that just because it wasn't open source, it didn't stop people creating clones
- hmsimha 12y ago
  Shouldn't it be open source under the terms of the original game's license? (https://tldrlegal.com/license/mozilla-public-license-2.0-(mpl-2) https://tldrlegal.com/license/mozilla-public-license-2.0-(mp...) Or is a port not considered a derivative work?

notastartup 12y ago

you should add google text ads. Buy Cheap Fireplace Don't miss out on our 50% discount offer. Limited time only. https://fireplaces.biz

hyp0 12y ago
An intriguing idea... the text content enabling relevant ads. The problem is it would break immersion (even text ads, because they bring in the outside world). I wonder if there is a way to incorporate ads, so that it does not break immersion? e.g. non-trading aliens visiting earth, being puzzled by the ads. Perhaps some way of mocking them. Or, a game based on ads - finding similarities between them; or links (similar to wikipedia-based games). Unfortunately, I would guess that reacting to ads might breach Adwords' terms of service. It could be done in a positive way, like TV shows about advertisement (The Gruen Transfer; those best-of compilations). This is kind of crazy, but: given text content, rating ads, for best targeting, worst targeting, controversial targeting, etc.

bcardarella 12y ago

Why do these articles never include links to the content they are reporting on? This is the web, not a print magazine.

codyb 12y ago
The New Yorker is a wonderful print magazine which posts some (all I think if you have a subscription) of its articles online, primarily for convenience. I think for many of its audience, the smattering of links that could accompany an article like this might truly take away from the intended atmosphere if you will the article and publication intends to provide. Certainly for me I find it refreshing and I try to read their magazine as much as I can. I've learned plenty and can choose what I'd like to follow up on myself as opposed to through the guidance of the editor, author, or web designer who is creating the online edition. And the flow is never disrupted by text which indicates a link whether in the traditional blue with underline or otherwise. We can all google, but to enjoy an article is a pleasure in its own right.
- judk 12y ago
  It's not just about following up, it is about separating fact from fraud and building a culture of honesty and accuracy, especially in the modern era where fake information is so easy to create and spread.

adamsrog 12y ago

Bought this game right before a flight. (Come to think of it, the only time I've bought games on the App Store was prior to a flight.) Was intrigued by all the feedback left in the App Store. The hours of entertainment were well worth the $0.99.

moomin 12y ago

"The improbable best-seller is a variation on primordial text adventures like Colossal Cave Adventure and Zork" In as much as Doom is, yes.

0x0 12y ago

Reminds me a lot about http://game.notch.net/drowning/ http://game.notch.net/drowning/ - or is this the inspiration for that?

mijoharas 12y ago
I was just looking to see if anyone had commented that as I was thinking the same thing, does anyone know which was first?
- 0x0 12y ago
  After playing a while, this game turns out to be a lot bigger than expected.
  - mijoharas 12y ago
    agreed, it's fun too!
  - NicoJuicy 12y ago
    Fastforward trick: window.setInterval(function(){ elems = document.querySelectorAll("a"); for(i = 0;i < elems.length;i++) { elems[i].click(); } },1000); Edit: Went to eat someting, the trick gave no money and a lot of broken hearts :P Afterwards, playing it fast. The game respresents making choices in your live. It's fundamentally good actually...
amirrajan 12y ago
Drowning came out ~5 months afterwards. And yes, it's such a nice, poetic experience.

NicoJuicy 12y ago

I'm going to eat now, cheat mode on: window.setInterval(function(){ $("#gatherButton").click() }, 5000); window.setInterval(function(){ $("#trapsButton").click() }, 5000); window.setInterval(function(){ $("#end").click() }, 20000);

mathgladiator 12y ago
If you want to directly cheat, you can just look at the memory and then set the values to things directly.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
Istof 12y ago
You can also switch the language and then "gather wood" instantly...

VeejayRampay 12y ago

"A Dark Room doesn't require any particular permissions". I wish other game developers would take note.