Design Guide

Narrative

A Dark Room relies on sentence structure and abuses of grammar to maintain an unsettling atmosphere. Yes, I shamelessly stole this technique from Cormac McCarthy (Cormac McCarthy). Here are a few things to keep in mind when writing new narrative:

• Sentences never start with capital letters, and are as clipped as possible. Instead of using commas, try breaking your thought into two shorter sentences. Use "the" as little as possible.
• The player character is never referred to. No personal pronouns, and no direct dialogue.
  Example: don't write "fire ravages one of your huts"; but rather "fire ravages one of the huts".
• The alien race that the player character belongs to are called wanderers. With the lack of capitalization, this remains ambiguous. Almost every friendly interaction the player has is with another wanderer. Feel free to use this noun liberally.
• The player is not the hero of the story. This is reinforced more often the further the player travels from the village. Forcing the player to do horrible things to make progress is par for the course, but not too early on.
• A Dark Room is best when it's stark and unforgiving. Don't write "sadly, all residents perish", but rather "all residents perish". It's not sad; it's life.

Event and Encounter Design

• Generally, "bad stuff" only happens when the player is lingering in the forest or village. The room is more about resource trading and gambling.

Visuals

• No colors are used in A Dark Room; only black, white, and grey.