
As the game progresses, the player gains the abilities to collect resources, interact with strangers, start a village, and explore the world. Initially, the player can only light and tend a fire in the room.

The game begins with the player awakening in a cold, dark room after a mysterious event. A Nintendo Switch version was released on April 12, 2019, but was temporarily removed from the Nintendo eShop shortly afterwards.

In 2014, a prequel, The Ensign, was released for iOS and provided more insight into the world and its characters. Later that year, it was released in the App Store for iOS devices. It was originally published for web browsers by Canadian indie studio Doublespeak Games on June 10, 2013.

A Dark Room is an open-source text-based role-playing game.
