I enjoy Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup played in the terminal with ASCII graphics. I wonder whether there are other hidden gems out there which don’t get attention because they are “ugly”?
Would Cruelty Squad be cheating?
Wow that art style is… something
It’s like… 2001 shareware shitpost flavored.
Yeah. A lot of the UI seems to be intentionally bad. It’s actually a pretty hard game. A good example is reloading. You do this by holding right click, moving the mouse down then up and letting go of right click. I think the visual parts of the experience speak for themselves from the screenshots but my point is that even a lot of other stuff in the game is just wack.
There’s another one with a similar kinda vibe (the vibe being “shitpost but it’s a video game”) called Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengence of the Slayer. I haven’t played it but it looks great. Er… Gameplay wise anyway lol.
Looks like its going for a vibe similar to the original Doom! That trailer on the steam page was amazing.
Seconding this; Cruelty Squad is hitting that Deus Ex/Quake itch for me right now
Dcss is the greatest game of all time. Everything about it is good.
But Dwarf Fortress is also good with bad graphics.
Factorio is like crack and looks terrible.
I think the Steam release of DF looks nice. They’re simple graphics, but not ugly.
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Agreed. I have more hours in DCSS than any other game.
I don’t think it’s totally fair to call it ugly either. It’s a masterpiece of efficiency. The ASCII looks messy to some people, but after a while you just see right through it; purple Y = catlobe gtfo etc. Plus the upside is that it’s extremely clear at a glance what is going on because you don’t have complicated sprites everywhere. And the handmade vaults that get rolled into the procgen are often really nice looking and give the world a lot of character.
I’ve also been playing since Linley’s! Got my first win way back when Sif channeling was a discrete action and it cost food. I was a mummy so fuck food and I cast summon dragon (also discrete) to fill up the whole screen. Good times.
gorillas.bas Classic😎
qbasic gang we out here
Dwarf fortress and RimWorld are both… Pretty ugly
Yeah especially Dwarf Fortress. The gameplay:graphics ratio is over 9000
That’s improved now, though, with the steam release. Before the Steam release I exclusively played DF with Ascii graphics. Honestly, I thought it was pretty.
It does have a certain charm. I never really played that much tbh, my favorite part was reading the sagas of fortresses on the forums. Those were always so unpredictable and hilarious.
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Some people find Slay the Spire’s art ugly. Personally I find it creative and original, definitely more personality than if it was just another pixel art game. 😁
I don’t find Slay The Spire that ugly artwise, I don’t find it beautiful… but what I do find ugly is how terribly Slay The Spire uses screen space. It has an AWFUL UI in terms of using space intelligently for important bits of gameplay information and I would love to play it on mobile (I play other deckbuilders on mobile a lot) but I will never touch it on mobile for that reason.
Really? Why do you say so? I always found it pretty usable, in mobile some buttons being so near the edges can be pretty uncomfortable tho.
Simutrans is great, but looks like dogshit.
pak192comic and pak128britain actually look half decent, imo, but on the whole you’re right.
I would say Kenshi with assests that show it was done by one person and a rough UI, also maybe pathologic 2, although for that game I wouldn’t say it’s the graphics that put people off it’s mostly the gameplay, but the geaphics are weird and really grey/depressive
Hardly ‘hidden’, but there is always Nethack
I haven’t played it, but Cruelty Squad beats 95% of these in uglyness. Probably because they (hopefully) do it on purpose.
Tales of Maj’eyal. A free to play open source roguelike that I hate. This game is amazing. Fuck this game. Also definitely recommend. But fuck this game. After numerous 10-12 hour long runs, I have yet to win.
Love me some ToM!
I have had some people refuse to even try Baba Is You, because it looks ugly.
I had The Hex a few years even installed, so I have tried it, but only after getting familiar with the style of Daniel Mullins’ games with Inscryption I pushed far enough to get interested. Still very clunky, but worth it.
Baba is… Fuck you, you’re stupid, this game is stupid. Fuck you.
I’m stupid 😔
Who is saying that Baba is You is ugly? I don’t think I’ve ever heard that opinion. It’s always just been “charming Flash game aesthetic” for me
I love both the style and soundtrack of that game. Maybe it’s a little too “lowfi” for some people. That’s the only way I can imagine someone not liking it.
I have had some people refuse to even try Baba Is You, because it looks ugly.
Oh come on, the art style is charming!
I felt like a the Hex was one of the most innovative games, I loved it soooo much.
Tibia, an old 2d mmorpg
Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead I find ASCII more charming than anything though
I play with tilesets only, but oh my I love this game. ESPECIALLY with the sky islands mod, that completely elevates the game for me.
Aw cmon some of the tilesets ain’t too bad
I never got far in it, but I didn’t see anyone mention Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. It’s fun to explore a world where everyone has noticeable neck seams.
That game is literally so unhinged. If you enjoy KOTOR or Morrowind era RPGs then VTMB is a must play.
Zero shame in cheating to progress, some of that combat is like literally impossible. Awful game design.
Fucking iconic memorable characters story setting dialogue, everything that isn’t gameplay is 11/10
