this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2023
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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"?

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Dwarf fortress and RimWorld are both... Pretty ugly

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah especially Dwarf Fortress. The gameplay:graphics ratio is over 9000

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.

Siege aftermath

https://nailbar.io/random/df/df_siege_01.png

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I LIKE ASCII graphics done well. It tried playing the version of Stone Soup that uses tiles and couldn't do it.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I think the Steam release of DF looks nice. They're simple graphics, but not ugly.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Wow that art style is... something

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It's like... 2001 shareware shitpost flavored.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (5 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

Baba is... Fuck you, you're stupid, this game is stupid. Fuck you.

I'm stupid πŸ˜”

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

I have had some people refuse to even try Baba Is You, because it looks ugly.

Oh come on, the art style is charming!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

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

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

does Doom count? Because my friends and I still play the game to this day, all the various community mods and maps.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

gorillas.bas Classic😎

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

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

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

FTL, it's not very ugly, but it could be improved

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

Battle for Wesnoth. Best.Game.Ever (slight exaggeration)

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

West of Loathing and its sequel Shadows of Loathing have a bland grayscale artstyle on the outside but they're absolutely hilarious RPGs that have a lot of heart to them.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Kenshi came to mind as that's a butt ugly game but probably not as "hidden". Graphics look on par with Empire Earth 1 zoomed in but it's really unique and original and the low poly look helps it run on my aging PC so no complaints.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I haven't played it, but Cruelty Squad beats 95% of these in uglyness. Probably because they (hopefully) do it on purpose.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Simutrans is great, but looks like dogshit.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Hardly 'hidden', but there is always Nethack

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I second Stone Soup and FTL! Both amazing, but ugly. Also:

  • The Binding of Isaac
  • Slay the Spire
  • Mario 64
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Slay the spire is kind of a style choice. Dev art mode is bad however and kinda funny lol.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I didn't expect to find a Stone Soup entry so early in the list. It's perfect for me because I can just spawn a new window inside my tmux session, type soup, hit enter, and etch-a-sketch my brain for a few minutes.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Unpopular opinion but I thought Return of the Obra Dinn was ugly. However, I really like it and it's one of those games you can only experience ones.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Caves of quid.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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. 😁

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Bannerlord! Although maybe it could be argued that it’s not β€œugly” per se.. curious what others think

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Although you are asking for lowkey ugly graphic gems, I'm gonna go for Vampire Survivors.

There's that addictive gameplay loop that just keeps me going back

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Mindustry. It's a mix between an RTS and Factorio. It's pretty nice and Open Source

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Open Source

You said it all

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I loved this at first but then the complexity of the various mechanics seemed to take a sharp rocket ship upwards through the roof. I got kind of lost and then tried to read the wiki guide and it was like a book, so that was that. I really wanted to like it though! Maybe I should give it another go.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead I find ASCII more charming than anything though

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I always thought Quake was pretty ugly, great fun though. And I guess much of it was probably supposed to be ugly.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Oh hi, have you considered joining the best Lemmy community, [email protected]? πŸ™ƒ

If you're into zombies and post-apocalyptic survival, CDDA always looks like a blast to play: https://cataclysmdda.org

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn't work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: [email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I'm joined!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Had a lot of fun with Elona (rougelike) a short time ago, didn't know a game like that existed

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

The Case of the Golden Idol
Some people dislike the pixel-art style and weird character design, but I find it charming.

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