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.
Seconding this; Cruelty Squad is hitting that Deus Ex/Quake itch for me right now
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.
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.
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!
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.
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
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.
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.
I think the Steam release of DF looks nice. They’re simple graphics, but not ugly.
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
oolite
does Doom count? Because my friends and I still play the game to this day, all the various community mods and maps.
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.
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 😔
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 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.
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 felt like a the Hex was one of the most innovative games, I loved it soooo much.
Caves of quid.
Stardew Valley, hands down one of the graphically ugliest modern games, like 80’s console style. Though it’s a really good game and I’ve put a of lot of hours into it. People say it’s meant to look that way as intentional retro styling, but damn it’s ugly. I actually added a mod on PC to use AA on the blocky graphics and it makes it look a lot better.
You can not like the art style of Stardew Valley, but calling it ugly in the way DF, TOME, DCSS or other games that have very rudimentary graphics styles are I think is missing the point in this context. A lot of effort and production time was put into Stardew Valley’s graphics, it is undeniably not “ugly” the way other games that developers focused all their time on gameplay instead of graphics are.
Dk what you’re talking about Stardew valley has some incredible pixel art
Stardew isn’t 80’s console style at all? It’s just pixel art? And doesn’t even look bad.
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
