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”?
Valheim! The graphics may look like a PS2/XBOX Game, but it is very fun.
Valheim is very pretty in my opinion, it’s just a bit stylised.
I’ve mostly played the game with a texture mod. The lighting is fantastic, but I feel the textures don’t quite match the lighting. Though, I do understand that is the game’s style.
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
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.
Stardew isn’t 80’s console style at all? It’s just pixel art? And doesn’t even look bad.
Dk what you’re talking about Stardew valley has some incredible pixel art
Depends on the monitor. It’s pretty horrific on a 27" desktop monitor. On a phone it’s probably good. Anyway, like I said I added an AA mod and it looks a lot better on the PC screen, still pretty crude though. I play a number of 2D games on my PC and Stardew Valley has outstandingly pixelated artwork in comparison. That’s not to say I don’t like the game, I like it a lot and have put a good number of hours into it.
Project zomboid
It’s got that “functional ass” look to it and it’s perfect
It’s supposed to look like The Sims 1.
Not sure about ugly, but Stardew Valley’s graphics are pretty basic. Great game though.
I think the graphics of stardew valley are pretty beautiful, it’s really well done pixel art.
In my opinion, it’s okay. It’s pixel art that does its job of depicting things the player can recognize. It just looks bad. The colours in particular are… not pleasant.
Would Cruelty Squad be cheating?
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.
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.
It’s like… 2001 shareware shitpost flavored.
Seconding this; Cruelty Squad is hitting that Deus Ex/Quake itch for me right now
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
gorillas.bas Classic😎
qbasic gang we out here
From the games I can recall, Anuto TD (Another Ugly Tower Defense).
I cannot say whether or not it would get attention because of the graphic quality, but I know there are plenty of people who wouldn’t play it since it is not 8k super ultra 3D high def masterwork quality graphics and would gladly shit on it because it doesn’t have the most realistic graphics out there.
I haven’t seen anyone mention it yet so… Golden Light!
A creepy, funny, challenging, confusing, silly mess if a roguelite. Art looks almost PS1-esque. It’s gorgeous in an ugly way!
Imbroglio (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/imbroglio/id969264934) is one of my favorite minimal purchase iOS games. I haven’t played it in awhile, but it’s a unique dungeon puzzle game where you place attacks as floor tiles on the board ahead of playing. There’s some consistent rules with ramping challenge, which made it super replayable for me. I loved trying different floor designs, finding strategies, and there’s a small progression system that’s fun. Hasn’t been updated in a few years, but it was a great design despite the rough appearance.
Tibia, an old 2d mmorpg
TradeWars
I know that game, used to play it on BBS in the early 90’s.
I haven’t played it, but Cruelty Squad beats 95% of these in uglyness. Probably because they (hopefully) do it on purpose.
That game is beautifully ugly lol. I need to go back and beat all the secret worlds
Simutrans is great, but looks like dogshit.
pak192comic and pak128britain actually look half decent, imo, but on the whole you’re right.
