Gaming●●Solid
I Built a Retro Survival RPG in Vanilla JavaScript
Valheim survival mechanics successfully crammed into an Ultima-style tile engine.
CozyNiche Gem
jasonkester
531mo ago
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I Built a Retro Survival RPG in Vanilla JavaScript
by jasonkester·May 6, 2026·3 points·3 comments
AI Analysis
●●SolidCozyNiche Gem
Valheim mechanics crammed into an Ultima-style tile engine running in vanilla JS.
Strengths
- •Procedurally generated open world with towns, dungeons, and cave systems.
- •Full survival loop including crafting, base building, and NPC interactions.
- •Runs entirely in the browser with no plugins or downloads required.
Weaknesses
- •Browser-based RPGs struggle with performance compared to native clients.
- •Crowded survival genre with established giants like Valheim and Minecraft.
Category
Target Audience
Retro gaming fans, browser game enthusiasts, survival game players
Similar To
Valheim · Ultima · UnReal World
Post Description
I'm working on the Survival Crafting RPG that you would have played on your Apple II back in the '80s. You can think of it as Valheim's gameplay crammed into the tile-based UI of the old Ultima games.
It has a procedurally-generated open world with towns and NPCs to talk to, all the resource gathering, mining, crafting stuff you'd expect in a modern survival game, and some good old fashioned dungeon crawling to boot.
I've been working on it off and on for the last several months. It's complete up through the Bronze Age (in Valheim terms). Let me know what you think!
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