A free, open-source, turn-based survival game set in a post-apocalyptic world.

Struggle to survive in a harsh, persistent, procedurally generated world. Scavenge the remnants of a dead civilization for food, equipment, or, if you are lucky, a vehicle with a full tank of gas to get you the hell out of Dodge. Fight to defeat or escape from a wide variety of powerful monstrosities, from zombies to giant insects to killer robots and things far stranger and deadlier, and against the others like yourself, that want what you have…

Gameplay

As your game begins, you awaken with hazy memories of violence and terror from when the world suddenly unravelled around you. Now you need to explore your surroundings, and secure food, water and safety. After that, who knows? Long term survival will mean tapping abilities you haven’t used before, learning to survive in this new environment and developing new skills.

Community and Resources

Reddit (unofficial)
IRC server: irc.freenode.net channel: #CataclysmDDA webchat
Discord (unnofficial)
GitHub repository
Web Tools
Item Browser
Game Launcher

System Requirements

Minimum Specs

Tilesets increase the amount of RAM required dramatically. It is recommended to have at least 1GB of ram for tilesets, as there are reports of instability due to RAM exhaustion when certain tilesets are used. Naturally, the larger the size of the individual tiles the more RAM that’s used.

“I played catadda 0.B on Lego EV3 brick through ssh about a year ago. Every simple move took a noticeable fraction of a second (like 0.3-0.5 second), crafting and such was very slow as well. The specs were - 300 MhZ CPU, 64 Mb Ram (+ another 64 Mb swap on microsd flash) running ev3dev (stripped ubuntu basically), ssh over USB CDC connection.” -burgerpro

“I used to test the game on an Asus EEE 700. That’s a 900MHz mobile cpu with 500MB of ram.” -Kevin Granade

Recommended Specs

Graphical builds run much faster with some kind of graphics acceleration. 2GB of RAM pretty much guarantees you will never have trouble with memory shortages.

“I regularly test the game now on a Windows netbook with a sub 2GHz single core CPU, 1GB of ram, and no graphics acceleration.” -Kevin Granade

Downloads

Cataclysm has official builds for Windows, Linux and OSX, and each platform comes in both terminal and graphical flavors. There are also “unnoficial” builds for IOS and Android.

Cataclysm: DDA is under constant development, the latest successful builds for the various flavors are available at the following locations:

Frequently Asked Questions

Is there a tutorial?

Yes, you can find the tutorial in the Special menu at the main menu. You can also access documentation in-game via the ? key.

How can I change the key bindings?

Press the ? key, followed by the 1 key to see the full list of key commands. Press the + key to add a key binding, select which action with the corresponding letter key a-w, and then the key you wish to assign to that action.

How can I start a new world?

World on the main menu will generate a fresh world for you. Select Create World.

I’ve found a bug / I would like to make a suggestion. What should I do?

Please submit an issue on our GitHub page. If you’re not able to, send an email to kevin.granade@gmail.com. In either case, please consider reading our issue guidelines first.

I’d like to contribute financially to Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead

Check out our page on BountySource and consider sponsoring an issue.