CDDA

CDDA is the acronym commonly used for Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead, an open-source roguelike survival game set in a post-apocalyptic world. Players take on the role of an survivor navigating a devastated landscape, scavenging supplies, avoiding or confronting threats, and struggling to endure in a harsh, dynamic environment. The game emphasizes improvisation, realistic survival challenges, and emergent gameplay rather than a predefined story or end goal.

Gameplay revolves around turn-based exploration, inventory management, crafting, and base building. The world is procedurally generated and populated with cities, ruins, wilderness, and various hazards. Players must balance hunger, thirst, sleep, and health while contending with weather, injuries, illnesses, and fatigue. The crafting system allows improvised weapons, tools, and barricades, and vehicles can be used for travel and transportation. The game supports both ASCII and graphical tile sets, enabling different visual styles, and offers extensive modding possibilities through data-driven content and configurable rules.

Development and distribution are handled by a community of volunteers. CDDA is cross-platform, running on Windows, Linux, and macOS, with ongoing updates released through public repositories. The project emphasizes openness and collaboration, with source code, assets, and documentation shared publicly to encourage community contributions. Its design favors complexity, realism, and player choice, often requiring patience from newcomers but rewarding persistence with rich, individualized play experiences.

CDDA has gained a dedicated following for its depth and replayability. It is frequently cited for its challenging mechanics, extensive world generation, and emphasis on improvisation. The game remains actively developed, with a broad array of community-created mods, tilesets, and add-ons that expand its features and accessibility.