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Life & fun · May 9, 2026

I Built a Retro Survival RPG in Vanilla JavaScript

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!…

I Built a Retro Survival RPG in Vanilla JavaScript launched on May 9, 2026 with 5 votes, #2,008 of 20,538 launches that month and more than 75% of that year's launches.

Visit stravaeger.com ↗Alternativestop 10% of May 2026

What it does

Retro Survival Crafting RPG in the style of classic games from the 80s such as Ultima IV, with gameplay mechanics from modern survival games like Valheim.

Stravaeger (formerly Valtima IV) is a retro role playing game in the style of the early Ultima series, incorporating survival and crafting gameplay from modern games such as Valheim. You'll embark into a huge open world full of scenery to explore, enemies to fight, and resources to gather. You'll find towns full of NPCs with valuable information to forward your quest. You'll stumble across vast underground dungeons and cave systems full of danger and reward. You'll craft better gear from the things you find in the world. You'll build bases to keep safe from the perils of the world, store your belongings, cook food, and spend the night in the comfort of your warmfrom stravaeger.com

In the maker’s words, at launch

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…

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