> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.killscreen.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Candy Box clones demonstrate ASCII is ready for a comeback
- URL: https://www.killscreen.com/ascii-art/
- Published: 2013-12-16T17:08:17.000Z
- Updated: 2015-11-17T16:15:42.000Z
- Description: Candy Box was a wonderful joke. It had a small but influential portion of the Internet wondering how a game that uses keyboard symbols for graphics could be playable, much less awesome. Candy Box 2’s punchline was self-referential: how could a game that was a joke justify a sequel? It, too, was inex
- Author: Jason Johnson
- Tags: News, ASCII, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2024-07-26 09:39

*Candy Box* was a wonderful joke. It had a small but influential portion of the Internet wondering how a game that uses keyboard symbols for graphics could be playable, much less awesome. *Candy Box 2*’s punchline was self-referential: how could a game that was a joke justify a sequel? It, too, was inexplicably awesome. The thing was these games were good inspite of their feigned badness. Thus begun ASCII art’s improbable comeback.

Since then we’ve seen more than a few copycats, and [*The Gold Factory* is the lates](http://gamehelp16.github.io/thegoldfactory/?ref=killscreen.com)t. Not much is known about who created it other than he or she frequents Reddit and that they borrowed some of their ASCII clouds from GeoCities, which seems like a haven for ASCII.

The first thing you notice is that *The Gold Farm* pretty much looks and plays just like *Candy Box*. This is a missed opportunity. [A quick history lesson](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII%5Fart?ref=killscreen.com) will show you that ASCII is more than just ASCII. What we see in games like *Candy Box* and its imitators is known as the “Oldskool” style, with *Candy Box* particularly indebted to the work of the punch-card artist Arambilet. But surprisingly there is much more to the field of ASCII: Newskool, ANSI, As-Pixel, Block ASCII, 4-color ASCII. Not to mention “ASCII pr0n” and those elaborate renderings of Che Guevara. All I’m saying is ASCII is ripe for an explosion.