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PC Darkwood

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PC Darkwood

Unread postby Some guy » 19 Aug 2017 13:34

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Some guy
 
Joined: 24 Nov 2010 14:21
Location: UK

Darkwood Impressions

Unread postby ChevRage » 03 Sep 2021 09:19

I've played a few runs of this game on the permadeath mode, each one shorter than the last as I found more efficient ways to essentially commit suicide. That second area is brutal to say the least.

Darkwood (Nightmare) with ChevRage 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cr0T4I3Wb5Q

Darkwood (Nightmare) with ChevRage 2
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1136540516

Darkwood (Nightmare) with ChevRage 3
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1136949233

The game is a top down wave survival of sorts with a large emphasis on exploration, and the ultimate goal is to escape the forest you've woken up in. During the day you go out and gather crafting resources in order to make weapons, consumables or bolster your defenses at night. And then once night falls you shack up in a run-down house and try to brave the encroaching enemies til morning, which can be somewhat easy if you don't attract attention to yourself by making noise.

It also has a really well done horror aesthetic. Overall visually the game looks kinda drab (I'm also not a huge fan of this directly over the top perspective where you only see the head and shoulders of your character), but with exceptional sound design and some graphical details it maintains a really heavy atmosphere that ended up drawing me in and I played my first session for far longer than I expected to. I think I would have played even longer, but I ended up dying.

One really neat mechanical feature the game has is the line of sight system. The only stuff you will see clearly is what your character can see, and the rest of the stuff on screen has a fog of war around it that obscures enemies and even any traps laying around. It's a really bad idea to walk around with reduced vision, like without any light sources in the darkness, and extra care must be taken during heavy rain.

Line of sight mechanic in Darkwood
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ralxibn7PT4

Combat isn't anything special by itself, there aren't a lot of moves and you can basically just walk circles around a single enemy while waiting for your stamina to replenish. But taken with the line of sight and the atmosphere, it can be extremely unnerving even in a 1v1 fight (which have so far been easy enough when there haven't been any other threats). Losing sight of your enemies can be extremely dangerous, and alongside the noises you can hear of stuff happening outside your range of vision, it's very easy to lose your cool and make deadly blunders.

I'm quite enjoying this game, and I'll probably play some more. But at this point the first zone has become incredibly easy for me, and it can be tiring to get through it all, just to reach the second zone and die on the first night and lose all that progress. I'll probably have to do more risky stuff during the first few nights to keep things interesting, like conserving resources by not boarding up the windows. Nothing respawns after all, and the more stuff I save for later the easier the later nights will be for me.

I tried playing the game with both gamepad and M&K, and I prefer the gamepad. After playing for a bit with the gamepad I noticed that the inventory system can be a bit unwieldly, but it turned out to be just as awkward in a different way with mouse control too. I'd recommend the gamepad, the automatic button prompts over notable items you get with it help to save you from pixel hunting with the mouse.
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ChevRage
 
Joined: 23 Aug 2012 21:14
Location: Victoria, Australia


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