Hello everyone, @Piroct here. Long time no see!
Today we are up for a quite spooky and challenging game with great soundtrack and visuals. Please, enjoy!
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Darkwood
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Darkwood is a top-down survival horror game with an overwhelming and oppresive atmosphere. This game goes slowly on you with the purpose of exploiting your fear of the unknown and the crippling indecision of wandering who to trust. Darkwood will take you on a journey of shadow and sickness that manages to be both intriguing and vexing at the same time.
"All roads lead deeper into the woods"
That is one of the first breadcrumbs of context you'll find in the game, it is said by one of the shadowy and twisted characters within Darkwood.
There are horrors within this absorbing wood, the things you'll see are hard to understand and piece together at first, starting from the characters not quite being human, many others not quite friendly.
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When I started my first playthrough it was the macabre cast of characters and the implicit storytelling that hooked me right away. From the moment you start is easy to notice that something is not quite right with the forest. It stretches endlessly, leaving everything under its canopy shrouded in dim light, allowing horrible creatures and otherworldly terrors to fester and hunt just out of sight. After spending a lot of time going through poisonous mushroom patches and dealing with wicked, deformed mutants, I still dig on Darkwood's unique and insidious brand of horrors more than any other part of the game.
You'll take the role of a mute man that has entered into this forest but with no memories of how he got there. You start learning about the world right away during the short prologue sequence which introduces a wicked doctor, sick with despair, he only lives day by day with the hope of finding a way out. He explains how the forest is consuming everything on it's path, corrupting it completely.
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Darkwood has a day/night cycle as well as randomized maps every playthrough. During the day you're "allowed" to explore, either to scavenge for important resources and crafting materials or just to figure out what's going un within the forest and why. There's plenty to see, from ramshackle buildings and overgrown ritual sites to mazes and unrecognizable corpses. Exploration is quite rewarding, it's either much needed supplies or chunks of narrative that lets you piece something together.
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"Piecing thing together" is almost a mechanic in this game. You'll only reach the darkest of places by solving it's mysteries and puzzles.
During nighttime Darkwood turns the tables. While during the day you're free to explore and soak yourself in the game's creepy atmosphere, your character won't stand a chance once night falls. To survive the night, players must retreat to their hideout and prepare for whatever will be lurking in the outside, in the dark. It's almost as a supernatural assault on your hideout... That can get quite physical. You'll need to barricade windows and doors, place traps strategically and ready your weapons. There's no certainty of what will be lurking around the corners.
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The games does an excellent job of building tension, but punish those players who tries to rush it. I found myself perishing everynight on hordes of corrupted horrors... But I must admit that it wasnt a good idea to dwell deeper into the wood with only a Wood Plank and a torch.
Shrieks, Howls, and Myriad are some of many sounds that will accompany you during the nights. Some of these sounds will fire off nearby creating a sense that something is hiding out of sight. Hearing that one of your barricades is being ripped down is a dreadful experience, and waiting on a corner with your weapon ready while the monster tear through the darkness to eat you is enough to get anyone's heart racing. Maybe you'll run with the luck of only having a horde of deformed savages... There are many "unexpected events" during the nights and one of those events take the form of spectral being that prey on everything darkness touches. You better prepare your torch or have a lamp nearby for those cases.
Combat is a little simple in Darkwood, but it takes a little of pacing. You'll need to hold the right mouse button to wind up the strike and then press the left mouse button to release the strike. It's not completely intuitive and it can get a little annoying when there's no choice but dance around the enemy while you charge your attack.
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This games offers a progression system too! It consist in collecting certain types of mushroom until you have cooked enough to "Level Up". When you level up you get to choose an attribute that will be helpful during your stay in the woods.
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Darkwood is one of the most rewarding survival horror games I've played in a long time, for both exploration and defence portion and the outcomes of them.
Even with the camera pulled back, it's easy to feel like you're stuck underneath the forest's all encompassing branches. Every key character I encountered left a chilling and unique impression on me, from the bipedal Wolfman and his toothy, malicious grin to the conjoined, robed amalgamation known as The Three.
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Darkwood's story immerse you into a world of unknowable forces and deranged characters, but it never fully plays its hand. The story can unfold a handful of different ways, depending on player choice and whether or not you want to kill key characters. No matter how it comes out, there are far-reaching questions and memorable moments that resonated deeply with my love of strange horror.
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That's it for this pleasant review! I hope it was fun to read and interesting enough to catch your attention. If you liked the game please visit its Steam Page and support the developers!
