When you play a videogame you surely look to have a great time, a distracting fun time where your worries and anxieties go away, am I right? _{yeah, as those things could happen, no anxiety, PFF} but not all games are like that, some are there to punish you, stress you and make you feel the affliction of living life, today we'll talk about an indie game that changed the way we see the adventurer's life, we'll delve into the DARKEST DUNGEON!! _{Ruin has come to our family...}

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Darkest Dungeon is a rogue-like gothic turn-based RPG in which you control and manage a series of heroes to recover your heritage in the ancient mansion of your ancestor, the game is full of punishing mechanics and difficulties like a stress meter that when full, give an affliction to your heroes transforming them in unpredictable assholes, _{Nah for real they become insufferable} a light meter that when is depleted the darkness takes hold and all sort of horrible things can happen, _{who would have thought that darkness would be bad in Darkest Dungeon} quirks that accumulate unless healed and have unnumbered effects on your heroes, traps, and enemies that lie in wait to destroy physically and mentally anything you throw at them _{don't get too attached to your dudes}

The game was developed by Redhook Games a company of just two developers, Director Chris Bourassa and lead designer Tyler Sigman who met each other while working in Backbone Entertainment, they wanted to create a game where it showed the real struggle of adventurers while on a perilous journey, to achieve this they didn't want to add just strong monsters to fight but make the own psyche of your heroes be your enemy as well, the deterioration of the mental health of every hero if left unchecked can be your worst enemy, _{HEY, Your mental health is important too, just a quick reminder, ok carry on} this is because of the accumulation of negative quirks and affliction, mechanics that alter _{positively or negatively} the behavior of each character, the inspiration behind this mechanics come from the series one of the developer watched, Band of Brothers where one of the lead characters, a charismatic leader is broken by the death of a couple of his friends and that scarred him forever

One of the hooks of the game _{get it hooks, from Redhook games, I'm hilarious} is its exquisite gameplay, we control our heroes from a side to side perspective and in battle, they assume a 4-on-4 formation against the enemies, this opens the game to a large array of strategies and way you can play the game, some characters can only hit the front row, other excel at a distances, another may focus on healing and buffing and the formation gives some restriction and freedom to do this which makes it a lot of fun to make the best formation to every specific mission _{or you can just go 4 Crusaders, DEUS VULT! DEUS VULT! DEUS VULT!}

But wait there's more, dungeon crawling is just a part of the game, where things get really hard is in managing your characters, you can learn really fast how to bleed your enemies, to death or how to make the perfect composition of heroes to kick your foes butts but in the downtime is where it gets tricky, between mission you need to take care of your heroes needs, treat their diseases, relief stress, upgrade weapons and armor, learn better moves and of course manage your resources, _{classic housekeeping, but stressful and depressing, bah we millennials know how it is, no biggie} the game makes you keep going to earn money but to do this you need to take care of your people and a little mistake here or there can make your next expedition end in a massacre

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Another highlight of the game is its atmosphere, the game is heavily inspired by cosmic horror, Lovecraftian elements are everywhere in this game, monsters, enemies, and general art are bent on giving you that feeling of fighting the unknown, a powerful horror and claustrophobic feeling in every step for you don't know what you may find at the next room, perhaps a boon or maybe you'll behold, the infinite malignity of the stars _{that's an actual quote of the narrator... OH YES THE NARRATOR!!!}

The sound design of the games obviously fantastic but one aspect that is outstanding is the narration performed by Wayne June an extraordinary voice actor, _{besides this guy has a mountain of Lovecraft audiobooks out there, go check them out} who gave voice to the ancestor, a disembodied being who companies every action of your characters while they traverse dungeons and fight monsters, his deep, gritty voice and the amazing script is the cherry on top of an amazingly built mysterious but oppressive and dark atmosphere, it simply gives more life to an already very much alive game, every hit you take hurts more, every crit you land is a more glorious victory _{I'll leave you the intro cinematic clip for you to delight in his amazing narration}

I must admit that this game is not for everyone, the difficulty it presents is not everyone would love, during the development of the game a lot of people starter to _{bitch about, casuals! PFFF} complaint about how hard was starting to look the game in comparison of how it actually began, igniting a shitstorm between two sides of the community supporting the game, in the end everything got solved out and the game has sold more than 5 million copies to this day, the game has three official DLC's called The Crimson Court, The Colour of Madness and The Butcher's Circus and they have announced Darkest Dungeon II where the developers aim to give players the experience of a long journey instead of a dungeon crawler, I have had a blast playing this game _{a stressful blast but you know what I mean} and I recommend this gem, anyone who likes an old RPG or dungeon crawler, it may be difficult at first but hey! Many fall in the face of chaos; but not this one, not today!

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Other Sources

Darkest Dungeon | Red Hook Games
Darkest Dungeon | Darkest Dungeon Wikia
Darkest Dungeon | Wikipedia
How Darkest Dungeon Was Made and Caused an Outrage | ThatGuyGlen
Darkest Dungeon and Ludonarrative | Hbomberguy
The Significance of Darkest Dungeon’s Narrator | Game Analyst

THANKS FOR READING!

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