Darkwood is SCARY. Acid Wizard studios has created a game that has a slowly building tension and a sense of dread that most triple A studios only wish they could manage. Although the game sports an old school, almost 8-bit graphical style, the haunting environment, amazing sound effects and complete lack of any kind of hand holding make this game a nerve wracking spiral into terror. There are no real jump scares and not a whole lot of dialogue. Instead, there’s a ticking clock (if you can find or purchase a watch) that represents the sun going down. As the day slowly slides into night, the light dims, the woods become more foreboding, and you slowly realize that you are on the verge of a panic attack, especially when your enthusiastic foraging for supplies leaves you far away from your safe-house in the deepening twilight. Time to run.
After a few hours in, Darkwood had me trained/focused on foraging for supplies during the day and locking myself up at night to avoid the aggressive, hungry creatures that seem to be completely nocturnal. It’s stressful. Darkwood uses a minimalist approach to increase your feelings of vulnerability and isolation. After hours and hours of playing, all I really knew was the woods are bad and at night, they are absolutely deadly. The NPC's I’d found would trade items with me, but I often had little to trade with and I could almost hear their strange, wolf-like jowls salivating as they spoke to me. They do not seem like my friends.
I died once, twice, and then made it through 17 nights. 17 stressful nights of boarding up windows, hoping the gas in my generator lasts, weathering sudden attacks by dogs and mutated, humanoid freaks and long periods of silence, broken by whispers and groans that could either be right outside the house or in the room with me. I huddle in my dark "safe-house" (using the generator provides feeble light, but also attracts the horrors prowling the woods nearby), trying not to move, wondering if I SHOULD be moving and then I hear a muffled…slow…repetitive… banging.
“Is that the main window? The front door? Did I board that window? I must have. How many swings do I have left on this rotted piece of nail-studded lumber before it explodes into a shower of digital splinters? I wonder if- *BANG!* That was the front door. That was the fu*%ing front door opening. Or was it the side door? Do I investigate? Or just hope whatever it is passes me by? Oh, sweet, merciful baby Jesus, I hope it passes me by...”
It's tough to explain how unnerving this game can be. Also unnerving is trying to figure out exactly what to do while managing an anxiety attack. Early on, I'd survived a dozen nights, but wasn't making much progress. I'd found a locked door in some creepy, burned out ruins, next to a horrifically mutated beast with vines growing out of its every orifice. But the door is locked, and my key had been stolen. I had no idea where the man who had it could be. Should I be searching for him? Or should I be trying to board up this second dilapidated building and making it my new "safe" place? What do I do with these coils of wire, these swatches of rope? How can I ever afford a $450 gun from the wolf-man? All I’ve got is 30 bucks and pee-stained pants.
I finally got bold and went outside at night. Bring it on, you swine! They did, specifically a malevolent, glowing red mist that pretty much murdered me on contact. The game put me in check so hard I got whiplash. So much for the bold approach. Back to the shadows I slink...
It's not all amazing though; there are a few issues. On Normal difficulty I about had to check myself into a psych ward, even though this is the "forgiving mode" in Darkwood. When you die on normal mode, you lose your inventory, but you can pick it back up and you can keep dying as much as you like. On the two higher difficulties, you die for good once you run out of lives. Granted, these are optional, but Darkwood is all about unraveling the mystery of the woods, and it seems like perma-death would be frustrating to no end and would turn a lot of players off of what is already and incredibly difficult game.
Additionally, the cooking system is implemented in such a way, I mainly skipped it. Basically, for every positive perk you get, you receive a negative one as well. For a game this difficult, it seemed more sensible for me to just roll with what I had, rather than risk an even more difficult experience. Then again, maybe I’m just a sissy. I did take like 20 nights to find the creepy ass dance/wedding, after all.
The combat is also pretty lackluster. You hold down the left mouse to wind up with your pick or shovel or whatever, then swing with a right click. If some freak charges in and hits you, you have to wind up all over again. Maybe this is intentionally realistic, since it’s hard to swing a bat when someone is hitting you, but it turns too many encounters into a desperate spin-around, me circling the enemy and trying to charge up my swing while getting clobbered by a rabid sheep or savage dogs or banshee or whatever the hell is ripping my face off.
TY Dlh
Key pls