If Trees could Kill ~Darkwood~

Never thought nature could be this twisted.

Darkwood is a top down horror survival game developed and published by Acid Wizard Studio.

I manage to stumble upon it while I was browsing Youtube looking for some games to play.  I did not expect to be intrigued by a horror game, an indie one at that.  You don’t really see a lot of third person horror games around, you usually get 2D pixel horror due to the popularity and success of Claire and Lone Survivor so I decided to give this one a shot.

World

You find yourself alone and trapped in a dark forest where you need to scavenge for resources and fend off monsters to keep yourself alive. Overall, not a very good situation for our protagonist.

The world is divided into three open areas, two of them you will unlock later into the game. As with every game, there are locations of interest that you will mark on your map when you encounter them providing you with information of their whereabouts, unfortunately you can’t see your exact location on the map without a certain skill so you have to rely on the relativity of the whereabouts. It’s a decently sized map, you can get from one side to the other by walking for a few minutes.

Narrative

                I’ll do my best to not  spoil any of the significant events that happen in the game.

                The story of Darkwood is weird to say the least. From what I hear there are two endings you can get from the release build of the game and those endings are affected only by your choices near the end of the game, your minute choices only affect who survive after the events of the game itself which is quite disappointing in my opinion. But I have to say that it does bring up a really good illusion of choice from what it presents to you when you make decisions. You can certainly feel the weight hanging on your shoulders.

Aesthetics

                Looks really good for me, you don’t really see the sprites up close so there’s not really any need for high definition animation and design. The areas that you go through also look very different from each other same goes for their atmosphere. One moment you’re alone searching for loot in an abandoned shack, the next moment you’re in a village exploring and talking to villagers. Makes for an interesting experience.

                The only thing I have gripe with is the color scheme of the game, while it does fit the setting and the world very well, you see a lot of gray,red and brown with the occasional green and that gets kind of dull the longer you look at it. Fortunately the sound design is quite stellar due to it being a primary feature of the game where you need to be vigilant and listen to your surroundings to survive.

Gameplay

                The game progresses on a day by day basis where during the morning you are “free” to explore the world of Darkwood, either looking for resources to scavenge or aiming to complete quests given to you by the NPC’s. There are however, obstacles that may prevent you or outright kill you if you aren’t careful. Vicious creatures attack you if you get in their line of sight and there are bear traps littered everywhere.  You can fight those creatures if you have a weapon in hand but since this is a survival horror game your character is not suited for fighting so it’s probably best to just avoid unnecessary combat if possible.

                At night is where things get interesting, you hole up in your hideout and wait for dawn. Simple enough right? Well if you’re not in a dark forest filled with lunatics and unsightly beasts everything would be peachy. You watch and listen for signs of intruders as you stay near a light source to not be devoured by the darkness, the tension thick enough to be cut by a wood saw, trust me this is something that you need to experience for yourself.

Conclusion

                I did not finish the game, even when I was pretty captivated by it during the few hours that I played it. I feel that it did not have enough “random” content to pace the game a little bit more properly. In a game that is quite open it needs to feel dynamic, the content of the story is not lacking at all but it makes an open game feel linear. Quite sad to be honest with you, it’s such an interesting concept, I hope that it will be resolved by additional content from the developers.

But even after all of that I still recommend it to people who like horror games and want to play something refreshing. Darkwood is a great game, one of the few successes of crowdfunded games and it certainly does not disappoint.