Mortmal
Arcane
- Joined
- Jun 15, 2009
- Messages
- 9,502
Its kinda short on info...Some pole on rpgcodex like it.
-
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Darkwood (Survival horror)
- Thread starter Raapys
- Start date
Its kinda short on info...Some pole on rpgcodex like it.
Half of the codex is Polish.....
Why is that, anyway?
The Witcher apologist squad.... 
bonescraper
Guest
Oh, here we go again. No, the game is shit. Because it's Polish. Only American games are good, and it's fine when Americans like them 
Silva
Arcane
So, anyone playing this ? Any tips or experiences to share ? I just started by am really enjoying it. The atmosphere is a mix of Stalker and Penumbra and is thicker than my granny's grub.
How do you pass the night ? Is it viable to just hind behind some wardrobe and wait till dawn ?
Also, what are those freaks ? My character see them as man-animal hybrids, but are they ? Or is it my character who is bordering insanity and seeing things don't exist ?
How do you pass the night ? Is it viable to just hind behind some wardrobe and wait till dawn ?
Also, what are those freaks ? My character see them as man-animal hybrids, but are they ? Or is it my character who is bordering insanity and seeing things don't exist ?
LESS T_T
Arcane
- Joined
- Oct 5, 2012
- Messages
- 13,582
http://steamcommunity.com/games/274520/announcements/detail/1433685663536548148
DARKWOOD IS LEAVING EARLY ACCESS NEXT MONTH!
Dear mortals,
our time in Early Access is coming to an end! Want to know when, exactly? Check out the live-action trailer below!
There is still much to be done before the release and there will be at least one more beta update.
Thank you for staying with us through these 3 years of development. It's been a hell of a ride and we'd like to write down our thoughts and feelings about it, but right now we have to focus on finishing up the game. Wish us luck during this last month before release!
Yours,
The Acid Wizard
- Joined
- Jun 28, 2017
- Messages
- 31,835
Stopped reading after that.
Lithium Flower
Arcane
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2016
- Messages
- 1,832
To those put off by the randomization, crafting, and roguelike elements: don't be. The game is great.
This is not some shitty minecraft clone. Locations are entirely premade and "procedural generation" only applies to terrain between said locations, and where they are on the map. So the story elements remain the same with each playthrough but exploration is kept fresh as you need to search for old locations again.
You do not built shit block-by-block - all the shelters are premade, which is great as it allows the devs to design nighttime encounters specifically designed for the geometry of your hideout. The crafting only extends to supplies and such, and adds an elements of resource management to the game. Say, for instance, that you went out to scavenge for gasoline during the day and only found one can by nighttime. Do you refuel your generator so that you have visibility during the night, or do you prepare a molotov cocktail or two in case something starts scratching at your door?
Permadeath is optional. The other difficulty setting entails item loss on death instead, but personally I prefer permadeath as it keeps things more tense.
Basically this is not some sandbox without a story, the story is there and it is great. It is slowly uncovered at your own pace, without falling into the trap of being too cryptic. There are also interesting, bizarre NPCs and honest-to-god choices and consequences, including mutually exclusive quests and things of that nature.
As for the horror element, it is absolutely top notch. The game primarily relies on sound design to create a nearly constant atmosphere of pressure, danger, and uncertainty. Even during the day the world around you is absolutely miserable. Starved dogs and madmen prowl a countryside that is somehow both decaying and overgrown. As you pass a treeline, you may hear shuffling and the snapping of branches come from within. If you are smart, you will turn around and give the area a wide berth. Still, you have to explore during the day to find critical locations, advance the story, and scavenge for resources that you will need to survive the night.
The night is where things become even more terrifying. If you are lucky, you could manage to refuel the generator during the day and barricade the windows/exits (and block those that you could not barricade with furniture). Now, monsters can see and hear you, and every step you make produces noise, and even barricaded windows can be peered through. Add to that the fact that your generator's gasoline consumption is tied to the amount of light sources you have running, and the result is that you will be huddling in a corner, away from as many windows as possible, still as a mouse, in a pitch-black house. Soon you will begin to hear things: muffled breathing somewhere outside, the pitter-patter of naked feet near your front door, and...the sound of the heavy wardrobe you used to block off the big hole in the kitchen wall being pushed. You shit your pants, ready a weapon (if you even have one), and think: do you turn on the lamp in your room so that you have visibility against this threat and potentially expose yourself, or do you creep away from the kitchen, potentially stumbling into something far worse in the darkness?
Additionally, there are many handcrafted events which occur in random order with each passing night, most of which involve something horrible or unnerving happening to you. There is a healthy amount of them and due to their order being randomized, they still manage to surprise even after several playthroughs. You will go many nights hearing various animals and...other things scratch at your walls, but what will you do the one night when you will hear a clear, deliberate knocking at the front door?
There are surreal elements as well that frequently make you question which happenings are supernatural, the figments of the protagonist's imagination, or which events actually have a rational explanation. Perhaps you will dream of being buried alive in a strange grave in the woods, only to find that very grave in your exploration during the day. Other times, choices made within dreams will have actual impact in the real world.
Finally, below is an old interactive trailer. While some features are quite outdated, it showcases parts of the game that Codex might be interested in, particularly the C&C and RPG elements:
This is not some shitty minecraft clone. Locations are entirely premade and "procedural generation" only applies to terrain between said locations, and where they are on the map. So the story elements remain the same with each playthrough but exploration is kept fresh as you need to search for old locations again.
You do not built shit block-by-block - all the shelters are premade, which is great as it allows the devs to design nighttime encounters specifically designed for the geometry of your hideout. The crafting only extends to supplies and such, and adds an elements of resource management to the game. Say, for instance, that you went out to scavenge for gasoline during the day and only found one can by nighttime. Do you refuel your generator so that you have visibility during the night, or do you prepare a molotov cocktail or two in case something starts scratching at your door?
Permadeath is optional. The other difficulty setting entails item loss on death instead, but personally I prefer permadeath as it keeps things more tense.
Basically this is not some sandbox without a story, the story is there and it is great. It is slowly uncovered at your own pace, without falling into the trap of being too cryptic. There are also interesting, bizarre NPCs and honest-to-god choices and consequences, including mutually exclusive quests and things of that nature.
As for the horror element, it is absolutely top notch. The game primarily relies on sound design to create a nearly constant atmosphere of pressure, danger, and uncertainty. Even during the day the world around you is absolutely miserable. Starved dogs and madmen prowl a countryside that is somehow both decaying and overgrown. As you pass a treeline, you may hear shuffling and the snapping of branches come from within. If you are smart, you will turn around and give the area a wide berth. Still, you have to explore during the day to find critical locations, advance the story, and scavenge for resources that you will need to survive the night.
The night is where things become even more terrifying. If you are lucky, you could manage to refuel the generator during the day and barricade the windows/exits (and block those that you could not barricade with furniture). Now, monsters can see and hear you, and every step you make produces noise, and even barricaded windows can be peered through. Add to that the fact that your generator's gasoline consumption is tied to the amount of light sources you have running, and the result is that you will be huddling in a corner, away from as many windows as possible, still as a mouse, in a pitch-black house. Soon you will begin to hear things: muffled breathing somewhere outside, the pitter-patter of naked feet near your front door, and...the sound of the heavy wardrobe you used to block off the big hole in the kitchen wall being pushed. You shit your pants, ready a weapon (if you even have one), and think: do you turn on the lamp in your room so that you have visibility against this threat and potentially expose yourself, or do you creep away from the kitchen, potentially stumbling into something far worse in the darkness?
Additionally, there are many handcrafted events which occur in random order with each passing night, most of which involve something horrible or unnerving happening to you. There is a healthy amount of them and due to their order being randomized, they still manage to surprise even after several playthroughs. You will go many nights hearing various animals and...other things scratch at your walls, but what will you do the one night when you will hear a clear, deliberate knocking at the front door?
There are surreal elements as well that frequently make you question which happenings are supernatural, the figments of the protagonist's imagination, or which events actually have a rational explanation. Perhaps you will dream of being buried alive in a strange grave in the woods, only to find that very grave in your exploration during the day. Other times, choices made within dreams will have actual impact in the real world.
Finally, below is an old interactive trailer. While some features are quite outdated, it showcases parts of the game that Codex might be interested in, particularly the C&C and RPG elements:
bataille
Arcane
- Joined
- Feb 11, 2017
- Messages
- 1,073
It's coming out today!
I think I watched a trailer like three years ago, saw a generator asking the player to quench its first with gasoline, closed the tab, made a mental note not to forget about it and then lived my life occasionally reminiscing on it but never actually checking on it so as not to spoil things.
Hopes are moderately high.
I think I watched a trailer like three years ago, saw a generator asking the player to quench its first with gasoline, closed the tab, made a mental note not to forget about it and then lived my life occasionally reminiscing on it but never actually checking on it so as not to spoil things.
Hopes are moderately high.
Lithium Flower
Arcane
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2016
- Messages
- 1,832
I'm pretty excited for release! I hadn't touched Chapter 2 at all, in the anticipation of the full game.
Lithium Flower
Arcane
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2016
- Messages
- 1,832
It is out now!
Official release trailer:
Official release trailer:
Drog Black Tooth
Self-Ejected
- Joined
- Feb 20, 2008
- Messages
- 2,636
looks ugly af
just another day, another shitty indie
just another day, another shitty indie
Great write-up, Lithium Flower. I played the release a bit last night (last time I played was probably a year or more ago.)
Damn, she's still a beaut. Surprisingly scary for a top down game.
Would you guys recommend beefing up the first hideout or should I just try to progress? I'm somewhat hesitant to try out actually attacking things cuz I'm scared.
Damn, she's still a beaut. Surprisingly scary for a top down game.
Would you guys recommend beefing up the first hideout or should I just try to progress? I'm somewhat hesitant to try out actually attacking things cuz I'm scared.
lightbane
Arcane
- Joined
- Dec 27, 2008
- Messages
- 10,561
It's been 3 long years. Man, how did the game change since the first trailers were about a father protecting an annoying kid.
It's the most grimdark Alien Breed-style game ever made, but exchanging action with mindfuckery, fear-inducing events and a backwater Polish village placed somewhere between Silent Hill and Twin Peaks.
It also has a live-action trailer to boot!
It's the most grimdark Alien Breed-style game ever made, but exchanging action with mindfuckery, fear-inducing events and a backwater Polish village placed somewhere between Silent Hill and Twin Peaks.
It also has a live-action trailer to boot!
Lithium Flower
Arcane
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2016
- Messages
- 1,832
I wrote a short beginner guide to help people into the flow of the game. It doesn't spoil the story, events, or enemy types, but don't read it if you want to find out everything by yourself. By the way, I recommend that people play on Hard difficulty. The threat of permadeath is what makes much of the game's situations so terrifying, but your run won't end due to a single mistake as you have multiple lives.
MediantSamuel while the very first versions of the game had the difficulty of nights increase with time, now the difficulty depends on the region you are in. Thus its a good idea to scavenge a region fully before moving on. The caveat to that is resource drain. Quite a bit of gas is spent every night, planks and nails to repair barricades, other resources are spent during or after combat, etc. If you are running low and much of the region has already been explored, it might be best to move on while you still have a surplus left.
Going to the underground entrance in the first day is the most efficient thing to do, as you know its location and it is a guaranteed way to get gas and enough supplies to barricade one entrance. That place is by no means safe, though, so be careful. The rest of the day can be spent rearranging furniture to block off unbarred exits as well as scavenging around the hideout. Dusk light is yellowish/reddish, and that is the time to come home.
While many people like to only barricade the room with the bed in hideout 1, I find that it gives me nowhere to retreat to when danger comes. I prefer to barricade the door to the bedroom, essentially ignoring the bedroom, then barricading every other entrance in the house except for the front door. I then place the large wardrobe over the hole in the kitchen wall and put the small wardrobe against the front door, covering the handle, and take cover behind it at night. That way I have a relatively hassle-free way out and into the house (of course the small wardrobe will have to be pushed aside and rearranged) and at night I can hover over the front door with my mouse, so that if anything opens it I can click to keep the door shut (think of it as if you are holding the door by the handle and trying to hold it shut. Don't worry, this is not an exploit: if whatever is trying to enter the house is determined, you will lose) and, if I have to abandon the front door room, I have a lamp in my workshop room and kitchen, giving me two places to retreat to.
Stealth is important, particularly at night. Don't be a fidgety fuck, don't move unnecessarily. If you have to move, walk, don't run. That is what the small wardrobe against the door is for: to give you just enough time to quietly leave the room without sprinting around like sanic. Stay away from the windows. At the same time, XP-giving mushrooms grow around your house at night, giving you an incentive to wander, so it is your choice if you want to do that. They will typically glow and make loud noises so that you know where they are.
The game generally gives great advise that you should pay attention to and follow. When you start a new game it tells you to "respect the woods," for instance, as you should. Basically, there are things in the trees that will kill the fuck out of you, and you should pay attention to them. Various entities are placed around the map that will only act and roam if disturbed. The latter is especially important because a roaming creature provides a constant threat to your exploration. Also, coming back home to find out that your house was disturbed while you were gone or even finding a "guest" inside is not a fun experience. Yes, that happened to me. In short, pay attention to your surroundings at all times. Headphones with directional audio are essential for this: you hear weird sounds from direction x, you look at direction x. Real, real careful-like.
Items that are only situationally useful, like flares, pills (regular pills, not the healing ones), mundane food, etc are best traded away. You want molotov cocktails before or shortly after you go to the Silent Forest, so you really want the toolkit sold by person that visits you in the morning of the second day to upgrade your workshop. Molotov cocktails are very efficient: as long as you can anticipate a threat and have some distance between you and it, you can erase it.
Combat is very hard and not worth doing in most cases. A plank with nails will deal with a dog but unless you are skilled you want something deadlier for anything larger than a dog. Speaking of skills, using the dodge (control key) and the secondary attacks (middle mouse button) is essential. The former is a backstep, good for predicting attacks, and the latter is a quick, low-damage swing which can be used when low on stamina or as a follow-up to a normal attack for extra damage EDIT: the bit about stamina is not true, alternate attack actually consumes 3 bars of stamina while regular attack only consumes one. Still, evasion is preferable to combat in almost every single case.
Items that you cook in the oven for XP (mushrooms, certain meats,) rot over time, reducing the amount of XP you gain from them, so cook them as quickly as you can.
Guests that come to your house in the morning are not hostile. Attacking them then is a bad idea.
You can kill non-hostile NPCs, but in some cases there will be consequences. There is a surprising amount of consequences in the game in general, including some unexpected ones, so think before you act.
That is all, I think.
EDIT: forgot to mention the well. When repaired, it provides a very strong heal once a day. It is a good alternative to using the rare, expensive healing items.
Going to the underground entrance in the first day is the most efficient thing to do, as you know its location and it is a guaranteed way to get gas and enough supplies to barricade one entrance. That place is by no means safe, though, so be careful. The rest of the day can be spent rearranging furniture to block off unbarred exits as well as scavenging around the hideout. Dusk light is yellowish/reddish, and that is the time to come home.
While many people like to only barricade the room with the bed in hideout 1, I find that it gives me nowhere to retreat to when danger comes. I prefer to barricade the door to the bedroom, essentially ignoring the bedroom, then barricading every other entrance in the house except for the front door. I then place the large wardrobe over the hole in the kitchen wall and put the small wardrobe against the front door, covering the handle, and take cover behind it at night. That way I have a relatively hassle-free way out and into the house (of course the small wardrobe will have to be pushed aside and rearranged) and at night I can hover over the front door with my mouse, so that if anything opens it I can click to keep the door shut (think of it as if you are holding the door by the handle and trying to hold it shut. Don't worry, this is not an exploit: if whatever is trying to enter the house is determined, you will lose) and, if I have to abandon the front door room, I have a lamp in my workshop room and kitchen, giving me two places to retreat to.
Stealth is important, particularly at night. Don't be a fidgety fuck, don't move unnecessarily. If you have to move, walk, don't run. That is what the small wardrobe against the door is for: to give you just enough time to quietly leave the room without sprinting around like sanic. Stay away from the windows. At the same time, XP-giving mushrooms grow around your house at night, giving you an incentive to wander, so it is your choice if you want to do that. They will typically glow and make loud noises so that you know where they are.
The game generally gives great advise that you should pay attention to and follow. When you start a new game it tells you to "respect the woods," for instance, as you should. Basically, there are things in the trees that will kill the fuck out of you, and you should pay attention to them. Various entities are placed around the map that will only act and roam if disturbed. The latter is especially important because a roaming creature provides a constant threat to your exploration. Also, coming back home to find out that your house was disturbed while you were gone or even finding a "guest" inside is not a fun experience. Yes, that happened to me. In short, pay attention to your surroundings at all times. Headphones with directional audio are essential for this: you hear weird sounds from direction x, you look at direction x. Real, real careful-like.
Items that are only situationally useful, like flares, pills (regular pills, not the healing ones), mundane food, etc are best traded away. You want molotov cocktails before or shortly after you go to the Silent Forest, so you really want the toolkit sold by person that visits you in the morning of the second day to upgrade your workshop. Molotov cocktails are very efficient: as long as you can anticipate a threat and have some distance between you and it, you can erase it.
Combat is very hard and not worth doing in most cases. A plank with nails will deal with a dog but unless you are skilled you want something deadlier for anything larger than a dog. Speaking of skills, using the dodge (control key) and the secondary attacks (middle mouse button) is essential. The former is a backstep, good for predicting attacks, and the latter is a quick, low-damage swing which can be used when low on stamina or as a follow-up to a normal attack for extra damage EDIT: the bit about stamina is not true, alternate attack actually consumes 3 bars of stamina while regular attack only consumes one. Still, evasion is preferable to combat in almost every single case.
Items that you cook in the oven for XP (mushrooms, certain meats,) rot over time, reducing the amount of XP you gain from them, so cook them as quickly as you can.
Guests that come to your house in the morning are not hostile. Attacking them then is a bad idea.
You can kill non-hostile NPCs, but in some cases there will be consequences. There is a surprising amount of consequences in the game in general, including some unexpected ones, so think before you act.
That is all, I think.
EDIT: forgot to mention the well. When repaired, it provides a very strong heal once a day. It is a good alternative to using the rare, expensive healing items.
Last edited:
Lithium Flower
Arcane
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2016
- Messages
- 1,832
The developers started an interesting AMA thread on reddit today: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/6uhzyw/were_afraid_to_play_horror_games_so_we_quit_our/
Shockingly honest, at least compared to the usual PR speak:
These guys seem like true bros doing there best, it is refreshing to have a developer actually admit that they stumbled in places. The game came a long way; hopefully chapter 2 and the epilogue are at least as good as chapter 1. I'm still only a couple days into Dry Meadow.
Shockingly honest, at least compared to the usual PR speak:
These guys seem like true bros doing there best, it is refreshing to have a developer actually admit that they stumbled in places. The game came a long way; hopefully chapter 2 and the epilogue are at least as good as chapter 1. I'm still only a couple days into Dry Meadow.
Latro
Arcane
most of the incline comes from poles/russians these days
slav master-race
slav master-race
Lithium Flower
Arcane
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2016
- Messages
- 1,832
So I made it to the Silent Forest. A few impressions from the release version:
I do love the new night events and the rewritten parts of the story add quite a bit of intrigue and "hook" that the earlier revisions were missing, IMO. I'd be curious to hear what others think, if anyone played that far.
I found the wedding to be pretty underwhelming. It is cool that Dry Meadow has a big scary location like the other regions, but I don't think this one was anywhere as interesting. The atmosphere was pretty well done and, as a potentially first encounter with a clearly once-human chomper it could have been worse, but there wasn't much in the sense of either good loot or interesting story implications. Not much of a choice here either: so you either explore the house but don't go into the dark room and just leave unopposed, or you go inside the "Dance room" which turns one of the dancers into a chomper? I don't know, unless I'm missing something I think the location could have been more interesting.
I'm disappointed that they removed enemies from this hideout. Not sure if they did so in this release version or the earlier one, as I stopped playing after Chapter 2 was implemented, but there used to be an entire pack (3 or 4 of them if I remember correctly) of savages living in the hideout that you had to clear out. One was locked in the outhouse I believe, and was a pretty cool ambush. Mind you, it was a brutal difficulty spike, and I even saw a let's player quit his playthrough out of frustration, but I think it was an appropriate increase in difficulty considering that Dry Meadow is relatively calm and you are warned over and over again not to go to Silent Forest until you are properly prepared.
Saying that, I got slaughtered like a retard by the savage in the cottage between Dry Meadow and Silent Forest, although that was because I accidentally stepped into my own bear trap when trying to lure him into it. I came back, of course, this time setting the trap right...and emptying a quarter of a gasoline can on his ass as he struggled to get free, then set him ablaze. So fucking cathartic.
Saying that, I got slaughtered like a retard by the savage in the cottage between Dry Meadow and Silent Forest, although that was because I accidentally stepped into my own bear trap when trying to lure him into it. I came back, of course, this time setting the trap right...and emptying a quarter of a gasoline can on his ass as he struggled to get free, then set him ablaze. So fucking cathartic.
I really like the inclusion of the Trader character, really increases the feeling of respite you feel in the mornings and provides some much-needed camraderie. I find that horror games benefit from these rare positive emotions as they help you appreciate just how dreary everything else is in comparison. Also the guy? reminds me of a similiar character from Lone Survivor, another great indie horror game.
I do love the new night events and the rewritten parts of the story add quite a bit of intrigue and "hook" that the earlier revisions were missing, IMO. I'd be curious to hear what others think, if anyone played that far.
Last edited:
Some reviews, dating to early access, mention stability issues, frequent crashing and bugs. How is it now? Cause I'm seriously thinking about buying this nao...
Bocian
Arcane
- Joined
- Jul 8, 2017
- Messages
- 1,912
Encountered 0 crashes in total. A few minor bugs (in beta) but nothing game breaking. You won't regret it.
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