Darkwood (Survival horror)

[Silva]

Finished it. Amazing game.

The Trader character is the biggest mystery though:

Spoiler

Is he another member of the outsiders unit, or is he your doppelganger?

I'm partial to the later right now. The in-game description says you find his face hauntingly familiar or something, and he ends up having the same key, journal and hazmat-suit as you had, only shroom-mimicked. It's too reminiscent of the Body Snatchers movie to pass up. Also, there are other stances where corpses are tied to the ground/trees with tendrils connected to them - are those the originals getting "copied", or are they the doppelgangers being created?

Oh and isn't part of the actual forest basically that too, tree-like mimics made of that white goo substance? I think there's more to the game's plot than meets the eye. Just like in Souls game btw.

 

[Boleskine]

 

[Egosphere]

Stopped watching 4 minutes in. Guy tries really hard to be funny and it's just not necessary. Mandalore's review is still the best.

 

[Lithium Flower]

I'm going to go ahead and give this a bump because some fortuitous happenings done did happen. While the game does not have mod support and it was long thought that there would be no major gameplay-altering mods for Darkwood, some guy was able to make a balance overhaul that should make the game much more challenging: https://www.nexusmods.com/darkwood/mods/2?tab=files&file_id=21

Going over the changelog it looks like he's got the right idea; looks like he even made the spawns in Dry Meadow more dangerous, which is a welcome change considering DM night time is a snooze fest (I guess it makes sense to have a very gentle difficulty curve in a game with limited lives, but I think the difficulty of DM and arguably silent forest was nerfed into the ground since the beta versions and I found that unfortunate.) Some changes look kind of experimental but he appears to be updating the mod every once a month or so and adjusting/reverting things as he actively plays the game, which is so quaint it brings a tear to my eye; I want to shake the guy's hand but I will settle for my cock.

My only major gripe with the game has always been that it becomes too easy if you know what you are doing, and thus the horror loses its teeth on subsequent playthroughs, so if this mod does what it sets out to achieve then that would be excellent. I'm planning to give it a shot; if I have substantive impressions I will post them here.

If you guys want to give this thing a shot, then as always I recommend playing on Hard.

Edit: Motherfucker renamed Hard (limited lives) to Normal, which is exactly how I think it should be. BASED AND REDPILLED

 

[cretin]

horror always loses its effect once you gain knowledge. Niggas be hugging lions and sleeping next to them. Theres never going to be a mod for any horror game that restores the sense of horror that is lost from exposure, so thats just a folly from the outset. Most of the scary shit in darkwood is the unknown, but once you know what does what and what makes what noise, its not going to be scary anymore.

If the mod makes the game fun and challenging for veteran players, thats completely worthwhile by itself.

 

[Lithium Flower]

Theres never going to be a mod for any horror game that restores the sense of horror that is lost from exposure, so thats just a folly from the outset.

Of course, but horror works in multiple ways. One of those is the tension of attrition (see: Pathologic). In pre-release versions Darkwood was almost uncomfortable to play because every night set you back in terms of resources and time; resources spent driving off the creatures and time that, as it advanced, led to increasingly more numerous and powerful monsters to come to your hideout at night. This precipitated the feeling of despair and reinforced the main character's sole motivation of getting out of the woods before he becomes a part of them.

The release version of the game took a step back by compressing the maps, making chests more lucrative, and making enemies more predictable and their moveset and easier to kill, though to its credit it also introduced the excellent Hard (Normal in the mod) difficulty setting wherein every death removes one of your few lives and once you run out, your save is gone.

However, once you've mastered the combat and comb every area for resources, the vanilla game usually has you prevailing over the horrors night after night while growing a massive stockpile of resources. This is where the fear of attrition effectively dies, except for the attrition of your health if you do happen to lose one of your limited lives on that difficulty mode (I died four or five times in my first playthrough, yet by the end of the game had exactly as many extra lives as I started with due to finding embryos along the way.)

This mod, so far, is addressing this very nicely. My stockpile is lean and there are aggressive stick and rock savages patrolling as early as Dry Meadow. Mutated dogs, stick savages, and a banshee (via an event) assaulted my first hideout as early as Day 4, forcing me to use my only molotov cocktail (that I had looted), a bear trap, and quite a lot of planks and nails to see them off. I've found a single magazine after exploring around three quarters of dry meadow, and it was immediately traded away to Wolfman in exchange for a toolbox and a map.

If this difficulty keeps up and there are no bugs, I can safely say that this is the definitive version of the game for me.

 

[Lithium Flower]

Motherfucker added an elk to Dry Meadow night time spawns. Thing barreled through the hole, took half my life, then rampaged around and broke no less than two doors and two barricades while I hid in the back room like a bitch.

Granted, I probably should have killed it to prevent the damage, because this event pretty much extinguished my supplies and wood and nails.

 

[Ash]

Picked this up since it was on sale recently. Damn solid game. Finally a real survival horror game, it's been well over a decade of walking/jumpscare simulators and mediocre attempts. My highlight was losing to wolf and him leaving me a consolation "gift".

Undeniable classic. Indie is where it's at right now.

 

[cretin]

its such a good fucking game on every level, from art design to gameplay to atmosphere... it really is criminal that this didn't get more attention. Its got plenty of fodder for the streamer/jewtube fags too, so i don't know what didn't click for them. I'm guessing just a general lack of advertising/awareness.

 

[Ash]

Probably because it expects you to use your brain, figure things out, and not get impatient if you die. Games haven't been doing either of those for a long time now, so to a lot of gamers it's just "needless work, I want to come home from work and relax with some mindless game bro. I don't want more stress". Translation: "I'm a retard".

And yes, Marketing too. Marketing is everything.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Its got plenty of fodder for the streamer/jewtube fags too, so i don't know what didn't click for them. I'm guessing just a general lack of advertising/awareness.

Darkwood is hard though. Jewtubers usually fail at hard games.

 

[Lithium Flower]

Personally, like I've written in the thread before, I think that the one major flaw I found with the game is that it becomes too manageable as you realize the optimal way to play it. You can say that for many games, but in Darkwood if you play your cards right (even simply fully exploring an area for OP loot bawkses before moving on), you will be drowning in resources, eliminating the element of scarcity that makes your first run in the game so tense, and figuring out the enemy movesets will mean you will be able to kill even black chompers with a board and nails (in star contrast to the alpha versions where the B&N was a strictly anti-dog weapon, maybe stick savages if you mastered their moveset).

That's why I recommend that returning players keep an eye on the Darkwood Hardmode mod. The issue with the mod is that its clearly made primarily for the dev, as he is constantly tinkering with it and introducing new experimental features just as the mod begins to look polished, but even a few versions back it had already done much to make my 2nd playthrough resemble the 1st in both challenge, tension, and surprise.

Ash GMDW when?

 

[Ash]

Spoiler

When I left the swamp I had twenty shotgun shells saved up for my pump action shotgun that I never used, 4 assault rifle clips, at least 4 pistol clips, and 5 hunting rifle bullets. Brought them all along expecting a gauntlet of enemies at the end + a final boss using my resources I had been meticulously hoarding like any good game, but got nothing. That was my most disappointing moment. And yeah half way through old woods resource management became less demanding (but still involved) which is a shame. Difficulty modes should influence reasource distribution slightly, but don't. When I return for another playthrough I'll grab that mod. Because fuck playing Nightmare mode. Game's too long and too RNG-heavy (e.g enemy spawns at night) ) for one life and one life only.

 

[Lithium Flower]

Spoiler

When I left the swamp I had twenty shotgun shells saved up for my pump action shotgun that I never used, 4 assault rifle clips, at least 4 pistol clips, and 5 hunting rifle bullets. Brought them all along expecting a gauntlet of enemies at the end + a final boss using my resources I had been meticulously hoarding like any good game, but got nothing. That was my most disappointing moment. And yeah half way through old woods resource management became less demanding (but still involved) which is a shame. Difficulty modes should influence reasource distribution slightly, but don't. When I return for another playthrough I'll grab that mod. Because fuck playing Nightmare mode. Game's too long and too RNG-heavy (e.g enemy spawns at night) ) for one life and one life only.

Pretty much mirrors my thoughts and experience exactly. Hope you played on Hard (ie limited lives) mode as that's really Nvidia(TM) The Way It's Meant To Be Played(R)

 

[agentorange]

Spoiler

When I left the swamp I had twenty shotgun shells saved up for my pump action shotgun that I never used, 4 assault rifle clips, at least 4 pistol clips, and 5 hunting rifle bullets. Brought them all along expecting a gauntlet of enemies at the end + a final boss using my resources I had been meticulously hoarding like any good game, but got nothing. That was my most disappointing moment. And yeah half way through old woods resource management became less demanding (but still involved) which is a shame. Difficulty modes should influence reasource distribution slightly, but don't. When I return for another playthrough I'll grab that mod. Because fuck playing Nightmare mode. Game's too long and too RNG-heavy (e.g enemy spawns at night) ) for one life and one life only.

Play the mode that gives you limited lives (I think it's like 3 lives). I think the one life mode is more like an iron-man challenge for after you're familiar with the game.

 

[ColCol]

THis game is so good I can't help but wonder what the dev team is doing? I can't find shit.

 

[Ash]

Acid. Lots of it.

 

[ColCol]

I still want a city version of Darkwood.

 

[LESS T_T]

THis game is so good I can't help but wonder what the dev team is doing? I can't find shit.

Well from the developer in March: https://old.reddit.com/r/Darkwood/comments/fdm29c/wherehow_are_the_acid_wizard_guys_now/fjjsoe7/

Hey there! Sorry for not being very communicative about what we're up to these days. To sum up, we're doing great! Szurek is a bit old and sickly, but he's hanging in there. The team is now 6 person strong in a new office.

Sadly, I can't share any specifics on what we're working on at the moment Last year, we've launched the Darkwood console version together with Crunching Koalas. We've been prototyping something new for several months but have shelved it for the time being as it's been a pretty exhausting project to work on, and will look for ways of financing it in the next few months. If all goes well, we will be able to go in full development mode in the second part of this year.

In the meantime, we're working on two other projects, but they're in their initial proof of concept stages. I'm super thrilled to be working on them, but we won't be able to share any info about them for quite a while

It seems the "exhausting" project looking for funding is a tactical turn-based game, according to a job posting from last month: https://www.gamepressure.com/newsroom/darkwood-devs-are-working-on-a-tactical-turn-based-game/za1fba

Maybe they secured the funding.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

Bought this on sale. Very impressive thing. Got eaten on the 4th night when occasionally moved the closet and left the door unboarded.

 

[Riskbreaker]

Acid. Lots of it.

I do wonder, unironically. The game seemingly drew on Terence McKenna's texts, something that I've become increasingly convinced of as I gleamed more of the backstory (not to spoil anything here). It was basically McKenna crossed with one Lovecraft story which it would be a spoiler to name.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

Acid. Lots of it.

I do wonder, unironically. The game seemingly drew on Terence McKenna's texts, something that I've become increasingly convinced of as I gleamed more of the backstory (not to spoil anything here). It was basically McKenna crossed with one Lovecraft story which it would be a spoiler to name.

They even call themselves AcidWizard, come on.

 

[Ash]

Game is cheap in the halloween sale: https://af.gog.com/game/darkwood?as=1649904300

Play the only good survival horror made in over a decade.

 

[someone else]

First night in a new hideout.

Pet

Finally completed it after buying it in alpha years ago, gets boring after the mid game.
I like the night survival portion.

 

[Berekän]

Finally completed it