Darkwood
Darkwood – a new perspective on survival horror. Scavenge and explore a rich, ever-changing free-roam world by day, then hunker down in your hideout and pray for the morning light. Survival horror from a top-down perspective that is terrifying to play. No hand holding or quest markers. Test your skills and figure things out on your own! By day explore the randomly generated, ever-sinister woods, scavenge for materials, craft weapons and discover new secrets. By night find shelter, barricade, set up traps and hide or defend yourself from the horrors that lurk in the dark. Gain skills and perks by extracting a strange essence from mutated fauna and flora and injecting it into your bloodstream. Watch out for unexpected consequences… Meet eerie characters, learn their stories and decide their fate. And remember – don’t trust anyone. As nights go by, the lines between reality and nightmarish fantasies begin to blur. Are you ready to step into Darkwood?
Steam User 365
- Cower by the only functioning lamp in my house
- Fend off hobos all night long
- Finally get mauled by a pair of rabid dogs
- Wake up next to ragged old man who's in my house for some reason
- Boot up Darkwood and start playing
10/10 Slice of Life Simulator
Steam User 239
---{ Gameplay }---
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't
---{ Audio }---
☑ Unbelievable
☐ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf
---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma
---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☑ Potato
☐ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer
---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☑ Medium
☐ Hard
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls
---{ Grind }---
☑ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☐ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding
---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☐ Good
☑ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life
---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☐ Average
☑ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond
---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☑ Worth the price
☐ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money
---{ Bugs }---
☑ Never heard of
☐ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs
---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☐ 8
☑ 9
☐ 10
Steam User 104
The unfortunate reality is, there is no game like Darkwood. No other top down game comes close to the atmosFEAR created by this game. Even in the realm of 3D survival horror games with dramatically larger budgets, only a handful can create the same apprehensive curiosity, heart pounding terror, and haunting aesthetics of Darkwood.
The use of limited visibility is a common horror game technique to put a sense of dread into players. Darkwood takes this trope and turns it on its head by making what the character can't see visible to the player. But what the character sees is different from what he does not see; creating a truly unique sense of disconnect from reality.
The warping of what is perceived as reality (both by the character and viewer/player/reader alike) is an essential aspect of good horror in any medium, and it is extremely rare to see a brand new method of communicating it to the person reading, playing, or watching the media.
Maintaining a warped-reality feeling in a video game without breaking immersion by reminding the player it is in fact just a game is particularly difficult. Acid Wizard Studio navigates this challenging narrative element with ease, and utilizes it to instill unease in the player while drawing them deeper into the world of Darkwood.
While I believe Darkwood is truly one-of-a-kind, games like Pathologic are definitely comparable in their use of confusion, unwavering difficulty, and an unnerving soundscape to create fear in the player, along with a narrative that drip feeds you throughout the game. However unlike Pathologic, Darkwood does not rely on extreme time constraints and an overwhelming number of objectives to drive the player forward.
Instead having a fairly simple gameloop formula, and encouraging players to make their own decisions without rushing them onto the next task one after another like most other games of the sub-genre.
In-fact the first tip screen you see on starting a new game teaches you the most important lesson of Darkwood:
"You are playing a challenging and unforgiving game.
You will not be led by the hand.
Respect the woods. Be patient. Focus."
That last line is the ethos of Darkwood.
Darkwood challenges you to be cautious and take your time; while creating an atmosphere of dread as thick and mysterious as the forest itself, slowly driving you to madness as your instincts tell you to run, to escape, to reach safety. But without risking scavenging during the day, there will be no safe haven for you to run to after the first few days.
There is an ever present threat of resources running out, but careful and thorough searching will see you returning home with more than enough to survive and hopefully your own hide intact (somewhat).
You can extend the early game for as long as you need by simply learning the basics each new day while the woods sleep. Most threats can be avoided until you are prepared to face them and reap the rewards, or at least make scavenging less dangerous.
Exploration is dangerous, but also engaging and even fun at times; Indulging your curiosity will almost always be rewarded, but there is no way to know if that reward will be knowledge you wish you could unlearned, an indispensable tool of survival, or even a means of progressing the narrative of the game or one of it's many sub-plots.
However; when the woods wake at night, the dread of the unknown while exploring in daylight blossoms into a tangible fear of the unknown in darkness.
Thankfully your fight for survival will be on your own turf, utilizing your scavenged resources to build up rudimentary defenses to stave off the horrors until the forest falls dormant come daybreak.
This is the main aspect of the game that forces a sense of urgency, as to stand a chance you at least need fuel to keep the lights on, and by the third night, boards and nails to seal the windows.
Though even with an abundance of caution, you will likely die sometimes. Darkwood's punishments for missteps during the day are swift and brutal; but clear and educational.
Being "clear" in the "educational" act of telling you: Don't do that again.
Be Patient, breath. Return more prepared the next time.
Even at night, dying does not send you back to just before darkness fell, so you don't require an iron will capable of enduring the monotonous experience of repeated failure until you get lucky. Rather, start the new day and try something different.
The woods won't stop looking for new ways to evict you, so you should never stop looking for new ways to thwart it's attempts.
Burn, cleave, barricade, and shoot your way to dawn if you have to; but never forget you are not the hunter when the woods are awake.
Since you read this far, here is a vague but helpful hint: Bring alcohol every time you venture to a new region.
Darkwood is a truly unique and innovative art-piece of a game, and I cannot recommend it enough to anyone who enjoys survival horror, unnerving worlds to explore, or stories that confuse and frighten.
Respect the woods. Be patient. Focus.
(I love Pathologic too please don't kill me)
Steam User 96
Got the free version from ... well the internet.
Liked the game so much that I bought it on Steam.
26 days in and I still get scared at night.
I now sleep with the lights on and a shovel in hands.
10/10 would pirate buy again.
Steam User 76
realized I never posted a review for this great game
great atmosphere and very scary
my save got corrupted several hours into playing, contacted the devs about it and they asked me to send them my save data.
they managed to recover a save only about an hour before the corrupted save
Steam User 95
I wish Poland was real.
Steam User 70
make darker wood 2 now pls