DARQ

This game features creative puzzles, creepy horror elements, and a unique art style. It's everything I love in one package.

This game is an absolutely incredible way to spend a few hours giving your brain a workout. Jump-scares are present, though not to a ridiculous degree, and the developer behind the game couldn't have more passion behind his project. It was a lot of fun working with Vlad to voice Lloyd, and I cannot wait to see what kind of work he has in store for us to come.

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☑ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS

---{ Gameplay }---
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't

---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf

---{ Dialogue }---
☐ Deserves an Oscar
☐ Great
☐ Decent
☐ Underwhelming
☐ Horrible
☑ 404 Dialogue not found

---{ 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
☑ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ 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
☐ Significant, nothing but a big terrarium for bugs
☐ Call the exterminators

---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☐ 8
☑ 9
☐ 10

Good but strange. You sort of get thrown into the game with no idea of what's going on, and it ends the same way. I'm not sure how the nightmares are supposed to be deciphered either. It's clearly a nightmare though with an interesting atmosphere. The puzzles were a fairly good difficulty, never requiring a walkthrough. Whenever I got stuck more exploration inevitably led me to the solution
Pros:
- Creepy atmosphere without getting into jumpscares or true horror territory
- The puzzles are well done
Cons:
- Apparently there's a meaning to the dreams?
- Whatever story there's supposed to be besides 'guy stuck in nightmares' is completely lost on me
Verdict: 8/10

Really cool puzzle side scroller. Quite short, can be easily done in one sitting, The art style is great, very Tim Burton-inspired, and the characters and game overall have a Little Nightmares feeling to them which makes for a pretty nice atmosphere. The puzzles are the simplest but are easy enough not to become frustrating. You don't really get any hints or directions whatsoever throughout the game, but that's not much of an issue as most things are quite intuitive, although, you might just repeatedly die and repeat certain points a few times until you figure out how to approach the situation.
There are a few pretty annoying achievements, mostly related to speedrunning, so if you're the kind to 100% everything, you might want to rethink playing this, but other than that, the game is absolutely worth giving it a try. And don't skip the 2 free DLCs as well.
Also, the dev is an awesome guy. He sent a handwritten, thank you postcard to every player that wanted one back in 2022, and that's an incredible thing to do in my opinion, so kudos to you sir!

Great puzzles, atmosphere, graphics, art direction, sound, and enemies. Everything about this game is fantastic.
Don't miss out on the *FREE* DLC either.

Played it in 2024 when browsing through my library in search for something cool, wow this was top stuff! Burtonesque horrirsh 2D adventure puzzle game with amazing sounds and visuals, relatively short but fits just right. fyi it made me search for dev teams and on the same team heard they were included in the new silent hill, so ye, all the pieces fit, recommend the og game and both dlcs (tower better than crypt)