The Church in the Darkness

A quick look at gameplay from THE CHURCH IN THE DARKNESS and analysis.
In it you're trying to track down your nephew who joined a Cult and relocated with them to their own new "utopia" in the Jungle to become entirely self-sufficient. With the help of a number of sympathetic members and other oppressed cult members, you've got to locate him and make your way out of the camp before disaster of the usual paranoid "lets all die together" type occurs. Now, most people take that to be "drink the koolaid" voluntary sheep-to-slaughter mindlessness. Though the very premise of TCINTD shows that its certainly not all like that, with many who clearly don't want to be there anymore, let alone die for the place. The "true story" of any death-cult isn't of masses killing themselves blindly, it''s how a concentration of power in the most deluded and devoted drags the rest into their graves with a mass-murder majority the minority is hopeless to defy.
TCITD plays out kind of like one of the MSX/NES "Metal Gear" games with the 2D top down stealth format and base sneaking. However its amplified with more modern Medal Gear Solid game design. Outside of that pure stealth vs pure combat design school, you're given non-lethal alternatives for knockouts and more of an "open-world" level design, unleashing you onto this huge compound to figure out your end goal. You'll hide bodies, change costumes, sabotage gear, and interrogative guards and informants. The biggest difference to being some top-down Metal Gear, this is a game built on a core of replay. There's an array of 20 endings to unlock, and your different play-style/story choices can end up yielding different impressions of people, or unlocking divergent aspects of knowledge about the cult.
We've seen a lot of "wacky" cult game releases in recent years, but this is one played deadly serious. The type of cult, the backstory, the setting--and even potential ending--directly (and overtly) parallel the Jonestown Massacre.... including the aforementioned description of death cults. It's easy for a lot of people to forgot--well if they ever knew--that Jim Jones and The People's Temple didn't start out on the notorious end of history. Jones was a well respected minister in Baptist communities; he was avid support of the Civil Right's movement and used all his power for its progress; his words were respected by the most prominent local politicians of the time that his reputation even lasted after relocating to their own Commune in Guyana. It's really after where the the movement parted from roots in racial and economic equality, becoming something else. I hold that the title here is an allusion to Conrad's "In The Heart Of Darkness." It's the same Darkness that we see in the novel; in Apocalypse Now; in the real Jonestown; and in "The Church In The Darkness,"... There's a madness of control and societal isolation in the dead heat of The Jungle. There's a calling to the madness of man. For the people of Jonestown that call would be answered in-full the day in 1978 a Senator and three others were gunned down trying to leave this isolated 'outer heaven', and reach-out to the outside world about all they had seen. Here in the story of "The Church In The Darkness" you'll find the story of Jonestown, but also a tale of madness far older and far greater. A madness that still lives. A madness that will outlive us all.
The many incredibly overt connections to Jonestown politicize its art, laden with real world commentary. We mightn't have adapted to this sort of "ripped from the headlines" approach in gaming the same way we have to television and films--even nihilistically so in "Law and Order"'s often glib and shallow lip-service to reality to keep going after 20 seasons---though its something that will overtake us eventually and is a necessary step towards the medium's ability to produce meaningful commentary. It couldn't be more appropriate perhaps then that the general gameplay basis for the story makes for a game similar to that of Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear series which likewise repackages meaning and expression via important historical interactions as well. "The Church In The Darkness" is a game all the more scary for its real world parables and parallels, and perhaps all the more deserving of that post-game moment of reflection as to what it all even means. That, though, is up to you.
You can check out The Church In The Darkness on Steam now

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Summary: A fun game with places to go.
Pros:
-Engaging story with 19 different endings, so there's a lot of room to experiment.
-Beautiful artwork throughout the game
-Nice voice over
-Lots of fun easter eggs and details to discover as you explore
Cons:
-The game is still fairly new, and there are some kinks to work out. For example, you can't fire a gun using a Steam controller, though you can aim and then use the keyboard or mouse to fire. However, the creators were very understanding and helpful when I brought this up, and I believe they are dedicated to the game.
-NPCs will sometimes get "caught" on each other by running into each other while walking in different directions, which can cause their sight lines to jerk suddenly and spot you.
-Not exactly a con, but there are some documents you can discover that I wish there was more to do with. For example, you can find defaced devotional cards of the preachers, and a message from one civilian to another planning an escape. I think these could be fun bonus missions/side quests to consider adding in the future.

There are a number of things I love about this game. First, I like the idea. I vaguely remember the stories about the Reverend Jim Jones and the United States Congressman who died on a remote airstrip in New Guinea trying to investigate whether a family of his constituents was being held against its own will. I remember the grisly scene in which his followers either volunteered or were compelled to drink a poisoned beverage from a vat. It's where, I think, the expression "Don't drink the Kool-Aid" came from. The topic is timely. We seem to be living in the midst of a political cult these days whose members are frightening. Your mission in the game, similar to that of the doomed Congressman's, is to locate someone on the cult's compound, usually a young and impressionable relative, while avoiding detection. Confrontations, however, are unavoidable. Second, I loved the preponderance of choices. You can choose the gender of your avatar, as well as his or her ethnicity, not to mention your starting toolkit. The characters don't strike me as essentialized, which would be the danger of picking between a male and female and a spectrum of skin tones. They are just clear markers of different starting identities. Another thing I love about this game pertains to aesthetics. I love the church steeple against the hazy sunset on the title page, the rich, lush greens of the jungle and the maze of paths that spiderweb their way across the encampment, the ominous, atmospheric musical score that intensifies as danger approaches, usually in the form of armed cultists, the voices over loudspeakers that reinforce the highly controlled environment and contribute to the paranoia that pervades this game world, and the voice overs that do not sound nearly so wooden as in other games. The game also gets your adrenaline flowing. The more characters who notice your trespass into the compound, the more they swarm about you. You try not to call attention to yourself, but you can't help it. On a final note, while mastering all the controls requires a bit of a learning curve, nothing is so difficult to pick up as to be daunting. Having so many options available will necessarily complicate the game play but not ruin it. I will be compelled to return to this game again and again to see the different ways it will play out.

Excellent stealth game. Many different ways to play - you can go ninja style and have nobody see you, you can go in guns blazing, or something in between (though the heart of the game is stealth). The cult leaders personalities change with each playthrough and different NPCs that you can interact with appear in each playthrough so there is a good degree of replayability. Multiple endings you can get to depending on how you play. Also, plenty of Steam achievements to acquire. The retail price ($19.99) is a bit steep, but I still recommend it. On sale I highly recommend it.
Sadly, things didn't end well for the real cult this game is based on, but kudos to the developers for not letting that history be lost. In addition to stealth, this is a good addition to historical fiction. This game puts you there before it's too late. Can you avert the tragedy?

A cool trick this game pulls off is that the cult can have different flavors. Exploring the different moods of the commune is one of the game's chief joys. Great for narrative gaming fans

I really enjoyed the setting of this game. I don't normally play stealth games because I find them too picky and one error means you have to start over. However, this gives you a little ability to try things out without having the restart all the time. It also allows for few different types of play style as well.

I read the reviews and I disagree. The controls work fine. You're able to do what you want to. Just don't expect anything run and gun and you'll be fine.
Stealth is a big part of the game, and it's a quite difficult game, so take your time, think and plan. I've been playing around, trying different approaches, and it's been really interesting and engaging so far.
Buy it.