Darkwood by developer Acid Wizard Studio shows what indie development is all about. The game’s idea came about in 2013 and after a successful indiegogo campaign got released via steam in 2014. The game was still in its alpha stage and gradually developed based on user input. Truly a game by the people, for the people. 2017 saw the game basically finalised. Now console players can check out what they’ve been missing.
These woods aren’t safe for us
The game takes place in a (presumably) eastern part of Europe. You are the “stranger” and are stuck in an isolated forest. The woods seemingly consumed the whole area and trapped everyone inside. To top things off, the area suffered from a plague-like disease which has transformed all the life in the area to either death or a mutated form. Some of these mutated forms can still help you but most are just out to destroy you. It’s your mission to try to escape this isolated madness.
Survival
Darkwood is a survival horror game with extra emphasis on the survival part. Darkwood works on a day and night cycle. During the night the horrors come out to hunt for you. Your primal objective is to survive these nights so you can further plan your escape during the day. Scavenging the area around your base camp will give you a limited amount of supplies. Some of these can be turned in a rudimentary weapon while others can be used to barricade your base. Upgrading your workbench as soon as possible might give you more chances for survival.
Horror
As you might’ve noticed from the screenshots, Darkwood goes for a top-down 2D perspective. How could 2D pixels ever invoke horror, you might ask. Well the thing Darkwood does really well is not going for the obvious gore and jump scares. Darkwood goes for a sense of dread and isolation by means of two things. Firstly your visibility is restricted to the part you shine your light at. Even during the daytime, you need your flashlight in the overgrown wood. Enemies are only seen when you shine light on them. Getting chased by an enemy can be pretty unnerving because inevitably you’ll lose sight of it during running.
Secondly the soundscapes used in Darkwood are phenomenal. The real star of the game in my opinion. The main reason why the horror aspect works in this game comes forth from the perfect use of sound. The sound starts to intensify when the night falls indicating you better get to your base and barricade yourself safely in a room. Once the horrors try to get to you, your light source starts to diminish and the sound intensifies to a crescendo. All while you hear scratchy sounds and doors opening. The sense of dread this invoked in me was something I hadn’t experienced much before. The sense of relief was big each time the darkness faded and the daytime started.
Still a PC game
As mentioned before, Darkwood was originally a PC game. The transition made to port it to the consoles lacks a bit of translation in my opinion. It still feels like most actions would be much easier if you could use a mouse. The inventory management feels quite clunky which is a shame since you’ll be spending quite some time with it. The combat was another thing I found cumbersome and would be easier with a mouse. Besides these gameplay hiccups, the game suffered from slowdowns for no apparent reason. If this happened during a battle you were surely done which was extremely annoying.
Conclusion
Darkwood succeeds in creating a great story and the suspense to go along with it. Every choice you make is important which felt great for the immersive factor. The let downs mentioned in the previous paragraph made me decide Darkwood should probably be played on the PC instead of on a console. Hopefully, some future updates can fix this huge caveat. Console owners deserve to experience this kind of horror as it is intended.
