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Darkwood (Survival horror)

Latro

Arcane
Joined
Jun 5, 2013
Messages
7,343
Location
Vita umbratilis
interesting game, the night sequence is really cool.

you progress through the story during the day while preparing for night, and then you prepare your anus for monsters outside your door. very good home invasion simulator.
 
Joined
Nov 29, 2016
Messages
1,832
Fuuuuck. I need to get out of the Silent Forest as quickly as possible.

Yeah, I know complained, but the nights have been brutal. I died to savages after my staff broke after deciding to conserve molotovs. Staff broke in the middle of the fight.

This night, however, actually destroyed every shred of safety I had before. Basically, I stayed in the two rooms in the intact part of the main house, the ones not separated by a door (so I guess they could be considered one big room) and with a large hole I used as an entrance. The hole would be barricaded by both the large and the small wardrobe, as well as the table, and I would stand in such a way that I could only be seen through one window (under which a bear trap was placed). Pretty good, I thought. Well...

On the third night in this hideout the sky became thick with crows and I knew what this meant. Soon I heard heavy, shambling footsteps and something pushed against my barricade. The barricade was elaborate enough to give me plenty of time to either molotov or hide behind the wall. Having just died due to being too cheap to use a molotov, I decided to go ahead and incinerate the bastard. The banshee screamed as she died in the blaze, and the room was plunged into darkness as the scream killed the lights. I stumbled blindly through the darkness towards the fire, desperate to cover up the hole, but something hit me and suddenly three deformed bird-things were on me. I flailed around in the darkness, killing one and taking more damage, before the lights came back and I finished them off.

That is when I noticed that my wardrobe had fucking exploded, presumably due to being set on fire by molotov. So, protip: Do not set your own furniture on fire. I was now fucked, as the large wardrobe was the only furniture capable of blocking line of sight! That is also when a strange glow coming from one of the windows took my attention, and I looked through the cracks to see a ring of fire inside of which was a gutted corpse of a person or animal or...something. I was shaken, and even more so when I heard the "GLUK GLUK" of a savage coming out of the darkness past where my barricade once stood. It jumped into the room and I beat it down, then frantically moved the table to block off the narrowest point in the room, and soon the morning came.

At this point my option is to relocate to the generator room and go full siege mode: barricade everything, bear trap under every window inside AND outside the hideout. I have a surplus of gas, scrap, and wood, but not sure how long its going to last as such a setup is extremely inefficient. It is also the only setup I have with my wardrobe gone...

By the way, I have Indiegogo content disabled, but I still got the fourth-wall breaking dream. I wonder if that's a bug or if that just happens to everyone by default.
 

sser

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Mar 10, 2011
Messages
1,866,637
Are you supposed to sorta set up shop in other hideout areas? I've noticed a few have generators. Right now I just started Day 6 or 7 and I seriously have no fucking idea what I'm supposed to be doing :lol:

Already been killed twice, too. Dude rolls over for anything that ain't a dog.
 
Joined
Nov 29, 2016
Messages
1,832
Are you supposed to sorta set up shop in other hideout areas? I've noticed a few have generators. Right now I just started Day 6 or 7 and I seriously have no fucking idea what I'm supposed to be doing :lol:

Already been killed twice, too. Dude rolls over for anything that ain't a dog.

Sounds like you are describing regular houses. You will know that a hideout is an actual hideout if it has the usual hideout things: protective gas pipes, stove, generator, sawmill, workbench, etc. There is a single hideout in every region. If you look at the map, there are three clearly distinct areas: Dry Meadow, Silent Forest, and Old Woods (aka rapezone.) I believe Chapter 2 might be just one big map with a single hideout in the center, but I could be wrong.

As for combat, yeah, if all you have is a plank&nails then anything larger than a dog will end you. Evasion is always superior to combat - less resources and health wasted.
 

sser

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Mar 10, 2011
Messages
1,866,637
Yeah, fought a stick-wielding savage in the darkness. I'm pretty sure that stick wasn't that long but he must've had a big black dildo on the end of it because I felt like a thickass shadow was smashing me from a lot further distance than it should have. Also curious if upgrading items is worth it. Takes a lot of resources to do. Maybe if I make a shovel and go skulldigging with I'll pitch in for some better hardiness. Oh and my last night something kept pushing the door to the room open and I kept pushing a side table back to close it while ghosts and other shit talked to me outside the windows. No idea what was on the other side of the door.
 

Mynon

Dumbfuck!
Dumbfuck
Joined
Apr 28, 2017
Messages
1,138
Lack of interest in this game was disappointing. Marketing campaign was pretty good and the game received solid amount of hype from the journos, and yet there is comparatively little talk about it and it vanished from Steam top sellers pretty fast.
 
Joined
Nov 29, 2016
Messages
1,832
Lack of interest in this game was disappointing. Marketing campaign was pretty good and the game received solid amount of hype from the journos, and yet there is comparatively little talk about it and it vanished from Steam top sellers pretty fast.

Well it could be the fault of the developers and their choice (or need, as the case may be) to do such an early/long early access release. This led to a lot of people who usually raise awareness to these types of games (obnoxious e-celebs, streamers, facecam let's players) to pounce on the game early while it still had a lot of attention from the second gameplay trailer and indiegogo campaign and maybe even do a 15 minute first impressions ""review"" before burning out or quitting because the game was too hard for them did not hold their hand.

This doesn't explain the fact that the more """professional""" game journo publications like your PC Gamers and RockPaperShotguns still haven't produced a review for the release version, despite covering the game quite a bit during the indiegogo hype. Destructoid still hasn't finished its review despite being provided with a review copy, and all they published was some low-substance article a day before release: https://www.destructoid.com/review-in-progress-darkwood-455237.phtml

Here is a choice quote from the article which explains why a lot of people will have trouble playing/writing about the game:

it does a poor job of communicating what players should spend their time doing

I remember the very first alpha version when you did not get the multiple hints to check on the Underground Entrance but it was merely the only location marked on your map at the beginning of the game, and that was enough of an implication for me to investigate it first. I made the correct guess that refueling the generator is probably important because, I don't know, light is probably a really fucking good idea in a survival horror game?

This is a game whose systems, along with the player's experience, naturally push the player towards doing things. Combat seems hard and pointless? It is almost as if one is only meant to fight as a last resort. Yet in one of the early alphas, a youtuber called SplatterCatGaming ran around trying to kill dogs and savages with a plank&nails and rage quit the game after dying repeatedly. You don't know what you should be doing? I don't know, how about you check the things that you fucking need to survive: gas, nails and wood for barricades at the very least, and go explore to fetch those. Moreover, this is a game where the advice that the NPCs give you is actually helpful: don't get into fights, don't venture out of Dry Meadow until you are prepared, make sure you are back at the hideout before nightfall, etc. And that's not to mention the numerous hints added to the game specifically to address the above criticism, like a note taped to the generator telling you that refueling it is important - a note telling you that light is important in a freaking horror game where nights are pitch-black!

So yeah, it seems that journos have no trouble regurgitating the same low-substance commentary about the game that we've heard for 4 years, but they have much trouble actually playing it once they realize that it is not designed for mentally deficient people. That is not too say that Darkwood is some sort of golden standard of difficulty, but apparently the game's current state is enough to give a lot of people trouble. I would actually argue that the game had been made too easy, from the beginner-friendly Dry Meadow that is almost boring if you are an experienced player, to the aforementioned removal of enemies from certain key locations.
 

MasPingon

Arcane
Joined
May 13, 2007
Messages
1,785
Location
Castle Rock
I bought this about 3 years ago cause it looked like a game with a great potential. It was early access ofcourse, but the game felt like it's so early stage in development I lost my interest in it and felt somehow cheated, so I can understand all those not-so-enthusiastic reactions. They have made a big mistake to sell such a half baked product. Is it finished now?
 
Joined
Nov 29, 2016
Messages
1,832
Strange, I remember playing a game really similar to this one many years ago, like 2003 or something. Same top down perspective, same protagonist with a hat. Is this a remake?

Could the game you played be Fiend, a freeware top-down horror game by Frictional Games (of Amnesia's fame)?
 

Matalarata

Arcane
Patron
Joined
May 8, 2013
Messages
2,646
Location
The threshold line
most of the incline comes from poles/russians these days

slav master-race


Strangely self-aware, too...

mN2FtH6.png
 

Grotesque

±¼ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Patron
Vatnik
Joined
Apr 16, 2012
Messages
8,968
Divinity: Original Sin Divinity: Original Sin 2
Darkwood is a good damn game.
I even felt guilty for torrenting it and bought the damn thing!
 
Last edited:

Grotesque

±¼ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Patron
Vatnik
Joined
Apr 16, 2012
Messages
8,968
Divinity: Original Sin Divinity: Original Sin 2
Hotfix 2 launched on steam earlier. I saved and exited the game.
Now the save file is nowhere in the load menu.
Anyone else having this problem?

EDIT: a prompt rollback was made
 
Last edited:
Joined
Nov 29, 2016
Messages
1,832
Turns out you can repair wrecked furniture, or at least the wardrobes. Hold click and "build," costs planks and nails as expected.

Also, it looks like you only need 2 toolboxes for upgrades, so buying more than that is a waste.
 

TheAcidWizards

Acid Wizard Studio
Developer
Joined
Aug 22, 2017
Messages
1
Hi guys, Maciej from Acid Wizard Studio here. Just wanted to say it's awesome to see this thread is still alive and thank you for buying the game!

We recently did a ~6h Reddit AMA (where we answered A LOT of questions), so you might find that interesting: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/6uhzyw/were_afraid_to_play_horror_games_so_we_quit_our/

If anyone here would like to stream or review the game, just hit us up via Keymailer: https://keymailer.co/g/games/11771 or Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheAcidWizard

Also, we've been working hard on fixing all the reported bugs. If you have one to report, please send it to help@acidwizardstudio.com.

My brother thought this game was about a hobo's deliriums after years sniffing shoe glue Lol

Haha, we've also heard it's a "100% accurate Denmark simulator", but prefer to think of Darkwood as a means for releasing your inner interior (and exterior) decorator ;)

Thanks :)
 
Last edited:

Grotesque

±¼ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Patron
Vatnik
Joined
Apr 16, 2012
Messages
8,968
Divinity: Original Sin Divinity: Original Sin 2
Is there a way to return to the woods from the swamp??

I came unprepared in the swamp and now it sucks ass big time.
 
Joined
Nov 29, 2016
Messages
1,832
So today I learned how this game triggers quest progression and other reactive content by fucking up a questline and bothering the devs about it. It checks for the items you picked up that go in the "Items" section of your journal, so if you kill a certain character, the quests associated with them might not advance until you pick up an item from their corpse. Always make sure to loot the bodies of named characters for them.

Unfortunately I had killed the Pretty Lady because I planned on giving Wolfman the key and had assumed that he'd eat her, so I wanted to spare her unnecessary suffering. I didn't think to loot her corpse, though, as I had already "looted" her by taking her blanket. Now this is the weird part: Musician reacted to her death, while Wolfman didn't because I did not have the shawl from her corpse when speaking with him. One of the developers suggested that I kill the Chicken Lady on the Steam Forums, which only succeeded in pissing Wolf off, so now I've pretty much fucked up my "Wolfman best friend forever" playthrough. To be fair to the devs, the issue was confusing so they gave me advice thinking that I had received the next set of Wolf's instructions but ended up forgetting or didn't see it for whatever reason. Unfortunately this does mean that I will probably restart my entire run.

On the plus side, that is an impressive amount of solutions to that quest. So we've got five ways through it, I think:
1. Wolfman's quest
2. Musician's quest
3. Kill Pretty Lady, come back to Wolfman, kill Chicken Lady
4. Kill Chicken Lady, get her map
5. Find the road to the doctor's hideout yourself (???)
 
Joined
Nov 29, 2016
Messages
1,832
TheAcidWizards Just curious, did you guys check in with GOG, Steam, and/or other distributors before doing this and, and if you are allowed to tell us, what was their response?

It seems like a smart PR strategy to be honest. Acid Wizards don't really lose anything (let's be honest, everybody already knew where to torrent the game from if need be) but appear to stick it to the key re-sellers (who many other indie devs complained about) and gain a bunch of publicity.. Totalbiscuit and the Superhot devs have already retweeted this.
 

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