Game News Kickstarter for Darkest Dungeon Goes Live

Tags: Darkest Dungeon; Red Hook Studios

The Kickstarter for Darkest Dungeon, dungeon crawler with stress management elements which we had a thread about in the forums, has just gone live:

Uncompromising, unforgiving, and unconventional, we present a fresh take on the dungeon crawler that elevates the importance of sound tactics and a character's mental state over their gear.

You will recruit, train, and lead a team of flawed heroes through twisted forests, forgotten warrens, ruined crypts and beyond. You'll battle not only unimaginable foes, but stress, famine, disease, and the ever-encroaching dark. Uncover strange mysteries, and pit the heroes against an array of fearsome monsters with an innovative strategic turn-based combat system.

You will have to tend to characters’ spirits as much as you do to their Hit Points. But in these grim situations, you'll find opportunities for true heroism!



FEATURES

• The Affliction System – heroes' personalities are paramount! Contend with paranoia, abusiveness, fear, irrationality, and a host of gameplay-meaningful quirks
• Striking hand-drawn gothic crowquill art style
• Innovative turn-based combat pits you against a host of diabolical monsters
• Classic CRPG and roguelike features, including meaningful permadeath, procedural dungeons, and incredible replay
• A distinctive game world featuring over a dozen unique playable character classes such as the Plague Doctor, the Highwayman, and even the Leper!
• Town meta-game – tend to your heroes wounds, both corporeal and cerebral
• Loot! Gold, jewels, heirlooms, and mystical trinkets. Not to mention upgradable armor, weapons, and consumable supplies.
• Things That Once Seen Can Never Be Unseen...

​

I'd rather the dungeon wasn't randomly generated but the game does sound interesting overall. $15 gets you a digital copy. For other rewards, as well as a more detailed description of the game's combat, classes, etc., I will refer you to the Kickstarter page.

Also, to learn more about the game's mechanics, you may want to check out this Q&A with the developers from back in December. Here's a snippet:

Q: Where will the player recruit these heroes?

[Chris] The Pub, where else! Players who check their pubs will notice that wandering freelancers come and go. Inspecting these heroes will reveal their quirks, proclivities, skills and gear, and players will be able to decide if they are a good fit for their roster. Once a hero is hired, players can continue to upgrade, modify and refine them.

Q: How many heroes can the player recruit?

[Tyler] The cap will be somewhere around 15 or 20. We want you to be able to have a few teams going at a time if you want, and be able to swap heros around based upon condition, level, and so on.

Q: Are the heroes randomly generated, or will the same set of heroes be appearing in every game?

[Chris] Heroes are randomly generated, and will wander into a player’s town periodically. Your overall town level and other factors will determine which classes are available, and players can expect adventurers of varying seniority to show up. Some will have advanced gear and abilities, while others will be green recruits.​

 

I'm not really a fan of that art style, but the state of mood system sound like it could be interesting, if implemented correctly. I remember being really excited about having a similar system present in Indigo Prophecy, but there it didn't really do much.

 

Mike Mignola artstyle is best artstyle.

 

I wonder if traits of classes are fixed or whether we can customize characters to our liking. Either way, bound to back.

 

Loving the art and the concept. Backed.

 

Well well, this looks interesting and nice. Not to mention original. I hope it won't just be a gimmick. Reminds me of Diablo (atmosphere wise), only better. Keeping my fingers cross for a financial success and good stretch goals! I think this game is unique enough to deserve it.

Edit: Also hoping for quality and interesting randomization which is pretty important for a game like this.

 

Looks interesting, but too many games too little time, so I will have to pass.

 

the same.

 

Gameplay-meaningful yet unscripted personality traits and conversations ... oh yes.

 

i wanna play an archer who has ocd and is very upset when his arrows don't hit the right spot

will hold full opinion til proper gameplay is show; am curious how dungeoneering goes and how linear things are (currently they look quite linear)

music sample and overall fluff/flavor is p cool; just gotta see how it throws down. description of the mechanics are pretty vague and i can't tell if things like "the highwayman distrusts the plague doctor" are set for classes or if each time you make a character they might distrust each other in different ways

still, might be a nice time waster

 

looks fucking great. would bake but no credit card

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no seriously

 

tHE HORROR... The horror...

 

I was bummed by that too, but looking at how heavily abstracted navigating the dungeon is, it doesn't sound bad actually. it's less like a procedurally-generated maze and more like random encounters.

 

Concept sounds neat as all fuck, I do love me some dungeons and resource management\survival.

Backed

 

I love the art and the sidescroller style but not so sure about characters. Are they fixed or customizable? Looks like it's only four characters atm which isn't terribly interesting despite how interesting the rest of the game sounds.

 

Random generation sounds great to me. It's hard to stay horrified when you have the layout memorized.

 

I don't like the sound of "recruit a team of heroes", as in selected from a list of pre-generated characters. I expect full party creation in a classic dungeon crawler. If one wanted to go in with a party of four plague doctors, that should be the player's choice.

 

Might as well wait for their update on character creation etc., before deciding how much to back with.

 

There is at least one other character

Hey wait, there's another one click
Also, there are at least two more: the Bounty Hunter and the Leper.

And somewhere I saw a character creation/level up screen with point buy stats. So characters aren't completely static. ... Unless I dreamed that; I can't find it now.

I do suspect that their personalities are preprogrammed ... but hey, maybe even that is variable by character type.

 

That looks awesome - I might just back my first Kickstarter...

 

Backed.



I'm starting to be low on money though. Oh well, who the hell cares.

 

Highly informative Q&A on Ultimate Game Database.

 

This is cool. I'll add it to the OP.

 

Surprising I didn't see this one earlier. Thanks for the heads up. Looks kewl. I especially love the art and concept. Heroes going into a dark dungeon and slowly going nuts? There's something appropriate about it all.

 

Love the art style.
I'd prefer the presentation was more like Yet Another Blobber, and I'd prefer that the randomization was minimal (i.e. central quests and parts of the levels not be random). But as it stands, it looks like it has potential.

Backed.