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Darkwood (Survival horror)

toughasnails

Guest
But yeah, this is basically almost a top down pathologic albeit with a lot less text.
:love:
I would say that there is less anxiety in relation to time management and survival than in Pathologic but the world itself is more oppressive and anxiety inducing than Pathologic's. And there is p much not a drop of brightness or hope to writing, it's continuous gut punches...
 

HoboForEternity

sunset tequila
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
btw are some locations randomly placed? i watched ragnarox's video essay and in his map the wolf's camp are completely in a different place than mine.
Here's how map randomisation in Darkwood works. There is method to the madness.

Upon starting the game, it randomly draws one map outline from - I'm guessing here - a pool of about half-a-dozen to a dozen. Here's an example of a map outline:
2020-03-27-0950-5.png

The placement of primary locations on these maps is not completely random. They seem to follow a grid based pattern.

For example, in the map above, the grid would look something like this:
darkwood-3.png

Everywhere a horizontal and a vertical blue line meet there is a very high probability of a primary location being placed there. On top of that, the whereabouts of primary locations seem to be set in stone for each map outline (meaning that, whatever map outline you get, the hideouts, the pig shed, whatever will always be in the exact same spot).

What DOES get changed around (and completely randomly too) are the whereabouts of the secondary locations, including the Wolfman's camp. You can tell the difference by the size of the icons on the map: large icon = primary location, small icon = secondary location. Secondary locations can end up pretty much anywhere on the map (within the biomes they're assigned to).
It's sheer brilliance in how the world was generated is how handcrafted it feels. Without comparison, i'd think it was manually placed at least most of the layouts.
 

Jinn

Arcane
Joined
Nov 8, 2007
Messages
4,930
Darkwood's method of randomization is one of the finest examples of how to do it right, while maintaining the vital feeling of a handcrafted world. Definitely agree, it's another example of the brilliance this game manages to achieve.
 
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Joined
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Messages
1,832
I miss the old random generation tuning with larger biomes. There was an actual possibility of getting lost back in the day. Early alphas were a bit too j'adore hardcore in just having 1 massive expanse as a biome where you could quickly get lost, so I appreciate the change towards biomes for better pacing and easier navigation, but I feel like shrinking the biomes afterwards made for an overly condensed game world compared to the beta versions.
 

Ash

Arcane
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
6,230
There is still most definitely potential to get lost, between current location not being displayed unless at a marked location, and darkness approaching which obscures vision substantially. But yes, it is not hardcore orienteering/is relatively manageable. Absolutely beyond hardcore by modern standards though unfortunately.
 

Wunderbar

Arcane
Joined
Nov 15, 2015
Messages
8,809
I totally forgot it was an early access title.

I think they originally planned a hunger system? That's why you keep finding pieces of meat everywhere, but instead of eating it you just inject it into your veins.
 
Joined
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Messages
1,832
There is still most definitely potential to get lost, between current location not being displayed unless at a marked location, and darkness approaching which obscures vision substantially. But yes, it is not hardcore orienteering/is relatively manageable. Absolutely beyond hardcore by modern standards though unfortunately.

Certainly, there is enough challenge for the first playthrough.

I totally forgot it was an early access title.

I think they originally planned a hunger system? That's why you keep finding pieces of meat everywhere, but instead of eating it you just inject it into your veins.

I've played since the first alpha (oh yeah I bet you are impressed by my e-peen flex, yeah, that's right, now you gotta whip out your own digital phallus and do some kegel exercises to appease the male gaze of the hetero-performative socio-ritual mating-dance, biiiiiiiiiiitch ((sorry, got carried away for a second))) and I do not recall any hunger mechanics. AFAIR meat's primary role was always as bait for trap and trader trash. Now, odd meat that you get from bunnies etc, is a decent XP boost.
 

Ash

Arcane
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
6,230
People need to bitch an complain about the Hard Mode mod. It has a lot of potential if only the dev could see the forest for the trees.
 

HoboForEternity

sunset tequila
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Finally reached the swamp.on one hand, the atmosphere is less oppressing than the old woods imo (i will never forget the feeling of slowing going between trees with barely any vision hearing that dreadful scream of a chomper somewhere)


On the other hand, the new creatures are cool and it feels like the culmination and arena to show off player's skills and experience we got in chapter 1. But it's a lot more combat heavy and with upgraded axe (sharpened, light material, very sturdy blade) its almost empowering and i can beat most enemies easily unless they crowd on me.

As for the story we're getting a lot more exposition in greater frequency than in chapter 1, and i like the pace so far.
 

HoboForEternity

sunset tequila
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Bros, i sold the shovel you got from chapter 2 in the snail's house, now i cant dig trash for the compressor part. I tried searching for spawning savages that drop the stick to craft shovel, but cannot find them. I tried visiting the bonfire wherr they spawned but can't find them. Am i fucked?
 
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Bros, i sold the shovel you got from chapter 2 in the snail's house, now i cant dig trash for the compressor part. I tried searching for spawning savages that drop the stick to craft shovel, but cannot find them. I tried visiting the bonfire wherr they spawned but can't find them. Am i fucked?

Stick wielding savages have a chance to spawn at night to attack the swamp hideout, so if you can't find anymore complete shovels or sticks in the overworld, that would be your best bet.
 

HoboForEternity

sunset tequila
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Disco Elysium
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Bros, i sold the shovel you got from chapter 2 in the snail's house, now i cant dig trash for the compressor part. I tried searching for spawning savages that drop the stick to craft shovel, but cannot find them. I tried visiting the bonfire wherr they spawned but can't find them. Am i fucked?

Stick wielding savages have a chance to spawn at night to attack the swamp hideout, so if you can't find anymore complete shovels or sticks in the overworld, that would be your best bet.
I got it bros luckily there is a stick in a chest in the quarry.

my character is kinda an ass. First he killed the pig and made the villager starve.now i massacred them because some mushroom lady kindly asked me to.

But i did made friend with
the musician who squat in my house and he's by far rhe friendliest character in the game honest. He brings me dead rat and stuff if i allow him to stay in my house lol. So pretty much he'sjust very ugly, poison spewing house cat
 

HoboForEternity

sunset tequila
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Finished the game. Seriously goty contender. Took 36 hours, doing everything i can, but not everything since i didnt use a guide (until i Finished the game, then reload the epilogue to see the true ending)


So the story is basically. (This is before i look anything regarding spoilers)

there is this being that somehow manifested in a woods somewhere in eastern europe. It was first detected in 1975 by the crew in radio tower that got assaulted by crazed locals. Over the years, the woods grow denser and a plague started spreading and it either kill or turn people into savages and various monsters. The woods started engulfing everything, all the characters we see are trapped. The protagonist were able to "break trough" the woods, but they are either trapped within some kind of collective dreams/hallucinations or they fell into the sleep later possibly after the tree burning. The ending slides kinda imply at least some part of the woods are real so either at some point in the swamp, the player fell into hallucinations, or the slides are just misleading and everything we play in the game are already part of the collective dreams.


i think it's more of the earlier than later because we do see the protagonist clothes in the giant being tree.
But either way, the protagonists were able to wake up, got himself a flame thrower and destroyed it all, and set ablaze the whole zone.
 

Riskbreaker

Guest
It's implied that the entity arrived via/as a meteorite.
Anyway, whilst the game is still fresh in your mind, read
Lovecraft's "The Color out Space".
You can easily find it online, or go for some of the many readings on YT.
Just do it. Once you do, you'll see why I recommend it in connection with Darkwood.
 

HoboForEternity

sunset tequila
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
When do you think the
"dreaming " started? The prologue after the doctor found you and you got eaten by black chompers and took you the meadow, or after you enter the ashses of burning tree?

It still can be either imo, but i left the doctor alive, in chapter 2 he's basically degenerated into the savage with sticks and mud protuding out of his face, but in the true end epilogue, the doctor looks normal. The same with the protagonist. In the true ending epilogue, he looked normal, emanciated and in a bad shape, but not disfigured like the one we wee in the mirror reflection event.


But at the same, the ending slides says piotrek's rocket can be seen out of the forest escaping the fire. (I thought piotrek crashed and that's the wreckage in the junkyard in chapter 2)
 

agentorange

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hasty thoughts on the story. i tried not to look at any speculations by other people

I think the character that you play as for most of the game, including the Prologue, is himself a clone made by the forest. The character you play as in the Epilogue isn't the same character, but is the "real" protagonist who at some point got hypnotized by the entity and joined everyone else in some eternal dream/group consciousness. This is why characters mention multiple times that you are disfigured, can't speak, etc. And you can see in the mirror that there is clearly something wrong with you; but despite this the character you play as in the ending looks perfectly normal. Like the planet in Solaris the entity is making approximations of humans/animals and basically turning the entire forest, including all individuals in it, into a single organism/its own body (this was also meant to be the original twist in the Stalker game, that you are playing as a clone formed out of conscious energy of the noosphere).

Also somewhat explains why during the game you have multiple dreams where you are seeing stuff you shouldn't be aware of (even views of the past), because the clone has access to all the memories and consciousness of the group/the whole forest.

The merchant is similarly a clone, possibly one of the people you entered the forest with, or he could be one of the very early residents of the forest, and is a breakaway from the entity, which is why later on you find his corpse with the word "liar" carved into his mask. Because he was a traitor to the forest/the entity. The doctor also talks about the fact that you are like a virus and the reason all the monsters are trying to kill you is because they are an immune system/white blood cells of the forest, so this reinforces the fact that you are like a rogue/cancerous cell in the organism.

Although this part gets harder to understand, I think the clone killing the giant tree was real (if you took that ending path), but the part after it is the dream of the real protagonist (around the time you enter the ashes). The "path out of the forest" is like a failsafe for the entity in case someone starts waking up, it lulls them into thinking they have escaped so they again return to sleeping. The clone killing that giant tree weakened the group consciousness enough to where the real protagonist could start noticing there was something off in his eternal dream, finally resulting in him waking up and burning everything down.

So I'm of the opinion that the vast majority of the game is real, the forest is real, dreams aren't so much dreams as the entity altering the world around itself/psychically manifesting its consciousness into reality.
 
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Silva

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Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
hasty thoughts on the story. i tried not to look at any speculations by other people

I think the character that you play as for most of the game, including the Prologue, is himself a clone made by the forest. The character you play as in the Epilogue isn't the same character, but is the "real" protagonist who at some point got hypnotized by the entity and joined everyone else in some eternal dream/group consciousness. This is why characters mention multiple times that you are disfigured, can't speak, etc. And you can see in the mirror that there is clearly something wrong with you; but despite this the character you play as in the ending looks perfectly normal. Like the planet in Solaris the entity is making approximations of humans/animals and basically turning the entire forest, including all individuals in it, into a single organism/its own body (this was also meant to be the original twist in the Stalker game, that you are playing as a clone formed out of conscious energy of the noosphere).

Also somewhat explains why during the game you have multiple dreams where you are seeing stuff you shouldn't be aware of (even views of the past), because the clone has access to all the memories and consciousness of the group/the whole forest.

The merchant is similarly a clone, possibly one of the people you entered the forest with, or he could be one of the very early residents of the forest, and is a breakaway from the entity, which is why later on you find his corpse with the word "liar" carved into his mask. Because he was a traitor to the forest/the entity. The doctor also talks about the fact that you are like a virus and the reason all the monsters are trying to kill you is because they are an immune system/white blood cells of the forest, so this reinforces the fact that you are like a rogue/cancerous cell in the organism.

Although this part gets harder to understand, I think the clone killing the giant tree was real (if you took that ending path), but the part after it is the dream of the real protagonist (around the time you enter the ashes). The "path out of the forest" is like a failsafe for the entity in case someone starts waking up, it lulls them into thinking they have escaped so they again return to sleeping. The clone killing that giant tree weakened the group consciousness enough to where the real protagonist could start noticing there was something off in his eternal dream, finally resulting in him waking up and burning everything down.

So I'm of the opinion that the vast majority of the game is real, the forest is real, dreams aren't so much dreams as the entity altering the world around itself/psychically manifesting its consciousness into reality.
Thanks for this. It's more or less my interpretation as well.

Say, does the other ending shares more light in the mystery? The one where you must go to the radio tower (or something)? I don't mind spoilers. I've chickened out when I saw it was the harder path and went to the big tree instead.
 

SumDrunkGuy

Guest
Wow, I was really excited to play this and I boot it up and it has... SNES graphics. This game was made in the 2010s. WHY DOES IT HAVE RETRO STYLE GRAPHICS!? FUCK. OFFFFFFF.

Chernobylite gets here tomorrow. I guess I'll just wait till then so I can play a real survival horror game. What a joke.
 
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wishbonetail

Learned
Joined
Oct 18, 2021
Messages
671
Darkwood is really something else, one of a kind. Don't know how to compare it to any other game.
Chernobilyte is tropey as fuck, nothing to write home about. STALKER did better.
 

SumDrunkGuy

Guest
Chernobylite turned out to be a simplified Fallout 4. We'll call it Fallout 4: Tactics. I am completely distraught. Gonna give Weird West a try a pray for something interesting. I might even give Darkwood another shot. Even that seems more interesting than Chernobylite. I was sold snake oil.
 

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