i'm hard when i think about you

The time is right, your perfume fills my head, the stars get red And, oh, the night's so blue

And then I go and spoil it all by saying something stupid

Like, "I love you"

i've been playing a lot of darwkwood and i wanna write about it

 no fluff no fat, this is all just off the top of my head

it's a game about gathering resources and crafting materials to make weapons and defenses for the purposes of surviving the night. the woods are dark and chalk full of rabid dogs and crazy cultists and other such mutated abominations and you're to scrap together rusty shovels, molotovs, shifty pistols, and single fire shotguns if you're to survive

days are split in two with half being slow systematic exploration and the other being tense home-alone styled showdowns and somewhere in the midst of all your day-to-day surviving you're gathering key items to progress the story and character questlines for different endings and such

inventory and hotbar, managing what you bring on every trek, balancing having enough free space for looting and enough healing to not die, this is the SOUL of darkwood's strategery, and what roots it in a kind of survival-crafting-horror type combo which is pretty unique for its genre

darkwood thrives on its openness and depth in combat

while melee weapons stay reliable the whole game you're left a positive smorgasboard's of other options at your monster-slaying disposal; from aforementioned guns for emergencies and reliable mow-downs, to molotovs for situationally risky room clears, to gas bombs to knife throws to bear traps to 'splodable gas tanks to any other option in between

your base moveset is nothing but swings, dodges, and a sprint, but really your moveset extends to any of the other dozens of different ways you can go about defending yourself when invaders come invading in the night

the artstyle is beautiful. a gorgeous mix of gritty pixel-art and insanely detailed hand-drawings of wolf-men in cloaks and historically accurate war-relics all beautifully taking advantage of darkwood's very gritty soviet setting. amazing man, impeccable sound design that makes you FEEL like your wood is dark, fucking excellent music in those few moments the game has it, gguhgugghgugh

it's an amazing game, and there truly is nothing like it, not from a gameplay, setting, or really any perspective. absolute 10/10, the best thing i've ever played

buuut i can name some downsides

*some*. more like two

i wish the game had more fights. more fights and more gameplay, darkwood combat is fucking AMAZING and it's such a shame to me how limited those REALLY good fights are in an average playthrough, but this is something you'll tend to notice more in repeat plays however

really, and really really, my biggest wish was just more plain replayability, as darkwood is built with "enough" variability to support say, 3-4 playthroughs, but past that a lot of it gets samey fairly quick, which is a shame when mixed with darkwood's relatively short run time 

i just wish there were more game here, desperately, but i think when your biggest complaint about a game is just that you wanted more, at that point just stop glazing bro we get it 🥀🥀🥀

but there is more

there are a lot of ways to spice up additional playthroughs; for one mods, i haven't experimented with vanilla altering mods but Holdout is a fun enough mode for people like who want to experience JUST combat,

it lacks some of that same weight as base game, when REAL shit is on the line with stuff like limited resources, ammo, lives, etc etc etc, but it's fun enough and works as a good distraction thats mostly just mindless and inoffensive

difficulties help a lot too

i'll say i have mixed feelings about nightmare; it feels REALLY good when you survive, but i feel darkwood's usual pacing really tends to SUFFER on those repeat playthrough specifically in the early sections, and darkwood feels slightly not properly built around hardcore modes that end your whole playthrough,

but i think hard mode WORKS, very very well. it adds great stakes without being too punishing, and it feels very seamlessly built in with finding eggs to gain additional lives actually being a game mechanic, almost making me wonder whether this was the default mode darkwood was imagined to be shipped in

mostly, here's my tea; start up the game, say in either hard mode or hardcore if you're spicy, literally just grab the torch and rush straight to the fucking silent forest,. on a new playthough it might take maybe 7-15 minutes, but this is a good way to set up new playthroughs and cut right to the action, given dry meadow is definitely more of  a "tutorial area" for newer players

also 'sides that, do some questlines; The Wolfman vs Musician questlines are pretty unique, and present pretty different styles of plot progression, even if it mostly kind of ends just the same with the eventual doctor showdown and trek through the swamp

the more 

silent forest is great. it represents the REAL start to the game, and while challenging, it feels comfortable enough that you can adjust to certain base game mechanics, like managing ammo and really strategising a good hotbar. the house is bigger and promotes more thoughtful trapping and barricading, enemies slowly increase in strength going from dog attacks and cultist assaults to throwing the occasional banshee that explodes into a pile of babies at you, and there's this smooth transition from planks and nails to sharpened shovels, trusty pistols, and emergency molotovs which just feels tantalising on a first playthrough

the old woods are FUCKING hard, representing a HUGE spike in difficulty and presenting a real challenge to the player. chompers are terrifying, being the new shiny enemy of the area and combining the most dangerous aspects of both the cultists and the dogs into one dangerous sumbitch of an enemy. they deal crazy damage, they take a lot of damage to kill, they can open doors, and they charge at you with so much fury you're likely to die a LOT here just learning how to survive

they're the first enemy to test you on your sprinting of all things, with the base dodge being not nearly enough to dodge their charge. they require careful timing with swings, good movement and prediction with you having to temporarily lose vision of them to dodge and sprint round their attacks, and as a result, they are EASILY the best fights you will have in the whole game, REALLY encouraging you to get creative with how many great ways there are of taking them out

darkwood is an immersive sim, through and through. short and sweet, endlessly deep, endlessly stressful, and the Old Woods are the culmination of this

The Swamp is..... eh....? 

pretty good still, but a HUGE departure from the status quo built in the first area, representing a kind of swansong or rising/falling action in the story. basically, guns. guns and guns and guns, ammo is practically everywhere and right around here you go from the regular pistol + shitty single fire shotgun combo to a full on double barrel and even a fucking full auto AK which is INSANE

early darkwood combat is defined by just how hard it links into the resource gathering mechanics. you need planks and nails for barricades, scrap metal for repairing weapons, cloth and alcohol for molotovs, glass bottles for glass traps or gasoline for fire traps. common resources form situationally strong slightly unreliable defense strats, with travelling farther down that rarity spectrum with an item meaning it's going to be stronger, more general, and more reliable. EVERY move represents a dip into your resources, forcing you into running into dangerous areas with less and less backup in the day just to make up for material upkeep, making you really truly question how much you're willing to risk; whether it's going for cheap but unsafe, expensive but reliable, and making your plan failing carry REAL weight when it happens

and no other mechanic represents this more purely than the guns. guns are expensive, ammo is not easy to come by, but when push comes to shove, they are by far THE best option for home defense, whether it's rapid firing a pistol into the darkness hoping your shots connect or blasting through something with an oh-so precious shotgun shell

given this, guns going from the very situationally used panic button they were in early chapters to your straight up primary says enough. it's emblematic of this weird shift the game undergoes in that final chapter

but i don't hate it! i think it's interesting, and in no way do i think the problems with the game lie here