Darkest Dungeon®

Current build is 25521 (May 2020), the GOG version is 24839 (May 2019). This additional patch the other platform received means you cant play mods unless you find the older versions. The patch GOG did not receive was to prepare for a DLC, but I dont know if it was released here or not. They put it here and abandoned it, treating GOG customers as 2nd class. They took our money, but then failed to deliver the updates and leave it on here with no disclaimer. Im not trying to convince you to buy it on the other platform, just warn you of the practices of the dev. I personally wouldve bought this a long time ago if not for this, but Ive seen too many devs do this and I will not support them. They should either get it up to date on all platforms, or remove it from here when they decided not to support it here despite continuing to develop the game.

The game is made for Steam, and the 'port' for GOG has been done in an obvious hurry. My chief complaint is the follwing: sometimes, installing mods requires the localization string files to be re-generated. Helpfully, the game contains an executable binary to do the job, and a script file to launch that binary. However, the script is made for the steam version, not the GOG version, and launching it will fail. Fixing it requires modifying the script - an easy task for the developer, which they simply did not do. Now, every person installing a moderately complex mod will have to perform the task manually, and have a bit of knowledge of the scripting language (tested on windows, I don't know if the linux version has a bash script or the state of that script). The game is difficult and often - sometimes - fun. There are some gameplay choices I don't like, and I use mods to change them. However, the program structure is poor, and most new versions render my mods incompatible. Enter tedium. Simply too expensive for the game within, alongside its problems.

Every. Single. thing. about this game is unforgiving. I REALLY WANT TO LIKE THIS GAME, there's a ton of things this game does right and I want to play it I really do.... but its so brutal. constantly. not in a fun way. Figured out a good party strat or two and have some good guys for a boss finally? Name them? Boom the boss mixes up your party so they're not positioned to use their abilities, and relentlessly kills two in seconds, while you are uselessly scrambling. gone forever.... wanna run back a room and camp to try again instead. nope can't do that. why? FU that's why. besides your guys went mad from running. did you leave a guy at home to wind down and get ready for the next run. nope he got drunk and is missing for several runs the other guy lost a item you rely on, cool I paid a whole run's worth of gold for that.... did you just complete a run triumphantly. Congrats your dude is spontaneously sick and needs to be treated with a sizable chunk of the gold you just earned for the next fight, on top of the other two that got sickened by chumps that just happened to have good initiative. want to grind easy levels to make needed gold or level up newbies to replace the ones that got killed or sick, stressed to madness and so quirked up they're too expensive to fix? too bad.. the dungeons level up too. so the easy levels start getting scarcer. want to use the abilities specifically for managing stress? lets take a turn or two to heal. Nope one of your guys starts talking trash, thereby doling out stress for taking too long inside the battles. Have a guy to manage the bleed or poison effects. can't use them outside battles though, suck it! bring bandages and antivenoms. now you have to pass on the loot you need, cause the inventory is cramped. wouldn't mind any of this, but all together it's just crushing at every turn. I wish for a mode that I could just slowly have fun with and learn a bit and then have the hardcore modes

This game is initially fun because of the atmosphere it provides, while teasing you with deeper storytelling. I'm about 40 hours in, and I still have no idea what's going on except 'kill everything' and 'the owner of those house is an evil dude'. What I do notice however, is that the 'tactics' in this game are of the absolute lowest level while being brutally punishing whenever you dare to go deeper with stress over one hundred. Any character over the initial stress level will turn your others mad too and can quickly turn a decent fight into a complete rout. Fun fact: Even if your turn isn't finished yet, if you happen to kill all enemies combat ends and you don't get to use your healer's skills anymore. This promotes drawing fights out, hoping to squeeze more hitpoints from your turns. Enemies will choose targets according to their own position (front hits front, backline hits backline) and will ALWAYS fight to the death. There's no roleplay involved, and any so-called 'quirks' that your characters will pick up are also completely random. Just got pounded to almost-death by skeletons? Whoopsy, I now developed a fear of animals! Bonus points if your hero learns how to better fight Eldritch creatures without ever having seen one. Gold actually only serves the purpose of actually completing the level-ups your heroes acquire, as well as countering any stress or disease they might acquire. They might as well have left it out. Any points this game gets for atmosphere are quickly eliminated by the immersion breaking traits and braindead combat. I judge Darkest Dungeon to be an overrated RNG-experience.

I’ve played this game for 60 hours or so on Steam. The graphics, the sounds, the music, the monsters, the atmosphere....everything is amazing. It sucks you right in from the start. However, the difficulty is punishing if you are unprepared for it. Even if your characters survive they are subjects to a multitude of diseases, mental illnesses, and unhealthy addictions. It is difficult to get a character to survive to the max level and impossible to do it without them getting disabilities. When you finally do get a max-level party formed and geared is when the game really starts raining blows on your sanity. The game scales so poorly that the monsters basically ignore all of your gear and skills; mirdering ypu with impunity while shrugging off all of your attacks with disinterest. The game was definitely my passion for about 60 played hours, but I will probably never revisit it.