DARQ: Complete Edition

DARQ is a bittersweet experience. I absolutely love the art style, the sound effects are wonderful (there is no music), I love the walking and shifting mechanics, and the puzzles are fun without being complicated. There are 7 chapters in the game (not including the DLC), and I competed them in just under 2.5 hours (the DLC added another 22 minutes of play time). There are a few negative points, however. 1. Chapter 7 was not enjoyable at all; it was nothing but a long chase scene with traps you could not anticipate (thus you could not avoid them the first time you encountered them). This did not fit the style of the game, which was otherwise a puzzle game. 2. There was one puzzle (the maze/camera puzzle) which is completely unfair and not at all enjoyable. You are shown a picture of a simple maze and you need to use your movement keys to move a ball through the maze. However, once you press the button to start the puzzle, the camera starts rotating horizontally, so the maze scrolls off the screen and you spend most of the time not seeing the maze you're trying to solve. To make matters worse, there is an enemy approaching you from behind, so you have very limited time to complete the maze (which, again, you can see for only a few brief periods of 2-3 seconds each). 3. The game is short. I completed the entire game in 2.75 hours (2 hours 24 minutes for the base game and 22 minutes for "The Tower" DLC). I loved the style and the gameplay, so this really left me wanting more. I was very disappointed that it was over so soon. If you enjoy puzzle games and enjoy this art style, then I definitely recommend this game, but keep in mind that it will be a short experience.

It's not a very long game, but one could just as well say that it doesn't overstay its welcome. Every level brings something new to the table and the game never feels padded with excessive backtracking or repeating puzzle mechanics. The puzzle difficulty strikes a nice balance, being just challenging enough to be interesting, but not so much that it would disrupt the flow of the game. Personally, I would have loved to get a little more story though - a lot of things seems like they should come to some conclusion at the end (like a certain reappearing character, an obvious common theme in enemy design or things happening in your apartment), but they just... don't. Maybe something for a DLC?

DARQ seems to be following the trend of many puzzle games these days where obscurity for obscurity's sake is the game's core concept. Puzzle-solving should not first require figuring out what even is supposed to be a puzzle, never mind what it is you're supposed to be solving. ::::SPOILER:::: Example: you come up to a device that comes out of the "ceiling". There's a series of square and rectangle blocks, and a large block with a key symbol on it. It's very early in the game, so not much has been established yet, certainly nothing to do with keys or moving blocks. I had no idea what that thing was. Kept trying to use the key block. Couldn't. Thought a key was required to use it and went hunting for one. That wasn't it, either. After becoming frustrated, I started randomly tapping arrows and mouse buttons on the thing without purpose or plan, and one of the tiles moved. Discovering how something works on accident isn't gratifying at all. Providing a simple clue on how it works would have been simple. Have a smaller block fall or slide when it first descends. This would show "oh, these things move", and then a player has an idea of at least what you can *do* and where to start, and then figure it out from there. :::::END SPOILER::::: I got past that point and quickly ran into another dead end because, again, the game provides no clues or indications of what kind of interactions are possible. Everything has to be figured out by random guessing which, again, is not gratifying. Better luck on the next game, but this one falls short for me.

Initially, I bought the game to support its author's decision about the EGS, but I surely don't regret it. For a one man studio game, it is indeed very good. The dark and creepy atmosphere is omnipresent and the horror is really subtle but it works! A very good puzzle/horror game and I recommend it :)

Though the game is a bit short, it does have free DLC to extend the gameplay a bit, and it can be more than a bit challenging at times. I wouldn't call it "horror" per se, it's more a puzzle game, but it does have a few scares here and there. It has very beautiful graphics, and is very atmospheric, so it was a visual pleasure to play. I certainly recommend it at full price, but if you're on the fence, you can wait for it to be on sale.