Yes, it's walking sim with ocasional riddles and hiding/escaping scenes. Yes there is no combat. Yes it's not that scarry and finaly yes it has some optimization problems. But It's amazing, unique experience that you don't want to miss out on. Amazing Graphics with incredible sound made by one and only Akira Yamaoka. It's Silent Hill you've been waiting for and you will seriously miss out if you won't give it a try.
It's what I was hoping to get. If you have decent PC or Nvidia Now just buy it and enjoy
So I just finished the game for the first time and can wholeheartedly recommend it as it already become one of my favorite Point and Click games. It has fantastic pixel-art, amazing soundtrack and above all well written grim story tailored with choices you make. In addition you get amazing gameplay based on fortifying your base against semi-random events. Each day you scavange new locations and meet new people that might help you survive and enrich your story. Events that you encounter in game may be diffrent with each playthrough so the game has some replayability and story can be pushed even further in 'awakend mode' which you can unlock at the end. You don't need any knowledge of previous games but you can play all of them for free and enjoy a few easter eggs like familiar paintings etc. Give it a shot and you won't regret it!!
First of all this game isn't for everybody. It's extremly difficult and gives you very little information on what to actually do. Majority of players don't even leave first small tutorial location as you can say by achivements earned. It's quite long and has very slow pace forcing you to plan your every ingame day. Everything in Darkwood has this rusty/rotting vibe and creates this unsettling and unique atmosphere that slowly drains your sanity. Your vision is narrow and doesn't allow you to see what's going on behind or even next to your character forcing you to listen to every rustle or footstep. Enemies are unforgiving and the game surprises you with dozens of random night-time events, quite often rewarding you for beeing brave. It has a lot of weird technics that you need to master if you want to survive so if you find it too chelenging you can find some usefuill tips on Darkwood wiki. If you have some experience with challengeing horror games than you will absolutely love this one. Although, if you haven't really played classic survival horrors like Silent Hill 1-4, Resident Evil etc then most likely you will find this one exhausting and forget about it before it even really starts. It has no jumpscares and lets you make all of decisions.
If you are reading this then most likely you really like the idea of creating huge murder mansion with lots of traps and monsters cleverly placed in to kill tons of unsuspecting victims. How about adding to the mix a bit of survival built on engine we know and love from games like Prison Architect or Rim World? It all sound great on paper but my problem with this game is that it looks rushed. There are only a few traps so you wont be able to build crazy, complex machines to kill hundreds of people at once. There are only a few events that repeats themselfs over and over again. There are only a few same boring missions from MachiaVillain league(its literally kill 10ppl, kill 50ppl, kill 300ppl), The only thing this game has a lot are bugs. Victim's bodys going through walls, minions not working on stuff they are supposed to be doing or extremly irritating path finding - ignoring boxes of materials and gathering it from street while victims are coming. All in all it's good game for 5-10h. As you play more you get more and more irritated by repetitive nature of this game.
