Retrofiction Games developer presents to us a 2D survival horror game that will soon be first showcased on PC. The team is based in Germany, and their goal is to create narrative games that blend retro with contemporary gameplay styles, focusing on horror and adventure elements. The game they are presenting is their first commercial project.
Dead of Darkness is, as I mentioned, a 2D survival horror game with elements of action and adventure in a recognizable pixel style. It features gameplay in which you will invest at least 12 hours of play through action, puzzles, and intriguing dialogues among characters. Players will have the opportunity to choose from several difficulty levels they wish to play, ranging from very easy to hard. With the game's release, you will also have the chance to unlock additional difficulties, as well as a new game+ option. Steam will also not be left out in providing achievements. The game visually combines pixel art with characters that occasionally resemble an anime style during dialogues. It is worth noting that the developers paid great attention to the atmosphere in the game, focusing particularly on lighting, sound design, and the engagement of voice actors who lent their voices to the characters.
The story's foundation is that you find yourself on a mysterious island where a disturbing secret lies, and it is up to you to uncover it. On the path to the truth, players will face monsters, deadly traps, and sometimes challenging puzzles.
The plot begins in 1985 in England. Private investigator Miles Windham follows a lead that supposedly leads to the truth about the mysterious murder of his daughter, and the trail takes him to Velvet Island. As soon as he sets foot on the island, he notices that its inhabitants behave very strangely. At one point, they even become hostile towards him, and the atmosphere in the game becomes increasingly tense. The situation escalates quickly, and Miles finds himself in a situation where he must fight for his own survival... The story is enriched by a rich gallery of 15 characters, each with their own reason for being on Velvet Island. Resources in the game are limited, as is the inventory you have. Enemies may appear unpredictably, so you must be careful about which paths you take and which routes you follow to survive. It is worth noting an interesting aspect, which is that enemies in the game leave consequences on you regarding mental health. The lower your mental health, the more hallucinations you will experience, so you must also keep that in mind. 13 types of enemies will haunt you, and it is up to you how you will deal with them. You can escape from them, fight them, or outsmart them.
If we are to describe the gameplay itself, it is good, but not without certain problems. There are times when your character simply gets "stuck" while searching a cabinet, and the only way to move away is to hold the run button. At least in my case, that solved the problem, but I believe it will also be fixed with a bug fix after the game's release. When it comes to the controls themselves, they are somewhat complicated when using weapons. One button is for aiming, another for firing. A third button is for reloading the weapon with ammunition, but that only works while you are also holding the aim button. This entire process can create confusion in your head when multiple enemies are attacking you at once, and you have to think quickly about what and how to do. It is also worth mentioning an important aspect - saving progress in the game is not automatic, which the game warns you about. Just like in the Camp Sunshine game we had the chance to try last year, you can only save your progress at certain locations and only if you click on an object that represents "Save." With that in mind, it wouldn't hurt to sometimes first "save" your progress before deciding to unlock some doors that required a special key. You never know what awaits you behind those doors, and because of that, it is very easy to die and lose half an hour or even an hour of progress. The UI interface itself is quite clear and simple, and does not pose a problem when navigating the inventory. You can combine some objects in it, use some directly, and you can also read notes you come across during the game.
[modula id="3330"]It is worth noting that using items is not automatic, so if you want to open a chest or a door, you have to manually select it from the inventory and then confirm the action with a button. What particularly posed a problem for me was not knowing when to press ESC and when to press ENTER to exit some descriptive text, which can be tedious when sometimes one button is used for that function and sometimes another. The tutorial also gave me problems because it persistently showed controller buttons, even though I selected the keyboard. Because of this, I had to figure out how to achieve something myself, like quickly reloading the weapon. The instructions for the keyboard in the settings are still vague and incorrect. In the end, I tried to figure out which button it could be and eventually discovered that the reload button is actually B, even though the settings say it is V on the keyboard, etc. Therefore, it could be said that the keyboard commands are somewhat neglected in the instructions, which could frustrate some players. Let's hope this will improve with some future update.
If we talk about the characters, each of them is well-designed in pixel art style and you will be able to distinguish them from one another (including the enemies), so there are no issues in that area. The doors on the side walls are designed in such a way that light shines through them, allowing the player to understand that there is something that can be opened here even before they have the map available. What is exceptionally good about the map is the fact that it shows you with color which doors cannot be opened and which can only be opened with special keys. Additionally, the rooms where you need to do something remain red, while those where you have completed everything turn green. All in all, a solid release of this type of game that will surely find its audience, and it is up to you whether you will avoid slower enemies and thus save ammunition, sneak around, or risk running low on ammo and indulge in shooting. It is up to the player how they will uncover the truth and discover what happened to the investigator's daughter, as well as to the inhabitants of the strange island.
Dead of Darkness will be available on January 23, 2025, on Steam for Windows, with plans for a later release on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox Series X/S. If you are attracted to titles in retro pixel art style with horror elements, give this indie developer a chance and try the game. The game definitely, despite minor issues (which can be resolved in a later phase with an update), offers an intriguing story with elements of the supernatural and grotesque, and the development of brain cells while solving puzzles is guaranteed.
A copy of the game for review purposes was provided by the development studio Retrofiction Game.
