Damned

Haven't played this game since year 11 which was 11 years ago.............. I forgot you needed a email and password to play this game. Very outdated game indeed.

There's not much point in reviewing a game that's just been removed from the Steam Store - an action that's been long overdue, as the updates and fixes to the game stopped in 2019 and the game never really got finished properly - but seeing as the developers are coming up with a sequel, it might not be that purposeless afterall. [i]Damned[/i] had great potential and it came out before the 4 vs 1 multiplayer horror setup - where all the victims/survivors AND the monster are controlled by players - and became a common (sub)genre. Unfortunately there are many things which were (and sadly left) inherently flawed. The game features 4 different monsters to choose from and 4 survivors who don't differ from each other than their appearence, with 11 rather similar looking maps. The survivors' goal is to work together and find keys, to open the matching doors (silver key opens the silver doors, rusty key opens the rusty (?) doors, etc.) and get to the exit eventually, while the monster is intent on preventing them from doing so. While the maps come with different props and visual style (they are slightly randomly generated), most of them are very similar and can be described as generic claustrophobic environments, with plently of small rooms and lots of doors. Black Lake Woods is the only map which features an outside, open area, thus differs from all the others and is full of atmosphere. The Factory is another one which sticks out of the line, but not in a good way: it's huge, with a large multi-leveled central area and lots of small rooms and yeah - keys. We can't escape from the thought that all the other maps are pretty much reused variations of the same minimalistic indoor locations. The biggest problem the game has is the insane amount of keys, which literally turns the game into a key-seeking simulator instead of the initially thought hide-and-seek setup: evading and hiding from the monster is one thing, but it's useless if we can't find that exact key hiding in 1 of the drawers within the dozens of small rooms to the door leading to the exit. Keys can't be transferred: once a player picks one up, the only way to get it from that player is if they get killed by the monster (some of the keys have multiple pieces - sometimes) - but of course in that case the monster can just wait and camp over the corpse, making a successful exit nearly impossible. It's very easy to die, all it takes is just a single hit and it's over... but at least we can SIDESTEP as opposed to some other similar games ;) Unlike the survivors, monsters differ from each other, but there are some similarities: they have 2 'modes' - an ethereal/harmless form and a short-period physical/dangerous one. In order to activate the 2nd form each monster has to do something specific: set traps (and have the victims trigger them), be near the prey or observe them. When this form is charged, it has to be activated and then kill the victims. When this happens, survivors have very little chance to escape, other than dodging and trying to run away... or closing the door on the monster. Yes, doors can't be destroyed, thus survivors can block the doors 'locking' themselves up in small rooms which can result in an endless (literally) game of persistence, where the monster hopelessly tries to get inside, while the survivors are constantly holding the door(s) closed, being unable to actually leave and make it to the exit... when this happens the one wins who doesn't get bored and disconnects first (unless of course it's the host, in which case everyone 'loses', that is the best solution to this situation anyway). Problem is, this occurs more than it should, as a matter of fact 'veteran' players used this 'trick' most of the time, relying on the player controling the monster to give up and just quit the game, providing them an 'easy' win :/ Besides this huge flaw in the gameplay, the game's chaotic nature comes from the severe lack of instructions. I like figuring the rules out and experimenting on how things work, but providing almost 0 hints is a bit too much. One of the monsters, the Fallen (a stone statue of an angel) for example requires triggered traps in order to spawn replicas of itself and then can randomly teleport next to victims coming into the statues' vicinity... and if we are playing without knowing this and play 'normally' we can actually lose - as the monster, since it can't see survivors in its normal form at all... (meanwhile another monster, the Phantom is literally cheat mode since it can fly through obstacles) Another problematic point is that it's required to create an account outside Steam (with a unique account name and password) which we have to manually use [b]every single time[/b] we launch the game. The graphics are quite poor and couldn't even be called stylish - it's like one of those free indie horror games from the pre-2010 era. What's worse however is the insane darkness that characterizes every level: sure darkness is almost mandatory in any horror game, but barely being able to see anything is another thing. There are flashlights with extra functions besides illuminating, but they deplete quickly & batteries are not quite common + we can only store 1. Spending a lot of time near the monster or rather in a session causes hallucinations which result in different audiovisual effects, such as giant hands emerging from the floor that can hold onto us for a short time, making us unable to move or making us deaf for while. Sounds are below average, with loud bangs - which are probably caused by the traps set by the monster and with humming that can always be heard. There's ingame voice communication, which is absolutely necessary to use. It's strange that I have to write this down, but many similar games can't pull this absolutely vital feature off even today, in 2025... While one of the first of its kind (thus deserving some respect) [i]Damned[/i] is too unpolished, or rather flawed and without the required improvements, getting rid of the exploits that hinder it and with its rather similar looking maps it became monotonous quickly. Hopefully the [url=store.steampowered.com/app/2221390/Damned_2/]sequel[/url] will be better. PROS + one of the first multiplayer horror games + 1 of the maps has great atmosphere... CONS - ...but the rest are boring and rather similar - no way to exchange items - balance issues - insanely dark, bleak visuals - loud, but low quality sound effects - no instructions RATING 3/10