Dark Hope: A Puzzle Adventure

I was an early alpha tester for this game. The game was riddled with issues and the dev would ignore our feedback (or maybe just didn’t have the means to fix these issues). Then all of a sudden he just went ahead and released the game after a very short dev time, and it shows. Where should I even begin with all the issues? 1.) I’ve seen better menus/text/UI from flash games from the early 2000s. 2.) I don’t really mind bad graphics, but these are like PS1 graphics in 2019, this wasn’t some artistic choice, just very bad. Textures don’t even load properly in the second half of the game. 3.) The animations in the game run VERY slowly. There’s a “puzzle” where you move a mine-cart back and forth several times very slowly. It will drive you insane. Sometimes animations don’t happen if you click too fast and you need to leave the area and come back to reset the puzzle. 4.) Puzzle design is horrible, especially in the second half of the game. No one can finish it without a guide because the puzzles are such that unless you designed them, you can’t figure them out. They have really unfair variables thrown in with no way for you to know even after plenty of experimentation. Seems like no real effort or money went into this. Should have cooked in the oven longer but the dev was eager to release. The game is not worth even a penny sadly.

Dark hope is an adventure puzzle game which reminded me a lot of the Rhem games in terms of puzzles and world exploration. I am far from done with the game but I can already tell you that puzzles in the game are very difficult to solve and you will need time and perseverance to go through them! I definitely recommend if you love hard core puzzle games like Rhem.

Ive got 14 hours invested in this puzzle game. The vast majority of that has been spent wondering around scratching my head trying to figure out some kind of logic to progress. It's REALLY REALLY tough so do not expect quick progress. Having had to revert to clues from this steam discussion page and on Discord where the dev has to help people progress with hints, for me I need a few more in-game prompts to allow me to progress without feeling I am unable to continue without external assistance. I dont have a brain the size of a planet. If you are looking for a game that enables progressively harder quick puzzles that start off easy and get tougher but that you kindof learn the concepts, then this game is not for you. If you want a game that allows you to just sit there pondering life feeling your brain twist in your scull and have plenty of time on your hands with little to show for it, then give it a go. Its obvious the dev is a very clever egg head and thought deeply about the puzzle concepts to be not simply spoon fed. Its a deep thinkers game and one that I wish I was up to completing with a sense of satisfaction to be able to recommend it, but I have given up part way through with completing it as I feel I am needing too much external forum help to be able to make it seem like it was ME that completed it.

[quote][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/9686972/]Follow "[b]First Person Exploration and Puzzle Games[/b]" for more games like this![/url][/quote] The puzzles in this game are actually pretty challenging, but everything else about it is extremely bad. The graphics look like Half Life 1 (with empty pointless rooms that looks like something from early 90's games), yet the performance is still horrible. It's very easy to get lost, and there are long loading times between areas (which you need to go back and forth between). The UX is so absurdly bad it just makes the whole game an exercise in frustration. Overall, this could've been a good game with a team of skilled developers. However it was clearly too much for this dev to handle. Also... lol at the obviously fake reviews? There are multiple positive reviews from players with only one review on their account, and who have the developer on their friends list.

This is actually a super cool game. Not like other games where you walk around aimlessly - actually kind of difficult but super fun and rewarding at the end! Definitely would recommend!

Positive: - Some of the puzzles are brilliant, I had tons of fun in the final part of the game with the math puzzles. Unfortunately puzzles like these are getting more and more uncommon in recent games. - The game definitely does not hold your hand during solving puzzles, it encourages exploration and deductive reasoning. That is always nice. - Atmosphere has the right amount of creepiness. Negative: - Some of the puzzles are criminally under clued. Hence you need to do a lot of random guessing, to the point that it gets frustrating. The game would definitely benefit from more text (journals, diagrams etc.) and hints. - Exploration is severely hindered by the interface. You character can walk fast, but the interactions with the environment is super slow. Hence trying out new ideas take forever... This is the biggest weakness of the game. - Story and setting seemed interesting but you don't get to learn much about it. Like my previous point, it would have been great to have more journals (or audio logs or something like that) so that we could learn more about this facility and their experiment. - It is a bit short, feels like 60% of a full game. Conclusion: Dark hope is a mixed bag, some of the puzzles are great but the interface and lack of clues prevents the game from reaching its full potential. I would recommend it anyway, since it is very difficult to comes across games like these in recent times. If you are a puzzle adventure lover, this game will scratch your itch, The designer is definitely talented, I will be watching out for his new games.

Great game. Puzzles are very hard however!

I received this game from the dev to do a lets play on. Parts of this game feel really good and polished and you have a really good sense of accomplishment after solving it. Other parts are needlessly complicated and even when I was looking up a guide on what to do was struggling to complete it. There were parts I loved because I felt like I was smart enough to solve them (Ie the base 4 stuff) and then they threw a wrench at me by making the dials change each other... weren't all the tricks up to that point already enough!?! I spent 5.5 hours playing this game and honestly I don't think I would have EVER solved this one without some assistance from guides. There is just too many tricks layered on top of each other. All in all if you hate yourself and want to become extremely frustrated I would recommend picking this up as it will entertain you for hours. However if you don't like slowly torturing yourself then perhaps leave this one..

This is a solid first-person adventure game where the highlight is the puzzles. The puzzles are relatively hard in that the clues to solve the puzzles require careful observation and note taking. For the most part, I thought the clues, whether presented in explicit notes, or from your own theories of how things work based on experimentation, were quite adequate. Sometimes the clues may be slightly incomplete (I believe by intention, unless I missed a clue) requiring a very small amount, like maybe 5 or 6 attempts of trial and error to get the final solution. Overall I was very satisfied by the puzzles in this game. The quality of the graphics, modelling, textures etc are merely adequate for this day and age, but they get the job done. The game engine allows real-time first person movement (not slide show) but looks like it is a home-brew engine and it is barely serviceable. Movement and animations are clunky, there aren't many options, no invert Y axis etc. This is not a pretty game. The main job of the graphics and engine in this case to is to present the puzzles which are well-integrated into the world. By that I don't mean these are abstract stand-alone puzzles that you've seen before, but rather science or math based puzzles plausibly related to the game world. There is a story told through in-game notes and journals that are fun to read and add to the sci fi/ steampunk atmosphere. More importantly, the in-game texts often provide vital clues. I did run into one bug that prevented me from picking up an item. I spent a frustrating two days combing through the game world for something else I thought I had missed that was blocking my progress. I eventually broke down and consulted a walk through which made it clear that I had run into a bug. I posted a question on the forum and within a day or two the dev confirmed it was a bug and within another day or so fixed it. If you like hard but fair logic/science/math based puzzles in a sci-fi atmosphere and don't mind looking at dated graphics and using a rather clunky game engine, then is I strongly recommend this game. I certainly enjoyed my time with it.

Interesting puzzles hard to get into at the beginning but worth persevering so far.