Darkway: Murder of King Mere

Really strong start for a SOLO developers first game. It does have its flaws and I don't think it has any replay value. But for a single sitting playthrough, make sure you take the time to read / listen to all the dialogue and you'll thoroughly enjoy this game. The worldbuilding and characters are incredible. Developer clearly has a knack for storytelling and I can't wait to see his future works. I'd strongly recommend the game.

I learnt about this game cuz of instagram reels, decided to give it a go and wasn't disappointed. Engaging story and setting, good voice acting, multiple endings and interesting characters. Buy it!

This hits like somewhere between Redwall and Paradise Killer, which I highly recommend Look up nothing and just enjoy

[spoiler-free review] This game could probably be optimized significantly better, but if you'd like to play a unique indie game with surprising depth in its worldbuilding and plot, and which makes ambitious promises for the future of its setting and its studio, then "Darkway: Murder of King Mere" is something you'd be interested in. I myself was skeptical in the middle of the experience: the favor system -- which is the main way you progress through the investigation -- is initially a little immersion-breaking, and some people may also find it tedious, as it relies on the fetch quest model. But the climax and the ending won me over. I am now tremendously curious for the future. The INSIGHT feature left me a little confused in some spots, as it seemed to recount information that the player character wouldn't necessarily have a way of knowing, but this talent is actually justified within the text. The way INSIGHT describes things, and the associated voice acting, also remind me of Disco Elysium and I suspect this was the inspiration behind some elements of the game. Which is a plus for me. Basically, there's a lot of potential here, and I'm glad this guy's wife let him quit his day job.

Very cute graphics, chill gameplay, but I didn't end up getting the canon ending. Did 3 playthroughs and accused the wrong person 9 times haha, so really all I need is one more playthrough and I should get it, but I wish there was a bit more replay-ability? The second and third playthroughs I got a couple extra bits of dialogue I hadn't seen but I lost the patience to try again. Will probably revisit in a couple months to be fair, so overall I did enjoy it even if I didn't 'win' first try :) Edited to add: walking along the flag lines is SUPER difficult! I feel like the parkour aspect is either not as important as advertised (except for finding the crow), or I've missed some big things cause I couldn't bear falling again and again

While I enjoyed the writing and story of this game, I can't quite get past the gameplay quality for a full recommendation. I would honestly love this story and world in book form! But in game form I unfortunately felt like it was lacking. Video review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34J8JEm6EbE

A fun murder mystery game with some dark foreshadowing. You are not given the answer to the mystery too easily, so it is not too simple.

Surprisingly good mystery story, with world building that reminds me of disco elysium

What a great first game from this guy! Played through the whole thing in a few sittings and really enjoyed it. I definitely have a couple thoughts about everything but overall I thought this was a great game that I highly recommend to people who love knowledge puzzles. Pros: - The visual art direction/cityscape is the obvious biggest pro. I had been following the dev on instagram for awhile and it really shows that he's an artist. Everything from the 2D UI visuals to the city layout to the shaders were super spot on. Really made you feel immersed in the whole world which is super key for a game like this. - The lore was the other best aspect. Not simply just the story or the detective work, but the really cool world that Pierce was able to craft. While some of it felt a bit pointless at times, it all contributed to really making you feel apart of this cool universe. And most of it ended up connecting quite well to the overall murder mystery. It was so satisfying to uncover some new piece of lore and I became generally interested in it. cons: - So I'm going to be a bit bias here I suppose but for me the #1 very big con was the music (and sfx by extension). I know a lot of people don't seem to care or focus on music for games but I work in game audio so it's something I think is just as important to visuals (if not more :p). It hurts me to see a game like this with a dev who is so exceptional at visuals just completely ignore the sounds and music. I'm going to go assume here that he did all of the music himself, cause to be honest there is absolutely no way it was made by an experienced musician/composer. Like every track except maybe that main soft guitar one was full of completely random notes with no care for the key or anything, I was very confused by it. I find it sad that devs like this don't just outsource audio when they are not great at it, because I think it would take a game like this from good to great, if the music created as immersive of an environment as the visuals. And that's not to mention the sound effects either. There were many sound effects that were musical tones, such as dialogue lines or getting new quests, but they were in a completely different key with the song and just clashed in a very annoying way. Or how the ambience/footstep sounds were completely static. Having more dynamic sounds will make a game sooo much more immersive. Again, I know with my background I'm hyper sensitive to these things but still I think if the music was exceptional then sub consciously everyone would have a more enjoyable and immersed experience. I ended up turning off the music and playing some random playlists online while I played lol. - The favor system is my only other main critique. It's not a huge one because I think this is such a tricky thing to get right, and I think he did a good job considering it, but so many "quests" felt a bit dumb and pointless, and the way favors would somewhat randomly show up made it so you'd sometimes have to run around to every NPC checking to see if they favors. Most of them were super basic fetch quests which is always a pet peeve of mine. I think the highlights of the game were all the moments you would do more "real" detective work by finding actual items and looking at scenes in the world rather than just reading text, so I wish more could involve that. Overall this was a great game that I highly recommend! So excited to see where Pierce goes next and if he's gonna continue making games in this world. (ps I know the cons section ended up being bigger than the pro but that's just cause of my music rant lol, there are way more pros to this game then cons)

MOAR.