The Dark: Survival RPG

Yes, it's an early access RPG game that is still rough around the edges. However, I am VERY impressed with this little game that is over-flowing with effort from the indie developer to try and create a fun single player RPG. It's definitely inspired by old school online rpgs like "Ultima Online" and I 100% support this developer and this game! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQkt1ZKREJo The map seems plenty big and there is already plenty of good old school grinding to to do to keep you occupied for many, many hours! Add in the survival aspect of popular survival crafting games, and I think this game is definitely a winner! ..I look forward to see where this game goes from here! I scored this game at an impressive 89% which is mostly scored so high because I believe it offers tremendous bag for your buck at todays launch price of only $6.99 USD! Don't expect Skyrim with this game, but for a single developer made indie RPG priced so low, it definitely delivers great value and a game fueled from the heart!

Nice little game. Can't beat it for the price. Kind of a bit of skyrim feel to it. Support is awesome. Found a couple of bugs and spoke directly to the dev through discord and it was fixed within about 8 hours. I can't wait to see what becomes of this little gem.

Loaded up game Character creation - is in monochrome - I can select colors, but whole display is in black and white, bit odd, but we got through it. Ended up making a character with purple hair. No worries. NPC on beach tells me to go to castle. I pass a bunch of folks on the way who want to sell something but I have zero money, can't seem to loot or interact with anything presumably because I need tools. Not a problem. I find the castle, go in a random door. Spent literally 10 minutes wandering around through empty room after empty room, which are well decorated and well propped - I mean, it looks cool - but can't interact with anything and finally eventually I find the guy I'm meant to find who tells me to go kill some rats. Off I go through the castle labyrinth of confusion trying to find an exit. Find rats. Punch rats to death. Not really clear on how to read the symbol thing at bottom left that apparently indicates my health, stamina, mana? Can't cast any of the spells either because need reagents that I have no clue how to get / not seen - no worries, come back to that later. Punching rats it is. I punch loads of them. Turn in quest. Learn about crafting, get a sword. Now we're getting somewhere! Still can't mine anything even though there's ore all over the place. Talk to various npcs, find one that will sell me a pickaxe for 1 gold. I still have zero gold. No apparent way to sell on the vendor interface - in fact, the inventory system is pretty unintuitive in general, but I can get past that. So while I'm clicking around trying to figure out how to sell this wooden sword (where did I get that? Did I start with that?) I realize I accidentally left myself in combat mode and I end up punching the pickaxe-selling lady and the guy next to her. I see the damage pop up on them. I brace myself, expecting to get killed, but no, they just stand there. But now I can't interact with them and/or open shop. Which is fair enough, I did just stab them. So I go to leave, and these npcs are glued to me. They're on autofollow -right- behind me, and they aren't doing anything, but I can't interact with them in any way and if I try to talk to the woman, the chat box pops up for like, a split second like it wants to let me talk to her but then closes. So I think, maybe if I go far enough away they'll leave. So I run all the way back to the beach / use the stuck command and they're gone. Whew. I managed to sell the wooden sword for 1g to the other guy by like...opening my equipment window, clicking on bag, and right clicking on sword and there's a sell option even though I'm not in a merchant interface? Is it cause I'm stood near one? Dunno. Couldnt sell any of the other stuff I was carrying so don't know - at this point I have rabbit meat and chicken feathers from random killings. I have 1 gold! PICKAXE LADY! I go to her house. She still wont talk to me. Apparently she's still mad. Try everything I can think of to get her to talk to me, but she wont, so I stab her again. Oh, she's dead and laying on the floor. I can't loot her merchandise (seems a bit unfair) and she's ...dead. So how can I get a pickaxe to you know, mine iron to make myself equipment and actually start playing this game ? I wander off, come back. She's still dead. Can't interact with corpse in any way. I still can't tell how injured I am or not, or how to regen health, the heal spell requires a reagent that I don't know how to get and couldn't afford to buy anyway since I can't seem to be able to sell anything else and there's nothing I can craft with the stuff I've picked up so... Sadly, no, I can't recommend the game at this time. The good: Walking (if a bit slow), running, jumping, and animations seem reasonably polished, to a sufficient level World design, what I saw of starting area, was well propped with good attention to detail Music was appropriately soothing/relaxing, sound effects reasonable to expectations. Combat animations (I saw some of the spell effects, even tho the casts failed) seemed decent to expectations. The bad: The minimap is not really helpful / No tooltips for anything Couldn't undock my mouse cursor to like, hover over anything but realize in retrospect hovering over things wouldn't do me much good cause no tooltips. Like, when I fight a rat and it says I'm infected, something that I presume is the debuff is popping up over the weird symbol-thing that is meant to be my healthbar and otherbars (still don't understand that or couldn't tell how hurt I was) but can't actually figure out what infection does. Got some other icons over there, no way to know what they're doing. Inventory, skills, character stats - these need a better interface. Stick with what's simple - I for inventory, C for character, K for skills (or something). This press-tab-and-then-press-another-icon thing is confusing. I'm not really sure what to say about the fact that I can attack and kill an NPC that doesn't fight back who sells crucial tools. Either shouldn't be possible or ...I should be able to loot the merchandise or something. It was just a complete blocker to further progress and I didn't do it deliberately. I didn't one-shot her, but the act of attacking her bugged her out completely and apparently, permanently. I think this game has potential, just needs some of the functional things ironed out before I'd consider it playable. Quest journal, recipe book, etc. The UI is just icky. Not going to refund it, happy to support the dev who clearly is passionate about this project from what I've seen - but it needs a lot of work on orienting the player when they come into the game because my early experience was well, amusing, but awful.

Early Access Review: If you are looking for a survival game, skip this one. It's not survival. I picked it up on sale, and it's going to get refunded, mainly because I was looking for a survival game. It MIGHT be a good game, eventually, but it looks like an RPG game, not survival. Title is misleading. There is some nice character customization (although there is room to add more options - there were only a few female hair styles, and they were all long hair, no short hair styles, and very few beard styles for the guys, but a huge number of scar/tattoo options, which was cool), and the game runs smoothly. There is absolutely no management of stats or immediate threats like you would get in a survival game: there's no hunger, thirst, etc. If there is, you have no place to carry food. You have one equipment screen, and that's for the usual armor/weapons equipped - not "what is in my bag". There were no immediate threats or dangers to overcome. There was absolutely nothing "survival" related at this point. Will it be added later? If so, might give this another try. I got a quest to go kill rats. I ran around for a few minutes trying to find them. I couldn't find any rats. There is no window to go to, to see what quest you have, or the text for the quest. So I had no way to go back and say "did he tell me where they were?" Not to mention I only had my bare fists to kill them, but that didn't bother me as much as there is no quest log at all to refer back to. The questgiver who told me to go kill rats also gave a message that I got a shield (at least, I think I saw that flash by), but no such item appeared in my inventory. The walking speed is maddeningly slow. Fortunately, there is an autorun key, but you pretty much have to use it everywhere. This might turn out to be an interesting RPG game, as there's clearly quest/character interactions all over, but it's not survival. Not what I expected from the description.

Even Though The Game Is In Early Access Game I Do Have To Say A Good Thumbs Up To The Game. Been Looking For A Good RPG Game For Some Time And When I Came Across This One I Was Shock And Surprised To See So Much Work Has Been Done. Very Good Graphics Along With Seeing That The Game Dev. Has Put Alot Of Work Into It. Keep Up The Good Work I Can See This Game Going Some Where.

The atmosphere of the game is outstanding. This game has a lot of style, and unique RPG vibe to it. The solo developer is extremely committed, and has big plans for this game. Can't wait to see more progress!

This Game Is A lot of fun, now yes it does still need work however what early access game doesn't? I have paid much more than what this dev is asking for half the fun which tells me he cares more about his/her game than making a quick few dollars and those are the indie games i love and adore. Can't wait to dive deeper into it as it's going to make a fun lets play :) One thing that I really hope gets fixed is the UI It is so teeny tiny that even on my computer monitor i have to lean in to read what it says and the images are so tiny you can't make them out. I am sure this will be corrected as i did see in tattmans video that it was much bigger yesterday :) Keep having fun creating this game dev and it's going to grow into something epic, you have an AMAZING start! The music and lighting made it immersive however i would maybe make night time a little later lol it went from bright to dark however it did make for me to get on the edge of my chair to ensure nothing was coming to get me lol I really enjoyed it and will be playing a lot more. (once i can see the UI, lol) :)

I was really hopeful getting this game, but was sorely disappointed. I want to say SOMETHING positive about what clearly took a lot of effort to put together, so: the character look and feel is pretty appealing and consistent, and I like the concept of the game. My experience with this game was horrible. I expect some rough edges with early access, but there are limits. Opening menu is basically nonexistent, and you have to endure the BGM through the entirety of the clunky character creation process (where you can't rotate the character to see any other angles of hairstyles, and some decent color presets for hair and skin would be awesome). The cartoony characters mismatch with the hyper-realistic, seizure-inducing environmental textures. The bg foliage is simultaneously over-done and sparse-feeling. Honestly, with the character models, it would be better to create painted areas of basic colors or low-res textures. Animations are barely up to clunky. The interface is a nightmare, you are able to rebind SOME keys, but can't change movement keys so there's no point, the display on the minimap is awkward and barely helpful at all, there are no tooltips or an orientation tutorial to tell you what is what. The starting quest asks you to kill some rats, there are no rats . . . there's chickens, giants, a wolf . . . no rats. The audio is offensive in its annoying quality. The BGM is constant and has no context, so either have to mute it or deal with the constant stream of shrill music. Having the character give a shout every time you throw a punch quickly becomes repetitive and annoying.