Darkness Survival Mobile Game Review

Darkness Survival is the type of dungeon crawler game where tactics and resource management skills makes a difference to your game progression. I underestimated how punishing this game was and it took me several tries to get passed the second floor (these were the easy parts). Most of the blunders committed on my initial play through were brought by curiosity and poor resource management. You can find this game at Google playstore, an app where I get to choose more apps that waste my time and filling the void of my life's meaning.

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Note: I intentionally did not crop the atrocious side bar menu to let you see how fugly the full screen design is. There's a mini contest at the bottom of the post related to playing the game.

The game doesn’t really make it easy for you even with tutorials and just sends you straight to the dungeon figuring out things for yourself. You can access sign boards for possible freebies on the dungeon and they give out tips on survival which are helpful until they become repetitive.

Plot:

There’s a lack of plot explanation in game. But taking the context from the game description prior to download:

The dungeon has opened and unleashed the evils into the world but a prophecy of a hero would come forth one day to venture into its depths and seal the evils that plague the world. Our character happens to show up one day and it is believed she could be the one.

But she ain't because we're going to play with her life and make her suffer for the mistakes we make over and over again without her having any memory of it each time the game resets. At least we tried to save the world and it's the thought that counts.

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The Game Impression:

It’s one of those games less focused on the story and more about the action. The graphics remind me on the old days of Diablo I and II with some DnD as dungeons are randomized each game. While there’s no actual dice hovering around your head to make a play, each movement on the tile, attack, and miscellaneous action counts as the game is turn based. Even standing your ground counts as a turn similar to the battle system of Fire Emblem series.

The dungeon paths may take some time getting used to as the game limits your immediate vision to the the room you are in. There are a lot of doors and dead ends owing to the random map generation. But this can be manageable as long as you keep opening one door at a time and exploring how far each section can fully go. The goal is to survive and descend as low as you an in the dungeon so if you chance by a stairs that lead you down to the next level, it’s still a smarter option to just search the entire floor for items.

The easy mode feels like the normal or hard mode on my first few playthroughs. Most of the deaths I suffered were from having the game troll your inventory with unidentified items. It can give you different potion colors and the effects are different each game. So if you happen to believe that green bottle is the same regenerating potion, think again. As a player we are conditioned to associate red potions with health but on this game, it can mean getting yourself burned alive and almost half the time it’s going to cost your life drinking it.

But why even bother taking a chance on those potions unidentified? A lot of items in the game especially scrolls are unidentified. The scroll may be labelled with weird names but the unidentified label should make you wary to try the scroll at full health or gamble when an enemy is around. Once used, the items will be registered to memory for that game and not carry over to the next game.

Some scrolls are used for offensive magic and some give utility but you have to have an identifying scroll to know which or try your luck when the situation presents. Even the identifying scroll needs identifying. So the game just sets you up to weigh the risks of experimenting and stocking up risky items on your inventory.

There are other mechanics in the game that pushes you to budget your need for food and rest. Hunger when you exceed the limits of starvation will resort to instant death even at full health. Fatigue can do that but it can usually get you killed early as fatigue status removes all chance to dodge and decreases your hit rate. The way to solve this is consuming food (rations) along the way and rest on a lighted camp fire. Now even the rations can have blessed or cursed status on it so some can give you positive and negative effects post consumption. Resting can relieve fatigue or trigger monster attacks or you can get robbed while sleeping.

Rations, other food sources, and lit camp fires can be considered limited resources in each floor. There is a finite number of these (1 ration per floor from experience) which forces you to proceed to the next to replenish your supplies or stay and wait for starvation to kick in. These are game mechanics that pushes the player further down because death will still come if they prefer to wait or face enemies that are slightly stronger than the ones encountered at the current floor.

The boss monsters are underwhelming in form or maybe it’s just the alligator I encountered so far. It’s the only monster in the room and you would know instantly as it becomes hard to hit and you find yourself spending a lot of time rummaging for regenerating options. In a resource limited game, if you have exhausted the previous floors health potions, you’re basically screwed on the boss battle. This is when resource management becomes a big deal.

The combat system is turn based and relies on your positioning. When facing an approaching enemy, it is better to stand your ground than meet the enemy as them approaching you is 1 turn lost to their advantage. They can’t move and attack at the same time and that also applies to you. So let them make the first approach and attack once they reach 1 tile from you. Other tips in combat include not going in deep when entering a room and just advance one tile at a time until you confirm there’s only one enemy in.

During these times, it feels like I am playing a table top game when I budget the moves I make each turn. When facing a mob, retreat and position on a narrow space where they can only fight you one at a time as dealing with them in an open area means you get 3x damage sources each turn and that’s 2 to 3 turns away from ending your entire dungeon run especially if you’re a couple of floors deep already. I admit falling into being impatient and just charge in guns blazing if it’s just 2 monsters present until I get ambushed from behind in the attempt and lose more than an hour’s worth of progress. Stick to the established routine no matter how boring playing safe is or pay the tuition.

When defeated, all progress is lost but you are rewarded with a memory shard that contains fragments for crafting items on your next dungeon runs. The lower the floor, the better the memory fragment drop you get once defeated. The crafting skills built upon may only give you a small advantage in your future runs but even the minor stat boosts count on this game.

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The Good Parts About this Game:

It’s challenging and requires me to step away from the game and rethink my strategy after cooling my head off. The little actions that seem to bear no consequence builds an impact later on, such as consuming the rations at the wrong time, not taking a rest, or gambling with scrolls and potions for their effect. Some items are just designed to troll the player and some experiments can equally prove to be worth the risk. Resembles a dark souls game but turn based to me.

The ads aren’t obnoxious and only shows when you ask for freebies from the game. So you can just skip these when you don’t feel like collecting anything.

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The Bad Parts About the Game:

The skills necessary to get passed the 4th floor can be steep. Because you meet the boss, you better got your stuff together as getting passed after the boss means your inventory would be lacking in health recovery items and you’re stuck negotiating the stronger monsters below. It’s not a game for people with short tempers and don’t like to use foresight on their tiny actions.

For a game that requires a lot of thinking and planning, the pay off of proceeding to a more difficult level doesn’t make it feel rewarding beyond having some bragging rights to people than can relate how hard it is. Yes, you’ve accomplished unlocking the other classes as you descend but the pay off isn’t that great as it’s mostly you giving yourself the congratulations for doing a good job. I think I played the game long because of the challenge rather than having fun with it. Once you get the ropes, the monsters and routine just becomes difficult but lacking in variety and all glory achieved when you further descend is just for vanity (for me anyway).

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Recommendations:

Play it expecting you’re going to have a difficult time. I’m indifferent about recommending the game as it’s a niche type of gameplay. Being focused mostly on mechanics and less of the story made it less appealing. I’m more of a story oriented type of player where the mechanics will come second and has to be a pass. The game failed t give me some sense of immersion beyond the difficulty of surviving long when I was expecting some reward like having bits of the story being unlocked.

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Mini contest:

Share a screenshot of you playing the game to win some Hive. I would require a comment on this post with the screenshot containing proof you have unlocked the Witch Class at the 11th Floor and another screen shot of being able to craft a noble armor from your crafting list. No need to make a post of your own but you're welcome to spread the word though.

The first one to comply gets 2 Hive and a bonus 1 Hive if they finish it before this post pays out. No need to upvote or re-share this post but it is appreciated of course. The second person that accomplishes this task will get 1 Hive. The prizes will still be available even past payout as long as no one else wins them first. This means the contest will last indefinitely until two people win. No sock puppet accounts allowed. Good luck.

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If you made it this far reading, thank you for your time.