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As falls darkness so falls Darkness Falls

I had written a bit more of an elaborate review of this game with a bunch of screenshots, but it got lost because I was tired, and also agitated by some dumb troll on the side (but that's another story), closed out while it was on the preview screen instead of after submitting it because I was an idiot, and now I'm very upset about that. It wasn't a positive review for this game, and this won't be any more positive (but not any more negative either, I try to be fair after all), but at least I've given some schadenfreude for the creator to have there if anything. As such this will decidedly less detailed, more humorless and without screenshots (I'm not going to trawl through tinypic just to find those things again and I don't feel like re-uploading them again either).

The game starts you off right away without any dialogue, set-up, music, none of that. You play as Jerricho, a bearded ginger dude, surrounded by camping gear and able to move about your square though with nothing to interact with. To the south there's a trail. Something else might catch your eye though, and that's the big black void visible to your very right. It turns out you can not only go over and walk over this void but walk over the trees as well. There are more voids and more trees to walk over until you walk to certain parts of the map (namely to the side of the trail) which then a guy whose face is covered with red pseudo-tribal tattoos tells you "You should have listened to your friend." Game Over.

I don't know who this guy is nor do I this "friend" he's talking about. That's to be expected since I wasn't supposed to be doing what I just did. There's the problem though, I shouldn't have been able to in the first place! And that big black void on the side should not have been visible either unless it's there intentionally as part of some setting or subplot involving voids or black holes taking over the earth or something, which turns out not to be the case.

Instead, you walk down to the trail where then a dialogue box pops up with another face this time telling you to "stay on the trail." This must be the "friend" that we prematurely were told about, but Jerricho has no idea where the voice is coming from, so it's not a "friend" he knows personally or in the physical realm. Then the screen turns dark and it starts raining, covering up the black voids and mostly everything else to your side. This is where I presume that it was supposed to be raining straight from the beginning but the event trigger (is that what they call it? I haven't messed around with RPG Maker very much to know anything about it) for it must have been placed a bit too far ahead, because no way would anyone see that black void with its uneven shape consisting of right angles and think that that was supposed to visible. And this is only the first of this game's many technical gaffes.

You follow the trail as you're supposed to, walking a square off of it resulting in the same game over screen as before. Easy enough, though I don't why I have to stay so strictly on the path, other than whoever this mystery man is just wants to dick with me. Whether or not that is the case he certainly is a dick, once you get to meet him face-to-face when you reach the end of your path, stopped by a sign that says so back-handedly "Welcome to Darkness Falls. You have been warned." He tells you his name is Akuma, no relation to the Street Fighter character and not nearly as cool, but once you know that Akuma is Japanese for "Devil" (probably common knowledge to every Street Fighter fan by now, but I didn't know until after I finished the game) then you know right away this probably isn't a guy to put too much trust in. Regardless, there isn't much else to do but move forward. Expecting there to be a town considering the sign that previously was in your way and all, instead it's a decrepit old mansion you must explore, though you still have no idea where you are or why you're there. That guy who told you to stay on your path, named Adam according to Akuma, is really supposed to be the voice in your head to help you on your way through the game, providing hints in a nervous, jittery manner.

Mostly the game consists of solving basic puzzles and reading letters, diaries and such to give the story some background while dodging the specters you'll eventually come across in the place (easy enough to avoid, they move erratically but slowly and pay no mind to you - there's plenty of space to run around them and there's never more than a few per room). One thing I'll give this game props for is that there's no key-hunting in this game. Every locked door must be unlocked by a switch or trigger of some kind, usually in the form of a puzzle. The first puzzle you get is probably the most creative one in the game, and there's another OK one in the cellar area involving dolls and teddy bears, but none that rise to the level of the first puzzle which while not mind-blowing is clever and requires more careful observation than the rest. I also noticed what looked like puzzle clues but turned out to be red herrings. There's a letter on the first floor that reads "Lisa sit *gibberish/faded writing*" that has nothing to do with anything, and there's stone tablets you have to interact with to unlock doors, but must read long-winded passages of some religious text before moving on, credited to "The Number 44." These also are not puzzle-related in any way. Possibly story-related, but the lofty and sometimes impenetrable writing of these texts feels gratuitous considering the game's story and its writing never quite rise up to their level (as to where the writing comes from, I dunno - it reads like it comes from another text, obviously religious, if not an actual "holy book" of some kind - is there a book called The Number 44?).

As for the story, it's a kind of tragic ghost story of sorts, told very simply. If it seems too simple that may be because it's a game that tries to withhold as much as possible from you at the beginning, but being such a short game (15-20 minutes tops, I mean this is barely over a 1 MB game after all), it feels more like a game that makes no sense and only makes slightly more sense when an end twist is dumped onto you at the end. That is, assuming you get the "right" ending. Yeah, there are two endings. One is really stupid, the other much better but still one I have some problems with. I had to see the walkthrough helpfully provided on this page to figure out how to get the actual ending, and all I'll say that what ending you get will very literally depend on if you decide to take one step forward after a significant scene is executed toward the end or not. Yes, one whole tile will decide your fate.

As for the ending, it definitely enhances the story quite a bit, finally revealing what your role in the story was, which at first just seemed "dude walking around clueless," which I suppose was also true enough but there turned out to be more behind that. And it also reveals the full truth of what you were sent to do in the mansion at the end. What it doesn't tell you is why you did what you did that got you here to begin with nor does it tell you what the consequences are of what deed you've just done for, spoilers, not really, the Devil himself here. Some may answer back with the "ambiguity" argument as always in these cases but there's a difference to me between ambiguity and leaving out information illogically. The claims thrown at you you never question, and I'd think the Devil of all people would be able to answer that, nor do you ask of what you just did. Considering that your character's only dialogue throughout the whole game consists practically nothing but questions, and never shuts up with them, that'd he fall silent at the point where questions are most appropriate falls as odd to me.

Whatever faults there are in the story are nothing compared to the technical issues present here. I told you about the beginning, and while nothing later on is as bad as that first impression, it still is consistently, and noticeably, pretty bad. Certain cutscenes or dialogue that should happen once you can trigger repeatedly in some places. There's one area where you get the game's one and only inventory item, a bloodied knife of sorts; where you should have one, you can get an infinite number if you wanted, just by walking back to the area which triggers the cutscene and gets you the knife over and over again. There are areas where dialogue is triggered prematurely. One area by the end is a path to a body of water. Your helpful friend-in-the-head Adam tells you to "Talk to Akuma" though there's nobody there but a dead end to the body of water. You'll probably react with confusion, until you walk into the log cabin next to it, execute the event meant to be done in there, and come back outside, where then you'll notice something different, that is, an actual Akuma NPC to talk to. Adam will repeat the same dialogue, as he always will no matter how many times you walk to the same spot. And then there's the matter of interacting with objects. Nothing game-breaking here, but mildly annoying. Obviously as with any game to interact with something you have to be in front of it and here it is no different. Thing is, you don't have to be facing the object to interact with it, if you're beside it, or even facing away from it, good enough. But where the rules are loose there, it gets very specific as to where you need to be standing to be able to interact with the item. It might do nothing if you're standing on its right side, but it will if you go in front of it, or maybe vice versa. This may not sound like a big deal, and really it isn't but it can result in mishaps with interacting with the wrong objects accidentally which will give you a game over. Oh, and there was a wraith that I ran into which, instead of taking me to a game over screen, froze my game on a black screen.

And so it goes. Despite saying "Completed" on the home page it certainly doesn't feel like it. How did the creator or its playtesters (assuming there were any) open up on a screen with a distracting big black chunk sitting on the side and thought "yeah that looks good, that's exactly how it should look" while keeping a straight face? It doesn't matter if it's a free, obscure, small indie title made on RPG Maker, some semblance of professionalism should be displayed if you're to release your game out in the open and say it's "Completed."

And beside that the game is just really mediocre at best. It screams of "this is my first stab at using RPG Maker (VX Ace), here is what I made." I say, that's fine, but you need to do better than this. What we have is a practice run here from a rookie dev, and it shows, but some of these more obvious issues really should have been fixed before release, and if he couldn't figure out how, tried to experiment with the engine more, find a tutorial video relevant to his concerns, or ask for help on here (there's a forum for that here). Otherwise, the best I can say is that the game is playable, there are plenty of technical problems but nothing game-breaking (outside of that wraith but I would have had to start over again anyway), and it's a way to shoot the breeze for the time it lasts, and it has at least one clever puzzle. Graphics/effects are your usual RPG Maker VX Ace default tiles/portraits/etc. and the music is a kind of creeping melancholy soundtrack which fits the mood of the story well enough I guess. It's not hateable enough for me to score it below 2.0 but at the same time I feel generous giving that out seeing how many problems it has and how inconsequential the experience is in general.

I wouldn't actively stop anyone from playing this but I wouldn't recommend playing it either. To conclude: Welcome to Darkness Falls. You have been warned.

Posts

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You have given me a lot to think about. I will admit that some parts of the game was somewhat rushed. And yes, I should defiently had spendt more time playtesting the game and had some issues finding others willing to playtest for me aswell. I'm actually not dissapointed in getting this review, infact I'm grateful. If I were to make another story then I'd make sure to fix the issues you have pointed out here and thus I would be able to do a much better job at both story and making it more userfriendly. Thank you for writing such an indepht review and of course, thank you for your time.

EDIT: Number 44 is based upon Mark Twain's Mysterious Stranger whom is believed to be the Devil.

The: "Did You Sit Lis, Boom A Era Oh" actually does have some importance. Allthough, I placed it there knowing that no one would likely ever figure it out. Call it my own little joke if you wish.

Just figured I'd clear that, even if it does seem sort of irelevant as of now.

Once more, thank you for taking the time to write all of this.
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