Darga is a game for the All Hallows' Event 2013 which has been classed under the Survival Horror category, though the gameplay seems heavily puzzle oriented and there's not very much survival or horror.

I'll start with the aesthetics of the game as that was the first thing I noticed. A lot of the resources are from Celianna or the DS pack and have been used.. interestingly. The exterior map is rather nice to look at, but the interiors get a bit funky at times with weird trees sprouting everywhere, carpets that follow you around the room creepily, maps which join together in ways that make you question what the hell sadist architect would build a place like this..



The item graphics in the game seem to be stock images from photos, and they're quite realistic so they clash pretty bad with the general feel of the game. That said, the item graphics do all match each other so there's that at the very least.

A lot of the game – in particular the story – is given to you in giant clumps of text in the form of notes that you find and read. The speed on the text flies by far too quickly unless you feel like running out of air mid-sentence and coughing your way to the end of the paragraph, and it's a bit over-worded sometimes. I feel the accounts of the writer could've been cut down to a much shorter length to feed the player the story a little at a time.



The music of the game was pretty much the same one piece throughout the entire thing. It was a really pretty song, but it had been played to death by the time I was done. As for sound effects, I think what was used was placed appropriately, though it didn't stand out or especially bring out the atmosphere in the game.

For gameplay, the player must run around the mansion collecting items and completing puzzles to unlock new areas. Some of the puzzles would change the format of the room, and if the room changed and you were stood on an impassable tile, you would teleport back to the start. On about five occasions, the room changed and everything faded to black as if to teleport me back.. but the screen never returned and I had to exit the game and reload.

Other puzzles involved events that move around with you: you step forward, they step back; you move left, they move right – you get the picture. I had a bit of fun doing these but they were very basic. I felt there wasn't really much action in the game save for these sections, and I was mostly walking around and reading things. It's a shame, as I think a progression of this types of puzzle into a much harder difficulty would've made for a good, solid game.

The story was very hard to keep a grip on, especially with the way the text flew by too fast to read at a human pace. I got the gist of what was going on but still failed to really understand what happened, and I'm sure there was supposed to be some deep meaning in here but it passed me by.

The only characters who really speak are the “spirit” who doesn't especially give off a personality or a motive other than trying to keep you in the house, the person writing the notes who also doesn't have much of a personality from what I could read, and your MC Darga who bounces between childish and grown-up speech.

Getting to the scores:

Visuals: 5/10
Sounds: 4/10
Story: 4/10
Characters: 4/10
Gameplay: 5/10
Theme: There weren't really any elements of horror in the game. I guess Darga's need to escape could be considered survival? It didn't otherwise seem to fit the Halloween theme, so 2/10.

Overall Score: 4/10