Here, logic need not (always) apply the fabric of this world sometimes requires manipulation to proceed. A reminder of an essential aspect of Darq: Lloyd is inside a dream. I just had to walk up the walls and onto the ceiling to grab it it was a brilliant little eureka moment. It was a bit frustrating, but my chagrin was born of negligence because the solution was right in front of me. However, it took me far longer to figure out how to get the final cog, which was suspended from the ceiling. The first came easy, and the second was just gated behind a simple sliding jigsaw puzzle nearby. So I examined the level from top to bottom, searching for the cogs in question. There was a barred gate, and the only way to get past was to power up a giant mechanical contraption that was missing three cogs from its engine. Even the very first puzzle is a real noggin-scratcher and one I struggled with. You will spend most of your time fiddling about with these lever-based puzzles, and they’re pretty enjoyable. While in other cases, turning a crank might swap out a room for a completely different environment. Sometimes, it’s as simple as hitting a lever so that a drawbridge shifts to a perpendicular angle letting Lloyd walk up to it and onto the ceiling. Throughout each chapter is a smattering of levers that shift the camera’s perspective or change the layout of a room. The trial and error puzzle-solving nature of games like Limbo and Inside are here, yet there are not quite as many brutal fail states. It would be easy to undercut that mystery if the gameplay wasn't up to snuff, but thankfully Darq's mechanics are pretty clever. While the ambiguity of Darq's story might not appeal to everyone, I loved thinking about and speculating on the meaning behind each chapter. All I can say for sure is Darq's narrative is cryptic without delving into pretension, and I relished taking it all in for my own interpretation. Maybe Lloyd is asleep in a hospital? Who knows. An intensive care unit (ICU) can be heard beeping away periodically in the background, while several enemies are wheelchair-bound and sickly. For example, while analyzing the set-dressing on one level, I noticed there was a recurring motif of physical illness. While that ambiguity might not appeal to everyone, I loved internalizing each chapter processing and speculating on the meaning behind them. Most of my enjoyment of the story came from theorizing with others about what it all meant, the kind of mystery that fuels a good water cooler chat. The story is intentionally opaque to replicate that "fuzzy details" feeling when you try to recall a dream from memory - more thoughts and feelings, less plot and exposition - which works in its favor. He's at the mercy of his unconscious mind, desperate to wake up - but I only know even those few details from perusing Darq's official website. There's no initial title screen, even instead, a decaying apartment with a boy quivering at the center. But its somber monochromatic visuals and puzzles that bend the laws of physics were too alluring of a sirensong, and I’m glad they pulled me to play it because, even at its most bleak, Darq is beautiful.ĭarq fixates on submerging you in a dreamscape and doesn't elaborate much in the way of a backstory. My brain already loves to put me through the wringer with restless dreams, so I was worried that Darq’s subject matter might be too much for me. I'm a coward when it comes to nightmares, so Darq’s premise of a psychological horror game set in a lucid dream was enough to make me uncomfortably squirm in my chair on its own.
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