Aside from the horror, the thing that most sticks out to me about Darkwood when I play it now, the thing that makes it not just a scary game but an exceedingly well-designed one for me, is in how quests are designed.
For lack of a better word, it almost feels like there's an asymmetry in the quest design? They don't seem to obey the traditional RPG structure of giving rewards commensurate with the difficulty, and a lot of the consequences can be unforeseen and dynamic. For example, I almost never give the key to the Musician, since it seems giving it to Wolf gives you a lot of boons in Chapter 2 and avoids a lot of dangers. For a choice presented so neutrally, it seems there's a far better option. You can kill the sow, or not, but it brings a lot of changes that follow you all the way to Chapter 2.
My question is, then, how did you guys go about designing a lot of the options and consequences for the player when it came to NPC quests and world events? To make it a bit more specific, were these asymmetries something you were aware of? Something you wanted to be in the game? Or did you design things with a focus on story/realism first, and let the gameplay consequences fall into place later?
Overall, it's just as chilling as the overt horror in my opinion, and I wish more games played with player expectations when it came to quests outcomes and their balance, especially one with as much stakes as Darkwood on permadeath mode.
My last, unrelated question would be: How do we give you guys feedback on Soccer Kids? :)
FireStormDarkClash1 karma
Aside from the horror, the thing that most sticks out to me about Darkwood when I play it now, the thing that makes it not just a scary game but an exceedingly well-designed one for me, is in how quests are designed.
For lack of a better word, it almost feels like there's an asymmetry in the quest design? They don't seem to obey the traditional RPG structure of giving rewards commensurate with the difficulty, and a lot of the consequences can be unforeseen and dynamic. For example, I almost never give the key to the Musician, since it seems giving it to Wolf gives you a lot of boons in Chapter 2 and avoids a lot of dangers. For a choice presented so neutrally, it seems there's a far better option. You can kill the sow, or not, but it brings a lot of changes that follow you all the way to Chapter 2.
My question is, then, how did you guys go about designing a lot of the options and consequences for the player when it came to NPC quests and world events? To make it a bit more specific, were these asymmetries something you were aware of? Something you wanted to be in the game? Or did you design things with a focus on story/realism first, and let the gameplay consequences fall into place later?
Overall, it's just as chilling as the overt horror in my opinion, and I wish more games played with player expectations when it came to quests outcomes and their balance, especially one with as much stakes as Darkwood on permadeath mode.
My last, unrelated question would be: How do we give you guys feedback on Soccer Kids? :)
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