ulukinatme
Carr for QB 2026!
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Darkest Dungeon is free to play this weekend, and it's also on sale right now if you decide to pick it up. I just started playing it, dark doesn't begin to describe it. It's a turn based RPG style game, and it's tough! Granted I haven't been playing it very long, but it has the feel that the game evolves as your characters get stronger, keeping the challenge level high. I don't think you can just grind and make it easy. Every dungeon I go to I have to make decisions like "Do I turn back, or risk pushing one more room and possibly losing a hero?"
There's a very unique stat line of "Stress" for each hero in your party. Stress builds up as you do dungeons and fights, and characters can have various Quirks tied to them that either increases or decreases Stress gains depending on the conditions. If the stress gets too high, characters can develop temporary or permanent Quirks like "Masochist" or "Paranoid." Heroes can release stress in a Tavern by drinking beer, gambling, or visiting the Brothel. Some characters can only relieve stress by visiting an Abbey and communing with the Light, Meditating, or...getting flogged basically
You can also send heroes to the Sanatorium to have permanent Quirks removed through various means.
The cool thing is there's a revolving cast of random heroes constantly approaching the manor where you're adventuring. It means that heroes that happen to die during adventures (Death is permanent!) can be replaced, although you're also giving up any progress they attained during their adventures. That's where the risk/reward comes into play when trying to push "One more room!" in dungeons. Sometimes you just have to abort a quest if a trek didn't go as planned. You certainly get attached to certain characters more than others. You may develop a "main party," and when they're too stressed for an adventure you go to a backup group of heroes waiting in the wings (You can recruit multiple different party members and keep them on the bench till you need them).
Unlike other games in the genre, there doesn't appear to be a Save/Load feature that I've seen, everything is Autosave. That means you can't game the system by going down a wrong path and reloading to a safer, earlier save. In place of that it seems you can abandon and flee a quest at any time, even if you're in the middle of a battle.
It's not a sprawling, 3D open world, but you have choices on where you go to quest during the campaign. Visually it has it's own style, it's not photo realistic if that's your thing, but the combat requires strategy as does party planning. Some dungeons are more grueling than others, and each time you visit the layouts change as do the traps and treasure.
As mentioned the game is free to play this weekend, but the base game is also on sale for $6.24 (75% off) which is a good deal I think. There's also a version with all the DLC for something like $16-17, which is what I already got and have been playing around with. The reviews on Steam average out to Very Positive, which is a good sign.
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There's a very unique stat line of "Stress" for each hero in your party. Stress builds up as you do dungeons and fights, and characters can have various Quirks tied to them that either increases or decreases Stress gains depending on the conditions. If the stress gets too high, characters can develop temporary or permanent Quirks like "Masochist" or "Paranoid." Heroes can release stress in a Tavern by drinking beer, gambling, or visiting the Brothel. Some characters can only relieve stress by visiting an Abbey and communing with the Light, Meditating, or...getting flogged basically
You can also send heroes to the Sanatorium to have permanent Quirks removed through various means.The cool thing is there's a revolving cast of random heroes constantly approaching the manor where you're adventuring. It means that heroes that happen to die during adventures (Death is permanent!) can be replaced, although you're also giving up any progress they attained during their adventures. That's where the risk/reward comes into play when trying to push "One more room!" in dungeons. Sometimes you just have to abort a quest if a trek didn't go as planned. You certainly get attached to certain characters more than others. You may develop a "main party," and when they're too stressed for an adventure you go to a backup group of heroes waiting in the wings (You can recruit multiple different party members and keep them on the bench till you need them).
Unlike other games in the genre, there doesn't appear to be a Save/Load feature that I've seen, everything is Autosave. That means you can't game the system by going down a wrong path and reloading to a safer, earlier save. In place of that it seems you can abandon and flee a quest at any time, even if you're in the middle of a battle.
It's not a sprawling, 3D open world, but you have choices on where you go to quest during the campaign. Visually it has it's own style, it's not photo realistic if that's your thing, but the combat requires strategy as does party planning. Some dungeons are more grueling than others, and each time you visit the layouts change as do the traps and treasure.
As mentioned the game is free to play this weekend, but the base game is also on sale for $6.24 (75% off) which is a good deal I think. There's also a version with all the DLC for something like $16-17, which is what I already got and have been playing around with. The reviews on Steam average out to Very Positive, which is a good sign.
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