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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