Dark Hope: A Puzzle Adventure

Ive got 14 hours invested in this puzzle game. The vast majority of that has been spent wondering around scratching my head trying to figure out some kind of logic to progress. It's REALLY REALLY tough so do not expect quick progress. Having had to revert to clues from this steam discussion page and on Discord where the dev has to help people progress with hints, for me I need a few more in-game prompts to allow me to progress without feeling I am unable to continue without external assistance. I dont have a brain the size of a planet. If you are looking for a game that enables progressively harder quick puzzles that start off easy and get tougher but that you kindof learn the concepts, then this game is not for you. If you want a game that allows you to just sit there pondering life feeling your brain twist in your scull and have plenty of time on your hands with little to show for it, then give it a go. Its obvious the dev is a very clever egg head and thought deeply about the puzzle...

Positive: - Some of the puzzles are brilliant, I had tons of fun in the final part of the game with the math puzzles. Unfortunately puzzles like these are getting more and more uncommon in recent games. - The game definitely does not hold your hand during solving puzzles, it encourages exploration and deductive reasoning. That is always nice. - Atmosphere has the right amount of creepiness. Negative: - Some of the puzzles are criminally under clued. Hence you need to do a lot of random guessing, to the point that it gets frustrating. The game would definitely benefit from more text (journals, diagrams etc.) and hints. - Exploration is severely hindered by the interface. You character can walk fast, but the interactions with the environment is super slow. Hence trying out new ideas take forever... This is the biggest weakness of the game. - Story and setting seemed interesting but you don't get to learn much about it. Like my previous point, it would have been great to have more journa...

Great game. Puzzles are very hard however!

This is a solid first-person adventure game where the highlight is the puzzles. The puzzles are relatively hard in that the clues to solve the puzzles require careful observation and note taking. For the most part, I thought the clues, whether presented in explicit notes, or from your own theories of how things work based on experimentation, were quite adequate. Sometimes the clues may be slightly incomplete (I believe by intention, unless I missed a clue) requiring a very small amount, like maybe 5 or 6 attempts of trial and error to get the final solution. Overall I was very satisfied by the puzzles in this game. The quality of the graphics, modelling, textures etc are merely adequate for this day and age, but they get the job done. The game engine allows real-time first person movement (not slide show) but looks like it is a home-brew engine and it is barely serviceable. Movement and animations are clunky, there aren't many options, no invert Y axis etc. This is not a pretty gam...

Interesting puzzles hard to get into at the beginning but worth persevering so far.

I got this game for a couple of dollars on sale. I was already expecting it to be very unpolished from other reviews but figured it could be an interesting experience anyway. I got stuck, resorted to a guide and then learned that the reason i was stuck was that certain blank notes were supposed to actually contain numbers and clues necessary to progress. Bad graphics, lag, glitchy lighting and occasionally broken audio is possibly tolerable. Being unplayable is not. Don't buy at any price.

I played for a half an hour and the game seems kind of broken. I apparently randomly solved the bio lab puzzle? All I did was randomly punch numbers, and I came back and the door was open. I got an achievement for shooting lasers when I didn't even turn on the machine that shoots the lasers. I bought this game on a whim because it was $0.99, but you might need to advertise this as early access, it feels kind of broken and I haven't even played that much. It actually seems kind of fun, but when puzzles are solving themselves for no reason, it kind of defeats the purpose of the game.

Part of this game is played in a "steampunk" version of an R&D laboratory, and part in a futuristic setting. I especially enjoyed the "steampunk" setting and puzzles.

The game shows promise, and I will be looking for anything that the dev puts out in the future. However, unless you have some god like patience and enjoy doing math/science I don't recommend this game. Even if you do decide to play it, I strongly recommend using a guide. Graphics are okay. They're very, very simple and at points have some amount of charm to them. Nothing special, but they're not so poorly done that you'll be left wondering what something is supposed to be. The environment is done well enough that I wasn't disappointed with it until the very end, where it is drastically changed. Overall they're not good enough to be considered iconic, but not bad enough to be called ugly. The gameplay is mediocre. The game does a really good job of making you feel like there's something dangerous out there, but you are at no time in a position where you need to hide or run from something. Hell, even the strange disembodied shadow that lurks around in one area will completely ignore y...