On the Darkening Green

Making the right decision is not easy all the time, even if the answer might appear to be obvious to someone observing from the outside. Thus, there are many factors that influence your choices at any given time, and as you might expect, people are not objective one hundred percent of the time. On the other hand, this is what makes the people around us interesting.

On the Darkening Green is an interactive visual novel in which you play the role of a traveler as he is faced with a variety of tough decisions in his journey. The game was designed around the theme of pacifism, and it aims to allow you to change your character’s stats through choices. However, it’s still a pretty short experience, given the fact that the whole thing was designed in 48 hours.

Your character’s name is Harper, and he is traveling with a companion named Glen. The strange forest you are exploring is full of interesting creatures and various events, not to mention the fact that there are a few horror elements in there as well. However, the most important part is shaping your character through the choices you make.

As mentioned before, your decisions affect Harper’s stats, so the game focuses on concepts like consequences and morality. In fact, the game measures your behavior along the way and keeps in mind whether you are prone to violence, pacifism or something in between. Naturally, these choices also affect the plot as a whole, so the experience might vary if you decide to do a second or third playthrough.

In terms of graphics, there is not much to look at, given the fact that the designers only had a few hours at their disposal to come up with the artwork. However, the dark colors are in tune with the overall atmosphere and the theme of the game, so that’s certainly a plus. The music is nicely chosen, but it can actually get very repetitive after only a few minutes.

In the end, On the Darkening Green is onto something here, but there is not enough content to make the most of it. Thus, we can only hope that the game is expanded upon in the near future.