World of Darkness

The main reason puzzle fans remember the Myst series to this day is because of the ingenious way the puzzles were presented, since most of the time there was no text and no voice acting to provide you with hints or guides. Instead, you had to figure out everything through symbols and patterns, which is much more enjoyable than regular puzzles that almost give you the answer in their description.

World of Darkness is a first-person puzzle game in which you have to solve riddles by paying attention to the environment and the clues you pick up along the way. In spite of its name, the game has nothing to do with the popular vampire lore that spawned Vampire: The Masquerade, so don’t expect anything of the sort. Hence, this is a short game designed for a gamejam competition, but it’s surprisingly complex nevertheless.

You start in a dark cave with no instructions and no explanation as to what you should be doing, but since there is only one object that can be picked up, things are easy to figure out. This object is a glowing cube, and it’s usually your only light source throughout the game, since it’s impossible to navigate the environment without one.

The cubes can also be used to activate various pieces of equipment you find along the way, including fans and doors, but you need more than one cube to activate everything at once. Hence, there are situations where you need to navigate using a fixed point in the distance, which is a neat idea, since you are surrounded by total darkness. Granted, there are some movement bugs, but nothing serious enough to halt your progress.

Since the game uses Unreal Engine 4, the lighting effects are very nice, especially since there is usually only one weak source of light. Everything else is rather basic, on the other hand, including the low-poly environments and the machinery you get to interact with over the course of the game. There’s also some ambient music playing in the background, which is a nice touch.

Even if it’s obviously not as complex or as polished as a Myst game, you have to remember that World of Darkness was designed from the ground up in only a week. Hence, it’s a pretty neat prototype that could evolve if the developers choose to continue their work.