Late to the Party: Damned

Price I paid: I got it as part of a $15 bundle on Humblebundle.com

Damned is a near-perfect outline of what I look for in a horror game. It has a spooky atmosphere. It is legitimately tense. It has monsters. After a player dies, they can communicate with their teammates as a ghost who only knows how to type (voice chat is disabled). Basically, it’s a box describing a digital laxative that you share with friends. It’s a great start, and it has loads of potential. Unfortunately, the game is not in early access. It’s a $20 game. Despite its strengths, it needs a lot of fixing before it is worth that price.

Let’s start with its strengths. Damned is legitimately nerve-racking to play as a survivor. Your flashlight has a limited life. You can find batteries for it, but it doesn’t tell you how long they last. Keys often have descriptions rather than labels, adding to the uncertainty since you don’t know what doors they will open. Every time I shut the door behind me, I never truly knew if I was shutting a monster out or locking myself into a room with one I hadn’t seen. The lighting is dark and atmospheric. I startled myself multiple times from my flashlight coming into frame. Some monsters can set noise traps. One monster can teleport. The sound effects and music are chilling and well produced.

Father NPC blocking the door so a monster couldn't get in. I stood by and helpfully blinded him with my flashlight.

Everything in that last paragraph is the groundwork for a great game. But like biting into a cake that replaced half of the flour with salt, it doesn’t take long to realize something is horribly wrong.

The game works on subtly, which I like. However, it’s too subtle in a lot of critical areas. Knowing when a door is locked or unlocked involves hearing a short audio cue that I missed for the first hour of game play. You learn the basic controls by going into the options menu and looking at the controller layout. They never explain parts of the monster’s powers, limitations, or functions, forcing you to internally debate whether you are the thickest person on Earth or if the developers forgot to tell you something. While a lack of health bars or stats of any kind keep you in the moment, the lack of knowledge on fundamental components undermines the tension it built.

Just look at these happy boxes! They are so cute!

There are four playable survivors to choose from, but they are all about as unremarkable as four random attendees at an NPC convention (which I would call NPCon).

There are three monsters that one player controls, and I will severely water-down their appeal and problems to explain them in one paragraph. The Lurker is a big, scary-hands monster that looks like Groot if he were made out of steaks. It’s incorporeal, meaning it can walk through doors and is invisible, but can become corporeal to attack survivors for a short time. However, it cannot see survivors in its native form, making you wonder around, hoping to pop into the material plane at just the right time. The Wraith, contrary to his ghostly name, is always visible. It’s an ironic name choice because the players always see it but it cannot see them unless they make a loud noise close to it or if it, literally, bumps into a player. But like an asthmatic who is it in a game of tag, every survivor will outrun it. Finally, there is Mary, a little girl who walks about as fast as a slow motion car at a stop sign. She can teleport by using some of her power. When she gets full power, she can go into frenzy mode where she can sprint and attack survivors. It only lasts for a short while, and then you have to wait for it to recharge. If you’re wondering how long it takes to recharge, every time I attacked, I tabbed out and leisurely wrote about a third of my notes on this game. To my limited, mortal mind, her abilities are counter intuitive. I can’t attack without full power, and because she moves so slow, there is no point in attempting to follow survivors. Like so many parts of this game, the ideas for the monsters are intriguing but not fleshed-out or tested enough to be good.

 If you're wondering exactly how slowly Mary walks, it took me five seconds to walk from where you I took this screen shot to the next screen shot.

 I did not move the mouse. This was only holding the W key. She walks at a frustratingly slow pace.

But glitches won’t stand back and let design problems hog the spotlight. I saw Meat Groot flicker in and out of existence like a strobe light. There were times I couldn’t choose a character or chat in the lobby. Sometimes, instead of spectating another player after I died, I kept looking through my dead, rotting eyes. I spent a few games wondering why I couldn’t find anyone only to learn I was in some sort of disconnected-from-game-but-still-in-game limbo.

In addition to bugs and lack-luster monster mechanics, every game plays out the same way. If you are the survivors, you scour every room for keys, try every door, look for the keys they missed, and then get killed. If you are the monster, you walk around, hear the survivors having fun, spook them, and get to do something worthwhile once every 3-10 minutes. Someone said the monsters could communicate with players, but that was always dodgy when I tried it. While there are multiple levels to choose, the pattern remains the same.

 Mary in frenzy. This was taken moments before she killed me... and then the game glitched and I couldn't spectate.

I spent a long time complaining, so here is where the “2/10. This game is like dog doodoo on my shoe that I paid to step in” review would appear. However, despite everything I said, I had an absolute blast playing this game as a survivor for a few hours once I found a group of really great people who wanted to have as much fun with the game as I did.

The game is fun when you can play with 3-5 people who are talkative and in it for fun. We laughed and screamed at each other and the monsters. When only one survivor remained, we would encourage, or distract, him/her over the chat. When everyone was in it for the same reason and engaging with one another, the bugs and glitches and shoddy mechanics became less noticeable. I was tense one moment and laughing the next. It was an incredibly positive and enjoyable few hours.

If you have three to five friends you think would enjoy it, it’s a fun and tense romp for a few hours. If you see it in a bundle, think of it as a little bonus, but don’t expect to have the much fun with it alone. I really hope the developers keep working on it and turn it into a solid, cohesive game. What Damned does right, it does brilliantly. While each problem isn’t a game breaker by itself, the sheer multitude of them bogs it down severely. With more work and refinement, it has the potential to one day be a standout game.

Jesse
@RexiconJesse