Darkest Dungeon

Meat Grinder

Meat Grinder

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http://www.darkestdungeon.com/

This is the only other game, besides Combat Mission, that I am playing at the moment. I've been playing it since early release and I absolutely love it.

The best way I can describe it is it is a turn based strategy/dungeon exploration/roguelike with strong Lovecraftian influences. There is a storyline. Your uncle (IIRC) sends you a letter asking you to return to your ancestral home and explore/clean out the catacombs beneath the house, where something.....terrible....has awakened. You do this by going to the nearby hamlet, recruiting adventurers, equipping them, and sending them on missions.

This game is *very* hard. There are no saves. If an adventurer dies, he is gone forever. This can happen fairly frequently and I've had a couple of TPWs (Total Party Wipes). There is quite a bit of strategy involved, both in the combats, and in resource management. Money (or rather, lack of) is a constant problem. The adventurers not only have hitpoints, but they have a stress meter and if it gets too high, they can go "insane" and all sorts of bad things happen. You can relieve stress between missions in the hamlet by drinking, gambling, whoring, meditating, praying, and flagellation (no, I'm not kidding).

There are, of course, missions where you have to defeat a boss. The bosses can be very hard, and each one requires a different strategy that you have to figure out.

I've been playing for months, and am just now to the point that I'm about to send a party into the final "Darkest" dungeon. I kinda dread it, because I have a feeling it's going to be way harder than anything I've encountered up to this point.

Great game. Two thumbs up! Available on Steam.
 
Checked out the website, really like the artwork for the game.
 
Yup, like the look of that, something to play on the laptop when I'm not at home, cheers for the heads up.
In return I recommend "This war of mine" which can be found on steam where it has the rating overwhelmingly positive from 15000+ reviews.
 
Rico said:
I've seen the trailers for that -- man, it looks grim and depressing...
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That's a fair assumption but then it's set in a grim, depressing & harsh situation.
I believe inspiration came from the siege of Sarajevo but a comment from its steam page says more than I can.

" It was recommended to me by a close friend because, me being a former war refugee from the Balkans, he thought I might find the content "a bit familiar." It went a bit further than that, in fact it kind turned out to be some uncanny early-childhood simulator for me. I still remember the visceral terror of being a child in that war; I will never forget howling and begging my mother not to go outside to buy bread, out of fear that she would be shot dead by a sniper. Asking why my grandmother couldn't go instead.

This game captures moments like that with a masterful hand. It is never heavy or hamfisted. I can't explain how well the developers have encapsulated the hoplessness and the mundane brutality of the Balkan civil war, and it leads me to think that at least one key person involved in the development of this game had to have lived through it, too. The tone is just perfect, striking that difficult balance between terror and absurdity, and reminds me of all the films I love that came out of Former Yugoslavia after the war. This is not Angelina Jolie painting Balkan politics with a broad brush dipped in ignorance and a skewed western perspective insensitive of nuance--this is an authentic work of art that is sensitive to the complexities of its subject matter and the individual stories of the thousands of people whose lives were shaped and altered forever by this horrible, unnecessary war.

It's an emotional playthrough, even for people who haven't had any experience with the historical event. It is a "war game" like no other and I can't recommend it enough. Take it from someone who was there."

Apologies Meat Grinder, didn't intend to hijack your thread.
 
Woah, gotta take a break. Entered the Darkest Dungeon with four of my best adventurers, made it all the way to the mini-boss, and had to retreat and abandon the quest, losing one of my level 6 (highest level in the game) adventurers. I'm also short on funds, so am in rebuild mode again. Wow, this game is hard....and fun!
 
Villiamza said:
That's a fair assumption but then it's set in a grim, depressing & harsh situation.
I believe inspiration came from the siege of Sarajevo but a comment from its steam page says more than I can.

" It was recommended to me by a close friend because, me being a former war refugee from the Balkans, he thought I might find the content "a bit familiar." It went a bit further than that, in fact it kind turned out to be some uncanny early-childhood simulator for me. I still remember the visceral terror of being a child in that war; I will never forget howling and begging my mother not to go outside to buy bread, out of fear that she would be shot dead by a sniper. Asking why my grandmother couldn't go instead.

This game captures moments like that with a masterful hand. It is never heavy or hamfisted. I can't explain how well the developers have encapsulated the hoplessness and the mundane brutality of the Balkan civil war, and it leads me to think that at least one key person involved in the development of this game had to have lived through it, too. The tone is just perfect, striking that difficult balance between terror and absurdity, and reminds me of all the films I love that came out of Former Yugoslavia after the war. This is not Angelina Jolie painting Balkan politics with a broad brush dipped in ignorance and a skewed western perspective insensitive of nuance--this is an authentic work of art that is sensitive to the complexities of its subject matter and the individual stories of the thousands of people whose lives were shaped and altered forever by this horrible, unnecessary war.

It's an emotional playthrough, even for people who haven't had any experience with the historical event. It is a "war game" like no other and I can't recommend it enough. Take it from someone who was there."

Apologies Meat Grinder, didn't intend to hijack your thread.
Click to expand...


I think I got that and must admit it sounds awesome -- but I do indulge in gaming rather as an escape from real life...lol... that said, I should give it a try.
 
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