Things have been quiet because all of my writing has been focused on getting a substantial buffer for my Patreon (you are backing my Patreon, right? I mean, of course you are!). Things are looking good as the releases up to and including January are complete and I’ve got a lot of work already done on February’s release, so I might be able to ease up soon.
Sometimes I need a break. I have about an hour – sometimes less – to myself, and these days I’ve been playing Darkest Dungeon.
In Darkest Dungeon you assemble teams to enter dungeons – big surprise – from a home-base in a run-down village that has been negatively impacted by its proximity to all this evil and supernatural menace. Each type of character has special attacks and buff-abilities, and there are four destinations, each with different standard opponents.
The idea is to build a bench of specialists and choose the correct team to assault the dungeon. I don’t know the proper terminology for this stuff, but the characters move along the screen in sideview (sidescrolling? I actually don’t think that’s correct, but it seems right). Fights are turn based – almost like D&D – and characters can get magic items that help and hinder them.
Stress is also hugely important, and while it’s pretty easy to repair physical damage – there are a couple of classes with that as either a specialty or option – healing stress is very hard unless one makes camp. There is one class with an optional skill that helps, but generally it’s tough to recover from stress and too much stress can severely negatively impact a character and possibly even kill them. It can get pretty dark and pretty frustrating.
To be honest, I can’t explain why I like it as much as I do, but for me it’s addictive. I have specific classes that I really like and other classes that are somewhat useful and help round out a team. Never get too attached to any character, though, because death is always right around the corner.
I give Darkest Dungeon 4.5 blight-resistant, bleed-attacking, stress-relieving Jesters out of 5. It’s not high octane action but there’s something satisfying about building powerful characters and seeing a thoughtful strategy bear fruit. Even the frustration of bad rolls is present, though not as satisfying.
You can find out more about Darkest Dungeon here.
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