Review

Darkness Within: In Pursuit of Loath Nolder

Good tactics, poor plot.

Eerie music, dark ominous figures, and creepy legends are just a few of the things one will encounter while playing Darkness Within: In Pursuit of Loath Nolder. This game, while not being the best point and click mystery/horror title, did manage to give me a few good scares (one of which was just after the opening monologue). Brought to us by Lighthouse Interactive, Darkness Within…

The game begins with a monologue from our main character, Howard E. Loreid, whom is currently in a mental institution. He is actually narrating from a journal where he has recorded his thoughts and all that he can remember of the events leading up to his institutionalization. According to him, some locals reported him to the authorities after they found him ranting and raving in a cemetery.  Howard keeps the journal because he is not quite sure if he has truly gone mad or if the strange experiences he had were real. A few days before the cemetery incident he was investigating the recent disappearance of Loath Nolder, the prime suspect in the murder of Clark Fields. It isn’t until after the monologue that you actually begin playing the game. You’ll find yourself in one of Howard’s many dream sequences. Once he wakes up, you’ve gone back in time to the day when he learned of Nolder’s disappearance. As you play, you’ll uncover the events culminating to cemetery incident.

Before you can begin the game, you will need to select your level of difficulty; Standard, Detective, or Senior Detective. The main differences between these are the prompting of hints and the ability to automatically research documents; I’ll come back to the document researching in a minute. The hints can either be provided as soon as you enter a room or environment (Standard), when you have lingered too long in one area (Detective), or not at all (Senior Detective). However, the difficulty settings can be changed during game play if you feel the need. While I initially began the game in Standard mode, I quickly tired of the instantaneous hints, and switched to Detective. Other difficulty options are available to customize during the game such as, the clue counter or underlining; both are connected to document researching. One more note, make sure that you download the two patches from the developer’s website; they will make a world of difference!

Like most point-and-click games, you are given a first person view, where you see little to none of Howard’s body (not even when you open doors).  To use or pick up an item, you scroll over it and the cursor will change accordingly; a cog-wheel icon to operate items, a hand to pick up, or a magnifying glass to examine more closely. If an item can be taken, clicking on it will cause it appear in your inventory bar which is displayed horizontally across the top of the screen. Items such as a cell phone can be used directly from the inventory by right clicking. Other items can only be used once you exit the inventory bar, such as a key or flash light. All items in the inventory can be observed in more detail through the “Examine Screen”. In this view you can zoom in and rotate. I’ll take the time now to point out that the Examine Screen is just one way that this game forces you to really explore the items you collect; major clues can be gleaned by using this tool.

To access all other clues and observations made by Howard during the course of the game, you will need to open “Howard’s mind”. This is a dropdown window from the inventory that organizes all the clues into groups, according to the place they were obtained and provides a description of the clue when selected. The clues consist of conversations, sights, objects, or even smells. Here is where I think this game really shines as far as technical content; “Howard’s Mind” allows you to combine clues, in no specific order, to make Howard think of new clues and to progress the story. Now, how many times have you played a mystery/horror game and wanted your character to utilize key information to move the story forward, but could not do so because it wasn’t yet “time”? Well now all you have to do is combine two or more thoughts to get those mental wheels moving in a forward direction. Sometimes, you can even have Howard think about one clue and still progress the story. This is probably a good time to mention the document researching. This is special menu screen that appears when Howard picks up and examines documents that he can not take with him. In this menu, the cursor becomes a pen and you are able to underline sentences and ask Howard to “think” about them. If there is a real clue the sentence or words will remain underlined and Howard will reveal his thoughts to you, on the dialogue bar at the bottom of the screen, and a new clue/thought appears in “Howard’s mind”.

The automatic document researching is just as it sounds, you simply ask Howard to examine the document and the clues are automatically underlined. This will not work, however, with hidden clues. Unfortunately, with this great new feature there is a downside. Depending on the difficulty, some documents may only be searched when it is relevant to the portion of the story you have actually encountered. Now I know that doesn’t really sound like a setback but consider this: your character is a detective, and he is currently investigating a case in which he has a key suspect. Why on earth would he wait three days to “research” a document that is related to his case that he has had in his possession since day one! Because of this technicality, you may find yourself discounting clues and information that is important because you found it “too early” in the game. You will rack up many hours of gameplay just because you will have to double or even triple check documents.

The document researching is best utilized on the Senior Detective difficulty. On this mode alone you can research documents at any time, but you will only gather clues when the story has progressed in an appropriate manor. I’ll conclude my criticism of “Howard’s mind” with this; the concept for this method of collecting clues and even the document researching was really exciting to me. But, it has very limited usage which often leaves you to collect clues the “old school” way; remembering what you see and taking note of it yourself!

Now, there are two aspects of a game that can greatly enhance the quality of a point and click computer game; sound and graphics. When it comes to Darkness Within, I have few complaints. The sound quality in Darkness was very inspiring; I particularly liked the background shuffle at Howard’s office that included people murmuring and the occasional sounds of one’s fingers hitting the keyboard. The background noise of cars passing by Howard’s house at night was also very fitting. The soundtrack added to the horror element and truly enhanced the gameplay. There would be times where there was no music playing, just unnatural sound effects, then all of the sudden, you enter a specific part of a room and the music kicks in full blast. Great way to keep you on edge while searching an old “abandoned” house!

As for the graphics, the environments were, at times, very detailed but not necessarily spectacular. On a positive note, lamps and candles didn’t just illuminate the room as they provided a soft glow to make the atmosphere more intimate. At one point in the game, you enter a room that is located in a tower and there is a window with sunlight gleaming through. Somehow the developers were able to perfectly capture the effect of the halo you see when the sun shines through a window into your eyes; you may even catch yourself blinking! Where the graphics lacked, was the character designs. There is something creepy about not being able to clearly make out the faces of the people you encounter, but it’s another thing to have poorly modeled figures.

Unfortunately this game lacked in plot structure, ruining the merit that it acquired from the sound effects and graphics. Without revealing to you the entire plot, I just wish to highlight that in most games of this nature, one normally answers the questions that are posed the beginning of the adventure. Or if no questions are answered there is normally a climactic ending that would actually motivate one to look forward to the possibility of a sequel. In this game we get none of the above. The finale was ruined by slow pacing and poor dialogue. Even Howard’s dream sequences and panic attacks were more compelling!

Overall, I can’t exactly say that I would recommend Darkness Within for its terrific story or imaginative plot, but the technical aspects do provide a different method for searching and collecting clues, aforementioned drawbacks withstanding. The only motivation to boot this game up again comes from the desire to collect/discover all the hidden clues you may have missed, especially since you are able to view your game results at the conclusion of the story. If you like a challenge (and many hours of reading random documents) then you will enjoy this game but as far as picking it back up off the shelf for the pure joy of re-experiencing a great game, I’m not so sure.