Dark, Darker, Darkest First Impressions

Dark, Darker, Darkest is a cooperative survival horror board game…

Just another Zombie game.

Dark Darker Darkest is an intense cooperative survival horror game in which a team of urban survivors try to fight the darkness in an unsettling location: the house of Doctor Mortimer, which holds the antidote to a virus turning the world into an army of undead.

You are a group of dudes in a laboratory moving around rooms. The goal is to find the code to the lab to get in to fight the big bad guy.

It’s a co-op game so I spent most of the game being told what to do, it’s quite fiddly although it was our first play and it took over 3 hours. Not a fan.

I didn’t dislike everything…

Separation Mechanic

If you’re all together in the same room you all take a turn, then the Zombies take a turn, simple.

If you split into 2 rooms, Group 1 takes a turn, then the Zombies take a turn, then Group 2 takes a turn, then the Zombies take another turn. So splitting up is bad.

I think this is the best mechanic I’ve seen for splitting up groups. Computer Game Left 4 Dead is made to stop people wandering off and that really makes it stand out from other FPS games. This separation mechanic does it too.

Combat

Dark, Darker, Darkest adds to the separation thing, the more of you there are in the same room the more defence dice you will have vs Zombie attacks.

You use your successful defence rolls to cancel out the Zombie’s successful attacks. They can deal damage, the more damage you take means you start to fewer action points per turn to use. Bites infect you which is HORRIBLE. They can also grab you which is very VERY hard to escape from.

Cameras

Some rooms have cameras that can see down corridors. Ending your turn in view of a camera means something bad can happen. Although not amazing or unique, it was thematic.

You can imagine the big bad (I say big bad, it’s a mad Professor or one of his family) monitoring the cameras while hiding in his lab and making things happen to those he sees.

Fire

The fire is a lot like Flash Point: Fire Rescue when it can start, if it starts it spreads randomly. You can put it out, explosions can happen etc

It’s a good idea as it eventually starts sealing off rooms which adds to the tension.

Dark, Darker, Darkest Summary

I didn’t HATE the game I just think I’d rather spend that amount of time playing the more cartoony Zombicide or something like Arkham Horror.

Jesta ThaRogue