Game: Dark Veer
Genre: Adventure, Survival Horror
System: Nintendo Switch
Developer|Publisher: Forever Entertainment
Age Rating: EU 12+|US Teen
Price: US $4.99|CA $5.99| AU $ 7.50 | £4.99 | €4,49
Release Date: 24th October 2019
Review code used, with many thanks to Forever Entertainment!
Spooky (A Personal-Story Intro)
Dark Veer is an experience. A FREAKY experience.
As I have mentioned before, I used to be ALL ABOUT scary games; However, I have discovered as I get older that I am less and less able to handle them.
The very first time I went to play this game, here’s what happened: I booted up the game, I heard the spooky ambient music, I was chilled to my bones. I went into options and discovered that I couldn’t invert my camera. At this point, I was terrified.
I thought to myself, well I can probably-maybe still play it anyway.
So I click onto story mode, and I’m pressing X to interact with things, but it is TORTUROUS because every time I try to look up, I end up pointing my face directly at the ground and then freaking out!
So, that was about 30 seconds of gameplay. Then I decided “AW HELL NO! I am not playing this game by myself.”
So, first impressions: Very well done on the atmospheric spooky-ness of the game. So freaky right off the hop that I point-blank refused to play it by myself.
“So how did you manage to write this review then?” You ask scathingly. “Well now, just let me finish my story young one.” I patiently reply.
The weekend rolls around, and I am starting to panic because I have put this game off, and it IS a scary game which is perfect for Halloween and Halloween has passed and now I’m letting gamers, and the game’s creators, and my beloved website, down.
So I’m hanging out with my partner, and I say “Please can I play this game with you watching.” he says “Yes please” (he loves spooky games).
-SIDE BAR-
I have this thing where when I am scared I don’t like having my feet on the ground. I don’t know if anyone else experiences this, but when I’m watching scary movies or playing scary games, or even reading scary books, I have to have my feet up on my chair/bed/couch, and preferably tucked under something warm (like my, or someone else’s butt).
-END SIDE BAR-
SO, that’s how this second escapade begins. My feet tucked under a blanket and comfortably held in a warm lap.
I start up the game, I’m playing, I’m panicking, I’m constantly accidentally looking at the ground. I freak out too much and shove the controller in my partner’s face: “You do it please!” my voice cracking as the panic escapes.
He laughs a bit, calls me silly for being unable to handle not having my Y-axis inverted, and then HANDILY proceeds to scream loudly as the monster jumps out 2 minutes later.
Then we decided to go watch a friend play some music at a bar after that.
“Okay, so you DIDN’T even play it so how can you review–”
“Calm yourself, the story isn’t done yet.” I interrupt.
Musically-inclined friend comes over; now the three of us are diving into Dark Veer. I’m watching, feet comfortably tucked under my own butt on the bed. Music friend says “I hate scary games I can’t believe you’re making me play this”
I reply with a “Thank you so much, I’m just a big chicken but I need stuff for my review!”
He loves cats and screenshots this for me.
He manages to play pretty darn well; I was able to take a step out of my fear for a moment, and really analyze the game from a technical perspective thanks to my very good, and dear, friends.
HILARIOUSLY though, after beating a couple of Story Mode chapters, he goes into One Shot Mode (which is an endless “how far can you get” mode), and he’s playing it, and then something happens that is a new feature in a later story mode chapter. He says:
“Uh oh, the closet is open and I don’t know what to do for that.”
Ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump. A few heartbeats later…
AAAAAHHHHHH!!! We all scream loudly as the monster explodes out of the closet and (likely) begins to ingest our small-child face.
Scary (An Explanation of Story and Gameplay)
If you read through my story, then first of all, thank you.
Secondly, Dark Veer is a cool premise wrapped in a very simple idea, with simple graphics, and manages to pull off what it intends to do: scare you.
You are a small child. Daddy works the night shift, and you wish he didn’t have to leave because you’re afraid of the dark.
Daddy reassures you it’s just your imagination, and now your mission is simply to try and fall asleep.
But sleep doesn’t come so easily. A monster is after you. It hates the light, but you can’t fall asleep with the light on; I’m sure you see the conundrum THAT creates.
Your job is to lie in bed, in the dark, trying to fall asleep. If you hear a noise, you must get up and go deal with it because if the window is open, or the alarm clock is going off, the monsters will get you.
Controls are simple: move and look around with your standard joy-stick controls, interact with things with X. That’s it.
Skeletons (Feelings On Audio and Visual)
The ambient background noise of this game is extremely spooky. It immediately put me into a heightened state of fear and panic. When the game says “BEST PLAYED WITH SOUND ON”, they mean it, but for more than just that reason.
The other ambient and atmospheric sounds are extremely important to be aware of as well. When you’re up on your top bunk bed trying to fall asleep, you can’t see any of what’s happening in your room.
So you have to keep your ears open to hear the subtle noise of the window or door opening, and immediately hop down to take care of it.
In fact, you wouldn’t be able to play this game for very long without the sound.
As well, when something spooky happens, such as the alarm clock going off for no reason, or the window opening, once you get down there and deal with it you will hear your poor little heart just a beating, and your breath coming in quick gasps.
It is those little audio details that really make or break a game, and I think Dark Veer is sitting comfortably in the “make” category.
Now let’s have a quick talk about visuals; they are quite pixelated. Now this might turn some people off, but I find the super pixelated, almost to the point of making the whole game look blurry, to be an advantage.
It makes you rely a lot more on your imagination to “see” and interact with everything around you.
And if I have learnt anything from playing many scary video games, the ones that are the best are the ones that aren’t shoving the scares right into your face. They are the ones that are keeping the spooky stuff out of sight, and therefore forcing your brain to try and fill in the missing puzzle pieces.
Basically what I’m trying to say is it helps make the game scarier in a good way, not in a frustrating way.
The Little Niggles
The first thing I am going to say is that WHY is there no option to invert my camera? I honestly see no reason why it can’t be implemented into a game.
If the creators were trying to make it MORE difficult and scary for inverts like me by leaving it out, well that failed because it only made me frustrated and angry.
Otherwise, another little niggle is one that my friend pointed out: the lamp.
So you need the lamp when your bedroom door opens, as it is the counter to the door. The monster hates the light, so if the door opens you have to turn on the light. Pretty simple.
However there’s no penalty for turning on the light, so if something else happens – like the alarm clock going off – there’s no reason NOT to just hop out of bed, turn on the light, and then go deal with the clock.
Now, as my lovely-musical-friend was playing it, I was putting myself in his shoes and thought “It’s SMART to always turn on the light, you can see better!”
But I guess they felt it was too easy, and perhaps if there was some kind of time-limit on the lamp, or you only had a certain amount of energy for a certain duration of time with the lamp, then it would make the lamp less “overpowered” as it were.
Lamp ON.
CONCLUSION
If you’re feeling the post-Halloween blues, and you just need something to take your mind off the fact that at your work all you hear is “Last Christmas” 40 times a day, then I would definitely recommend Dark Veer.
If you’re into scary games I would recommend it.
For this extremely modest price, you really can’t go wrong. It has the spooky atmosphere, and the scares to get your “EEP-zone” all tingly.
And, if I were you I would suggest you invite a friend or two over and have them give it a try. It brought me so much joy to scream, and then laugh, along with my friends when the monster eventually triumphs.
It’s easy to pick up with minimal learning curve, it will get your blood pumping, and it will not break your bank. If you’re a Y-axis invert, I’d maybe wait for a (hopefully) patch.
Final Verdict: I like it!
