Darkout

However, there are some issues that have to be overlooked to fully enjoy Darkout. The lack of a story (at least an introduction of some sort), or any external motivation can lead to a situation where the player is mining just for the sake of mining, and crafting just for the sake of crafting, which can be fine for some, but not for all.

Without a good tutorial, Darkout offers a lot of good stuff. It’s a shame there is no tutorial, so you know what you’re doing. Because of that, it’s a game for a select audience.

Darkout was launched a little bit early, it could have been a more refined, but its gameplay mechanics works quite well. The exploration is not the strong point here, while the basic construction will delight virtual engineers.

An interesting idea ruined by a clumsy user interface and an overly complicated crafting system. The game has potential, but it needs a lot more work.

There are some aspects of the game worth praising, but in general terms, the lack of content creates a dull experience that only a major update could improve.

Both Terraria and Minecraft handle the basic mechanics of crafting and resource gathering better, and aside from an intriguing and visually enticing setting, there's nothing here that really makes Darkout stand out.

The potential is there, but Darkout just hasn’t reached it yet.

The interesting bits are buried in an excessively cumbersome and frustrating experience.

Fans of the genre will definitely find more enjoyment but, to the average player, there isn’t much here to strongly recommend.

Lots of little annoyances add up to make Darkout less than than the sum of its influences, though they're not enough to ruin the entire experience.

You often have to turn a blind eye to independent games’ shortcomings to enjoy the gameplay, but Darkout is so sloppy that the only reasonable thing to do is deleting the local content. How about a tutorial that can permanently block your progress even if you closely follow the onscreen instructions? [02/2014, p.61]