A creative take on the top-down & point and click genre when it comes to the stealth aspect of The Church in the Darkness. While the story and AI movement was a bit off at the start of my gameplay, it was still a fun time to exsperience.
Have you ever felt like exploring the jungles of Africa? Well, now you can in Richard Rouse’s from Paranoid Productions latest indie game, The Church in the Darkness. You play as an ex-police officer that travels to the jungles of South America to find your nephew, Alex. During your first glance at the dock, you’ll stumble upon freedom town. The beginning adventure will begin with some straight-up action and stealth gameplay that will have you scratching your head at who is the real monster in the jungle.
With some background from AAA games like the State of Decay, the developers over at Paranoid Productions bring a simple but life learning story to the table. With an adventure ahead in The Church in the Darkness, you’ll start to understand what is to come in this new indie game.
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Storyline
In the late 1970s, the charismatic Isaac and Rebecca Walker lead the Collective Justice Mission in the jungles of South Africa. Leaving family members behind, Isacc and Rebecca recruit members to join their cult to follow them to start a new beginning of life. With a dream to start something new, the leaders of the radical cult develop a new town called Freedom Town. While being in the jungle for years, the family members of the cult members back in the states start to worry about what mission their friends, family, and loved ones are up too.
To investigate what is going on, Vic, an ex-law enforcement officer from the US, goes to the Jungles of South Africa to find out what is going on. With a mission to find his nephew Alex, you’ll embark soon find out all the action-packed stealth gameplay that is ahead of you in The Church in the Darkness. While your mission in the game is to find your nephew, you’ll start to understand what your real purpose is while searing through the town and figuring out what mindset the town is up thinking.
Gameplay
Your adventure begins after you first dock outside of the town. While the game might not give you a whole lot of information right off the bat why you’re there, you’ll instantly find out what the freedom town members think of outsiders when you meet your first member that shoots on site. While you are an ex-police officer, it was a surprise to me that I’m going to have to kill a “few” members of this cult to save myself and my nephew from something that is way over my head. While the looking system and top town gameplay look do stand out in a smooth way to draw you to the game, the AI members of the cult are too predictable and pretty dumb, just like most AI in games though.
Throwing you right into the action, your primary source of gameplay will be going full stealth and tricking out the members of the cult or going in guns blazing, and after shooting a few members, they’ll forget why and who they’re chasing pretty fast. With a mission to find your nephew, you’ll start to see notes from him and other members to figure out his location and other little secrets that will tell you precisely what is going through the minds of the leader’s voices from the speakers. So, the simple way to put this quick indie game, run through the town, find notes to locate your nephew Alex and bring him back to the boat.
Graphics
While it may be a little challenging to get some diversity in the cult members looks, the top-down jungle style look doesn’t seem to bad. The maps are randomly generated during each of your run-throughs once you die or get captured from the members. So that helps this game out a little bit to give it a different stance in the indie genre of games. Looking on the side of overall in-depth detail for the characters, most of them will look the same and act the same too.
But with such a fast game story to realize this, you won’t pay too much attention to that. The biggest thing that comes from the style of The Church in the Darkness is the randomness that follows the weird story and gameplay that is ahead of you during the story. But in the end, you’ll want to get home and leave your adventure from Freedom town behind you.
Sound
With music being a big part of games for me, this game gives off enough smooth ton old town music during your stealth gameplay to help it out a little bit. While it can get a little bit intense if you’re spotted, the sounds do change to make you feel like the cult members are hunting you. While the action-packed gameplay sound might not stand out any different from other stealth looting and shooting games, you still get the feel to ensure you’re in and out of the jungle.
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Zach Holmes
Zach Holmes was born in California, USA. He's a traveling salesman and works for Gnarly Guides as a game reviewer. He enjoys most indie game releases with a hard love for zombie games.
