Darkest Dungeon
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Ruin has come to our family. |
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Darkest Dungeon is a 2016 Roguelike/Dungeon Crawling video game in which the player takes on the role of an heir to a once-proud but now-fallen noble house. The heir is summoned to the old estate by a letter from his ancestor, which explains that he heard rumors of great power dwelling beneath the manor, spent the family fortune excavating it, and unearthed terrible things. The player then recruits, equips, and dispatches teams of heroes into various dungeons surrounding the manor to put down the monsters that have come to dwell there, and clean up the Ancestor's mess.
Tropes used in Darkest Dungeon include:
- Announcer Chatter: The Ancestor provides commentary on battles, encounters, and town events, but he doesn't really "chatter"; he makes ominous, portentous comments about victory and/or doom.
- Arc Symbol: The "Stress" symbol (which is, incidentally, an arc with lines through it, resembling a thorny halo) begins to figure more and more prominently on enemy attire as the heroes plumb greater depths of the dungeons.
- Army of Thieves and Whores: The brigands which inhabit the Weald are such an army, and the player's roster of heroes may not be much better.
- Body Horror: Many of the enemies (especially the swinefolk) are quite horrific. The Ancestor and Heart of Darkness can also inflict Body Horror on the heroes as an attack.
- Book Ends: "Ruin has come to our family."
- Cosmic Horror Story: Creepy ancient manor? Check. Eccentric ancestor unleashed horrible eldritch things from beneath it? Check. The end of the world is inevitable, if not now, then some generations later? Check.
- Go Mad from the Revelation: Several enemies (Madmen and the Prophet and perhaps the Ancestor) already have, and as stress mounts, the heroes run the risk of following them. Some enemy attacks explicitly revolve around revealing unsettling things to the heroes to increase their stress and provoke their fall into madness.
- Xanatos Gambit: If you hadn't answered the Ancestor's summons, the Heart would have escaped in the future when the stars were right, and because you have answered, the resulting bloodshed and chaos have accelerated its awakening.