Wireframe - #34 - 2020

60 / wfmag.cc

Review

Rated

GENRE

Strategy /

Visual novel

FORMAT

PC (tested) /

Mac

DEVELOPER

Paintbucket

Games

PUBLISHER

HandyGames

PRICE

£13.49

RELEASE

Out now

Info

Review

Slim, stylish strategy with something to say

s the air raid sirens echo over

the streets of Berlin, frightened

Germans crowd into metro tunnels

for shelter. Falling bombs whistle

above. My character, a procedurally

named member of an unnamed resistance

movement, notices a flash of yellow on a nearby

man’s folded coat: a Star of David.

It’s 1945, there are few Jews left in the German

capital, and none that do remain should be

allowed in the tunnel during an air raid. I have the

option to warn the man that his star is showing,

saving him from harassment or worse. Then, I

have the option to stash his jacket and let him

borrow mine. A moment later, when the tunnel

collapses, he offers a hand to pull me out of the

rubble. When we emerge from the wreckage, he

thanks me, and we go our separate ways.

Through the Darkest of Times succeeds in these

moments. Developer Paintbucket Games excels at

telling the human stories of life under devastating

oppression. The game’s at-times-jazzy, at-times-

eerie score, red-white-and-black colour palette,

and staccato dialogue combine to create a tense

and unsettling world. The game uses touchstone

phrases like “drain the swamp” and “fake news”

to draw parallels between Nazi Germany and

Trump’s America, but it doesn’t need to. Through

the Darkest of Times brilliantly captures the queasy

hopelessness that comes with the dawning

realisation that the people you care about may

proudly support naked cruelty.

The problem is, Through the Darkest of Times

is being marketed as a strategy game. And for

roughly half of its ten-hour campaign, it is. But, at

least on the less challenging of the two difficulty

settings it offers, succeeding in this aspect requires

little thought. As the leader of a resistance group,

you recruit new members, maintain morale, and

manage finances. You accomplish this by selecting

activities for each party member to perform.

Some, like asking for donations, bring in money.

Others, like buying red paint to scrawl anti-Reich

graffiti, take it away. Each mission carries a degree

of risk which can be ameliorated by assigning party

members with certain skills or equipping helpful

items, like a stolen SA uniform or a fake passport.

All of this, conceptually, is interesting. In practice,

it feels simple after a few hours of play. I never

worried that I might fail, and I only dipped into the

red once. Again, I’ve only dabbled with the harder

difficulty, dubbed ‘Resistance Mode,’ but in ‘Story

Mode’ the strategy bits felt like a boring distraction

from the game’s gripping, visual novel narrative.

Through the Darkest of Times may have been

more compelling as a purely narrative-driven

experience. Despite some sleepy strategy

sections, Paintbucket does an excellent job of

connecting the authoritarianism of the past to the

authoritarianism of the present.

Through the

Darkest of Times

A

VERDICT

Through the Darkest of

Times is rarely compelling

as a strategy game, but

its narrative of resistance

in Nazi Germany is

frequently gripping.

68 %

 Before each strategic section, brief

scenes will play out between party

members in the resistance’s HQ.

HIGHLIGHT

Through the Darkest of Times

smartly captures the numb

fear and near-hopelessness

of life under tyranny. Though

we, as the player, know

that Hitler will eventually

fall, struggling through a

virtual decade of resistance

makes the inevitable seem

almost impossible.

REVIEWED BY
Andrew King

Review

Rated

 The parallels that

Paintbucket Games draw

between our current

political climate and Nazi

Germany are welcome,

but not always subtle.