Beginners Guide

Alpha Disclaimer

Dark and Darker is presently in Early Access state of development. Features will be added and removed, thus the current state of the game is not representative of the final product.
Many of the systems in the game are not yet finished and are in a placeholder state. Mechanics may break or not function as intended.

Getting Started

The game is fully released as of now and can be purchased on the official website as well as Chaf Games.

Once you start the game, you will be presented with the Character Creation screen. You will have to create a character to be able to click the "Enter the Lobby" button. Currently, there is a limit of 8 characters. You can also check the official guide by Ironmace and Dungeon guide.

What Class to Pick

There are currently 8 unique classes to pick from. For more in-depth guides check Classes.

Controls

Leveling

In Dark and Darker, players can level up by completing various actions such as killing enemies, opening chests, using shrines, and escaping the dungeon. Leveling up is crucial as it unlocks perk slots for each character at levels 5, 10, and 15, which enhances your character's power. Furthermore, at level 10 you unlock access to the trade guild, enabling you to buy and sell items with other players on the market. For more detailed information, refer to the Experience page.

Resting and Recoverable Health

In Dark and Darker, players can rest by default by pressing the "G" key, causing their character to sit on the ground. Sitting next to a Campfire will allow the player to regenerate their health and spells. Additionally, players can rest if they have taken damage and have some recoverable health, but cancelling the resting action will cause them to instantly lose their remaining recoverable health. While resting, players recover health at a rate of 1 HP per 2 seconds. However, it is important to note that players are extremely vulnerable while resting. Furthermore, the Bard class can enhance the restoration rate of recoverable health to themselves and others, but players must be resting.

Weapon Move sets

Each weapon has its own unique move set and range. Practice and memorize them to your advantage. Some weapons have 2 unique attack move sets, one with the left mouse click and another with the right mouse click.

The arming sword for example has a 3-motion attack sequence. Holding down the primary attack button will go through the attack sequentially until it is interrupted. If the enemy is wielding an arming sword, knowing this sequence can help you evade their attack.

Blocking/Parry System

Shields and some melee weapons have a block ability. However, simply holding block does not fully protect you from frontal attacks like in other games. To complete a successful block, you need to physically intercept their weapon or projectiles with your shield/weapon.

You also need to be careful to fully conceal your body parts with your shield, because even if you manage to block a hit, the weapon's hitbox can extend past your shield and hit you on uncovered body parts. Therefore, distance management is equally as important as blocking in the right direction. With this in mind, larger shields will offer a higher degree of protection due their their bigger sizes.

Currently, the only weapon that can execute a parry is the Longsword. If you successfully block an attack with the Longsword, you can quickly follow up with a higher damaging 2-sting riposte animation by clicking the Right mouse button.

Blocking and parrying requires a great amount of practice to pull of consistently, as you need to develop the spatial awareness around your shield/weapon as well as know your opponents weapon's move sets.

Check out Oggieson's Youtube Channel, he has made detailed videos showing how to block and parry with different weapons against most enemy types and weapons.

Impact Zones

Most melee weapons operate on a Impact Zones system, meaning hitting an enemy with the tip of the weapon will deal the most damage and hitting further down on the blade/haft will deal less damage. The number of Impact Zones vary between weapons.

Check out Weapons to see their Impact Zones damage modifiers or the individual weapons pages to see the visual representation of the Impact Zones on the weapon itself.

Body Part Damage Modifiers

Every attack, be it melee, ranged physical projectile or magic spell will scale with damage modifiers depending on the body part that was hit.

Head: 150%
Body: 100%
Arms: 80%
Legs: 60%
Feet/Hand: 50%

This system affects player characters as well as AI monsters.

Utility Quick-Slots

Every character has access to two sets of utility quick-slots that can be accessed with the "3" and "4" key respectively. Each set houses 3 quick-slots. To scroll through your quick-slots, press "3" or "4" multiple times until you land on your desired item. Utility items such as potions with different rarities will occupy different slots. Furthermore, every item present in your quick-slots will show up on your belt. For more information on these items check Consumables and Utility. Be aware that potions will glow in the dark while equipped in your quick-slots, which can easily give away your position in the dark.

Getting Prepared

You can enter a dungeon as a group with a maximum number of 3 members. When a match is found, you will be transferred to a lobby where you will wait for up to 3 minutes for the lobby to fill. Characters are immune to damage in this stage and can inspect other players inventories. It is important that you do not use up any of your important cooldowns here since they do not reset after you get teleported to the dungeon. Furthermore, do not drop your items or gear in the lobby, as other players can pick them up and if the match starts and your items are still on the ground, you will spawn in the dungeon without them.

Normal dungeons host Common and Elite grade monsters with an extremely low chance of spawning Nightmare monsters. They feature low drop rates for Epic items and extremely low drop rates for Legendary items. No chance for Unique items.

It is recommended to bring some Consumables or Utility to aid you in your adventure. Consider bringing a 3-stack of bandages or healing potions at the very least.

As of Alpha Playtest 3, gear pieces can now have base attribute points.

Consider buying cheap upgrades to your starter gear from the Merchants to boost your defenses and your attribute points. Starter gear is a tier below anything you can buy or find in the dungeon, so anything will be an upgrade.

A better weapon will enable you to dispatch monsters faster, this increased clear speed means you run less of a risk of taking damage and have more time for looting.

How to Resurrect

To resurrect an ally you will need to locate their Soul Heart which is located in their chest armor slot. To acquire their heart you will need to remove their chest armor piece. Equip their soul heart to you utility bar then proceed to look for an Altar of Sacrifice. After locating a Altar of Sacrifice, hold your team mates soul heart in your and press interact button. This initiate a channel action that will resurrect your team mate when the bar is full. Beware that cost of resurrecting your teammate is some health and they will be resurrected with minimal health unless you have a cleric that has Requiem perk. Being hit or moved will cancel this action.

High-Roller

You can enter a High-Roller dungeon as a group, with a maximum number of 3 members. High Roller dungeons used to have an entry fee of per player, but it has been removed for now. There will be no kill-feed or in-game timer, although you still have the progress bar that fills up red as time goes by, giving you a rough estimation of how much time is left. There are better drop rates for high quality gear in High-Roller, but monsters will appear at Elite and Nightmare grade. The only way to obtain unique grade items are from High-Roller dungeon bosses.

Get Rich Or Die Trying

Once you escape with your treasures, you can head over to the Merchants to see how much you've earned. You can sell your items to the right merchant, but be careful as some items are now used for quests, so you might want to keep some of them. However, if you do not survive and extract from the dungeon, you will not keep any of your loot including your armor, weapons, jewelery and utility items. Your inventory gets reset to the default class starter gear.

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