Shows like PAX East can be pretty overwhelming. Every inch of the expo floor is filled with new and exciting games fighting to grab your attention with giant displays and flashy demos. After a few days of touring publisher booths and blitzing my way through countless ten minute teasers, it all started blending together. I love games more than almost anyone I know, but there’s only so many roguelike deckbuilders one man can play in a single weekend. From time to time I find myself searching for something unique, something no one else has seen, and this year I found a little booth where everyone was playing a game with their eyes closed.
Project Dark is a collection of audio-only games developed by Red Meat Games for Android and iOS. I’m a big fan of audio games, hypothetically at least, as the market for them is still incredibly limited. It’s been almost four years since I wrote about thepotential of audio gamesthanks to the Sable engine and freeware projects like Swamp, which are typically made by low-vision developers for low-vision players. Since then, the only notable audio game release has beenThe Vale, a first-person action-RPG presented entirely without images. Audio games haven’t become as prevalent as I had hoped, but Red Meat Games is carrying the torch forward and making them more approachable than ever with Project Dark.
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Phones make such a natural and intuitive input device for audio games, and Project Dark puts it to great use. The free tutorial that comes with the app does a great job of showcasing the different input methods each game can make use of. The most basic mechanic is simply to swipe right for yes and left for no, which is the main way you make decisions. But depending on the game, you might also be asked to drag your finger around the screen to locate an object based on the frequency of a tone - the faster the tone the closer you are to locating it. you may also navigate through space by swiping in the direction you wish to move.
The tutorial plays an audio cue in the distance and asks you to make your way towards it by swiping up, left, and right until you find it. As I played, it didn’t take long until I no longer even registered my phone as a phone. I didn’t hold it in my palm and swipe around on the screen with my thumb the way I always do when I’m using it as a phone. Instead, I laid it down flat and dragged my index finger on the screen with my eyes closed. It’s such a powerful tool that requires no previous knowledge or experience, which is exactly what an accessible gaming device should be.
Each game is sold a la carte in the Project Dark app, and so far I’ve only played the one called Rule of Three. Unfortunately it doesn’t use any of the interesting input methods from the tutorial. It follows the story of a woman that finds herself in a pitch black room accompanied by a disembodied voice that tells her she will be introduced to three people and must decide which one of them is allowed to live. Over the next hour you listen to each character describe themselves, argue why they deserve to live, and slowly lose their minds as they wait for your invisible hand to decide who lives and who dies. It’s not especially complex and the twist ending won’t blow your mind, but the performances are convincing and it gets into risky territory with some of its social and political topics - a bold enough effort to respect on principle alone. Most of all, I just liked walking around with my headphones on and my phone in my pocket, casually swiping the screen as each moral dilemma presented itself. It’s a totally new way to play games.
The Rule of Three isn’t going to win any Pulitzers - not that they give those out to choose your own adventure books - but as a proof-of-concept it was entertaining enough, and it made me curious to see what else the app had to offer. They aren’t all horror or thriller - there’s medieval fantasy, comedy, and drama as well, and I intend to play all six chapters, then lament not having any more to play on my mental health walks, probably. Project Dark is available now on Android and iOS, and coming soon to Switch and PC via Steam.
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