Darkswitch is Frostpunk in a big tree with music from Silent Hill composer Akira Yamaoka

Frostpunk in a tree (hey!). Frostpunk in a tree (hey!). The temperature is fine but monsters all want to eat me (hey!)

Frostpunk in a tree (hey!). Frostpunk in a tree (hey!). Folk horror instead of industrial misery (hey!)

Frostpunk in a tree (hey!). Frostpunk in a tree (hey!). Not as exciting as it sounds, unfortunately (hey!).

Sorry, not sure what happened there. My doctor tells me I need to keep these occasional flare-ups of unbridled jauntiness under control or I’ll sprout hat tassel bells and jig myself into an early grave. “But doctor!”, I replied. “I am Frostpunk in a tree. I mean, Darkswitch is Frostpunk in a tree”. Also it’s bloody depressing and I need to keep the mood up. Nothing else for it. Time to bring back a perennial audience favourite. Here’s a tray-tray.

Developer Cyber Temple were kind enough to send me a preview build. Pre-warning: I only played an hour, because I didn’t enjoy it very much. So, here’s the Steam sell in case you want to ignore my opinions and just pop it on the wishlist for the inevitable demo – something I always heartily recommend.

• Gather resources, research technologies, and send pioneers to explore the ruins of those who came before: discover their secrets and doom.

• Set in a world of folk horror and creeping dread, DarkSwitch blends vertical city-building, tower defense, and exploration into a unique strategic experience.

• Navigate a stunning, dangerous, dark fantasy world enriched by cinematic cutscenes and an atmospheric soundtrack from Silent Hill composer Akira Yamaoka!

Opinion the first, they only get worse: Akira Yamaoka is phoning it in. The music is pleasant and richly layered but nothing to write home about, unless perhaps you haven’t spoken to your family in yonks and need a very tenuous coversation starter. Ah well! You play as a colony of elves and their architecture is suitably Rivendallian. Being elves they think they know it all and don’t bother giving you much onboarding. This where the issues start. A style over substance UI. Exclamation points appear over buildings with no indication of what they mean. There’s a counter down the right hand side of the screen, no tooltips or other explanations, ditto the ‘Fear’ counter in the top right.

The tutorial, such as it is, tells you what to do, but not how to do it. Not too tricky to work out, usually. But crucially, you’re not told why you’re doing it either. My people are hungry so I need to collect mushrooms, I can work that out. But what am I placing two ‘flame guards’ down? A tooltip tells me they have something to do with the fog that creeps in at night, and my citizens, but I’m given no further explanation and no indication of where to place to them. And the more crucial thing here is, since the game seems to be working backwards in terms of goals and motivations, there’s little of Frostpunk’s demanding energy or intrigue. I eventually peace out after digging in every menu for a tutorial-demanded building extension I just can’t find.

Also, look. I’ve previously bemoaned the state of latent paranoia that the proliferation of AI art encourages, turning us all into little art purity witchhunters whenever something might be machine generated. All I’m saying is, if I perhaps wanted to avoid such speculation, I would not have gone for this particular look with the character portraits:

Apologies to Eldric Flambet. And that said, I really like how this wooden walkway automatically connects between buildings, and also how you can build structures on the trunk of the tree itself, Ewok style:

I do still think the concept is really compelling. The writing is terse and veers simple but does its job. Some culty flamemen called Luminarchs show up in an airship after a bit and start interrogating and stealing my townsfolk. I’d like to know where that goes. And it’s a pre-demo press preview build, right? I’m sure the developer sent it out because they know it isn’t quite where they need it to be and wanted to see how the press reacted, so here’s my reaction: sort out the first hour. Make me obsessed with your world rather than just a bit irritated at what parts you’ve seemingly randomly chosen to obscure from me, and give me an interesting goal straight away rather than just telling me to build things with no real sense of what I’m working towards. Otherwise: Nice elvish buildings. Nice concept. And, yes, very nice tree (hey!)