Through the Darkest of Times tells a story about small resistance group in 1933’s Berlin. We will lead this group for over 10 years in several chapters of this story.

Through the Darkest of Times is a fine example of the game where you've seen all gameplay mechanics elsewhere but it's still absolutely enjoyable to play. There're 2 game modes that are also difficulty choices - one is more hardcore and another is more storytelling oriented one.
Up to 5 people can be part of your group and you assign them to missions every in-game week. Successful completion of missions opens new acquaintances and missions, increases the number of your followers and brings important resources, including money that you can spend on various needs of your group.
Game is polished really well - I've encountered only one frustrating bug before release though it should be fixed by now.
And the narrative part is just great, of course. Visuals are superb, I liked this artstyle.

The most explicit negative aspect of gameplay for me were weird transitions between chapters. Your progress resets too much after each chapter so you start from scratch every time. It doesn't matter how good was your economy, what progress you've made and what resourses you saved. Resetting some of those things is reasonable, but almost complete reset is a bit frustrating and you get a feeling that each chapter is too much similar to the previous because of that.
Another issue is related to balance/replayability. Each chapter is time(turn) limited and you barely able to complete just one special event (even in Story mode). At the same time there's not enough diversity in gameplay and events to replay game over and over again - even my second playthrough was too similar to the first one, unfortunately (at first, I was sure that there's a great replayability but I was wrong).

All in all, Through the Darkest of Times is a fun to play tactical strategy game with a great narrative part. Replayability could've been much better with more possible events and adjusted balance though. 8/10

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I can't recommend this game.

Story is fine, its actually pretty good.

But the gameplay and its loop is terrible.

-Choices don't matter
-New chapters reset all progress made (Followers, moral and items collected are gone putting you back to square 1)
-Major missions offer no incentive or consequences to complete
-Items don't really contribute anything (Most of them just increase the danger of the situation and the ones that do help you'll have to do a bunch of missions to get them but it won't matter because you lose them at the end of the chapter)
-Getting spot makes no sense half the time (Hiding will still get you spot so whats the point? Also why is talking to a friend or buying paper seen as suspicious?)

If your looking for a strategy game pick something else up, because this is really a text adventure with a unfinished strategy game attached to it.

I tried to evacuate Jews from Berlin in 1941.

I failed.

They were all murdered.

I was executed in 1945 by the SS for un-German activities.

'Through The Darkest Of Times' might be one of my favorite games that I've played this year, and it's dedication and passion towards a subject horrific such as the attrocities and rule of Nazi Germany, are portrayed excellently. It drags you down from the very start, the destruction of Weimar Institution, the triumph of the NSDAP in the Parliamentary elections, the fires in the Reichstag, and the massacres of Köpenick, from there it only escalates into the worst excesses of human deprevation, hatred, and mania.

The game isn't afraid to show the full realities of the cruelty and the horrific nature of war, and it does so with full pride in it, such as being void of the portrayal of the Wehrmacht as innocent army-men, who were only serving the fatherland. The news-events are surreal, hopeful, tragic, and everything in between from there; The way they're done are so mundane and casual, that it sets into you how horrific all of it actually is.

Overall, a great game on a subject as difficult as the reign of Nazi Germany, would recommend to anyone interested in Historical Strategy.

Through the Darkest of Times is a lightweight strategy game that takes place in Germany, from 1933 through 1945. It's a historical title that focuses on growing your own resistance movement against Hitler from the time that he gets elected as chancellor, right through to the end of World War II and the fall of the Nazi Reich. At the start, you pick your character by rolling their traits and gender, then outfitting them as you see fit. You can have up to three other people in your party, whom you also choose via an in-game mission, and together you must gain both supporters and marks (currency) in order to keep meddling in SS affairs.

The plot starts off strong, be prepared to invest a good portion of your time in this game to reading. Each of the four chapters house several text-driven cutscenes where you make dialogue choices, but about halfway through you'll end up figuring out that no matter what option you pick, nothing really happens; whether you choose to praise or diminish the Reich right in front of obvious Nazi supporters, whether you do or don't trust the American journalists looking for the real story, none of it ends up changing the course of the campaign. Once you realize this, you realize that as long as you keep enough supporters from one chapter to the next, you'll finish the game no matter what.

To put it mildly, the gameplay is... confusing. Each chapter has its own predetermined amount of turns, and it's obvious that there are certain end goals to get to; that's not what's confusing, but the manner in which the objectives unfold is what's really unclear. You get an overhead shot of a map with various tasks; talk to members of certain parties and affiliations, buy various supplies to make leaflets or paint signs, go into hiding when you've raised too much attention, and many other things. However, the end goal of a chapter requires certain items to be obtained, and often the tasks to get those items are locked behind other tasks. Sometimes, the beginning line to the end goal doesn't come up until the very last few turns of the chapter, and sometimes you can't even get enough of a certain required item because not enough of the instances appear on the map. I'm honestly not sure if this is all RNG based, but it's incredibly confusing and frustrating, especially given that there is a bare-bones tutorial that explains very little.

Despite the effort of throwing in random curve balls, such as a resistance member's wife getting arrested, or needing to hide certain allies from the Reich, the tasks that Through the Darkest of Times sets for the player just feel incredibly shallow and repetitive. If you're not panhandling for money, you're rallying for supporters or buying supplies to gain more awareness. Every now and then you'll do a big task, like raiding a convoy, or spy on the SS for intel, but it's not often or fulfilling. That said, one thing that is done well is the feeling that you're always struggling to just scrape enough resources together to get by. Everything here is bleak, as it should be. From the morose, downtrodden storyline, the tension-filled resistance banter, to the muted sepia-toned graphics. Paintbucket games did a great job capturing the omnipresent feelings of tension, dread, and uncertainty that loomed over the majority of the decade that spanned the rise and fall of Germany.

In the end, Through the Darkest of Times has some good ideas, but they're just executed with both too much simplicity and not enough explanation of the game's core mechanics. If it was easier to realize how to trigger certain events to unfold, such as getting testimonies, bombs, or other special resources for end-chapter missions, then players could work whole-heartedly towards a certain goal instead of just mindlessly gather supporters and money. Furthermore, it doesn't seem to matter how high you level your characters, you'll still end up getting caught a ton in the end; not to mention levels are few and far between, and more often than not a resistance member will just up and leave right afterward anyway. The characters would also fair better if they had at least a snippet of background story to them, but everyone, including who you play, is hollow. Even if you're interested in history, with a focus on World War II, you're more than likely to get bored with this title at about the halfway point.

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Through the Darkest of Times has an interesting art style, good writing and some history. The game play, on the other hand stinks! It's frustrating and repetitive with no real strategy. The resource management is terrible, to be honest the whole game is just boring and not fun. Not recommended

The game itself is a little lackluster and ui is pretty meh, but as someone who has read a lot about pre-war Germany the way it kinda puts you into timeframe and different mindsets of everyone opposed to the regime from anarchists to conservatives is pretty interesting.

I support this game mainly for the message and the meaning, i do realise that there are some obvious issues that are infact exaggerated (apparantly talking to people you work with or buy papier as an office worker is super suspicious in the eyes of a passerby), some of the actions seem a little pointless and the time limit is kinda short even for the easy mode.

If the negativ reviews are constructive i can agree with that, but i have seen a few reviews who are obviously hurt by it being against there political point of view and these are just silly, Firstly: The Game is a German game, in Germany Social constructs are a little different than Alabama (we dont marry our cousins in germany ;D).

Secondly: if you Start your review of with Rambling about it being "SJW Trash" and its purely a bad game becuse of female characters being treated equaly and Nazis being portrayed as Evil (Spoiler: Killing People for some Crazy Austrian guy is Evil), When you Try to argue that something is "SJW Trash" say it differently, if you start of your review like that you sound like a neckbeard.

I have also seen somebody say that the Nazis are called National Conservatives, No, They are allways called the Nazis or the NSDAP ( National "Socialist" Deutsche Arbeiter Party), You can infact lead a National conservative Risistance group, dont make up stuff or make a review if you have not played the game correctly....

Really great if you want to experience the atmosphere of the era, and are interested in a detailed look in how the historical events unfolded piece by piece. The first 3-4 hours were fantastic - tense, intriguing and challenging.

Beyond that point, the game showed its big flaw - it is not that great as a game. Very shortly, it lacks emotional payoff.

Each chapter has three major actions you can aim to complete. However, the time limit makes any one of them feel impossible to pull off. A lot of the events are hidden, and it is unclear how to make them appear. For example, a major event might require 3 of a key item, but the game does not tell you how to acquire them. Randomly completing missions gets you somewhere, but more than likely you'll end up short of any of the requirements.

Still, if you don't fall below the morale/support thresholds, the game will tell you your leadership was great and let you progress to the next chapter. In other words, the you do not actually have to do anything to progress in the game, and trying is more likely counterproductive. Trying to optimize the few strategic choices I had made the game feel extremely repetitive at the second and third chapters already.

While this sense of danger and futility might be appropriate for the theme and setting, it makes for an unsatisfying game. The slow tempo and buildup needs to reward you with a moment of success at some point. The player's lack of impact in the game world simply gets boring.

I'm finding Through the Darkest of Times a more engaging history lesson than a game, but the history aspect is amazing so no knock on it. The main gameplay is managing your small resistance cell (3-5 people), with varying political ideas, employment backgrounds and skill sets through various mission types. A mission to recruit Catholics supporters may require a character of a certain background while creating propaganda leaflets requires other skill sets. It's very engaging at first but the missions become repetitive after awhile. Nevertheless there is a constant tensions between "winning the game" (surviving) and living up to the ideas of the adage "evil prevails when good men do nothing." Between missions there are cut scenes about real history and the game gives you dialogue choices but it's not apparent that your choices make any difference other than ending the scenes early.