Karma: The Dark World

Karma: The Dark World comes from the small Chinese studio Pollard Studio and this is their first game. You wouldn't know it at first glance. This is a psychedelic horror adventure and it's one of those games that is very difficult to describe in text.

Karma: The Dark World is set in an alternate version of the former East Germany in the mid-1980s. Society is held in an iron grip by the Leviathan Corporation, where employees are under constant surveillance and the drug Bluebottle is used extensively to increase employee efficiency.

You take on the role of Daniel McGovern (a very non-East German name), a so-called ROAM agent at Leviathan Corporation. His role is to solve crimes by investigating crime scenes, interrogating suspects and witnesses - in other words, normal detective work. However, there is another part that is not quite ordinary: Leviathan Corporation has invented an interrogation method where the ROAM agent can travel into the mind of the person being interrogated if it is difficult to get the information you want - or generally just if it is deemed necessary.

A so-called "Dive" into the interrogated person's mind is far from harmless, neither for the interrogated person nor for the agent. McGovern experiences this first-hand when he investigates scientist Sean Mehndez, who inexplicably lost one of his legs at work. He claims it was a monster that took his leg, but he was denied compensation when the Leviathan Corporation deemed the accident self-inflicted and he was demoted to a regular office position, along with the encouragement to keep working hard.

After working almost around the clock to maintain an acceptable (for Leviathan Corporation) level of efficiency, his family falls apart and McGovern realises that there are parts of Mehndez's explanation that don't quite add up. Clearly, there's much more to this story than the official one - and it could be dangerous for all parties involved.

Karma: The Dark World starts out pretty regularly, if you can call it that, but as we all know, our dreams and memories can be quite trippy and unorthodox and they certainly are here. As the game progresses, things get stranger and stranger and the last third or so of the game is almost like an art film where it can be hard to follow what's going on. However, it's pretty cool that someone is really exploring the medium and it's safe to say that Pollard Studio is doing that here.

This doesn't look like an ordinary game in any way and it has the same pressurised atmosphere as Observer and Layers of Fear from Polish Bloober Team. It's not downright creepy or terrifying - there are just strange things going on around you, spaces changing before your eyes, and the unexplained and unpleasant situations and stories give the game an intense sense of urgency and a very special atmosphere.

Seen in isolation as a game, not much happens. You move around in different dream worlds, which are other people's memories and thoughts, while exploring the surroundings, collecting clues, and solving both simple puzzles, but also quite complicated puzzles that require you to think.

It's more like a walking simulator with horror and puzzles thrown in, and as such it works quite well - but it also struggled to hold my attention for long periods of time, simply because not much happens.

What really kept me hooked was the really creative and unique world that Pollard Studio has built here. The visuals are very gorgeous and at times quite weird with lots of visual effects and great design. Things like lighting, camera angles, and slow camera pans are used wisely and it makes it all look really memorable.

Karma: The Dark World may not be a game for everyone, but if you like games like Observer and Layers of Fear and games that try to push the boundaries of how games can be presented, then this is worth a look. Viewed in isolation as a game, it's very simple, but as an experience it's something very unique that we don't see very often.

Pollard Studio is one of many in the stream of Chinese developers expanding here to the West - they haven't made the best game to come out of China in the last few years, but they have made one of the most special and it's an exciting take on what games can be.