Tindark

[H1]Swipe left on anomalies... or just everyone. The game barely cares.[/H1] Thank you Hot Tea Works for the curator copy. This is nonetheless an impartial review. I'm usually not the target audience for anomaly-spotting games since I'm a ♥♥♥♥♥ for horror and jumpscares, but the premise here was interesting enough for me to give it a go. You have a handful of perfectly normal dating profiles on Day 0, then spend the following week swiping through them while identifying which ones have developed anomalies and need to go. It's a fun idea with clear rules, simple mouse controls, an anomaly collection in the main menu, multiple display modes, separate sound sliders, an option to prioritize undiscovered anomalies, 34 anomalies to find, and multiple endings to unlock. It also feels like the kind of game that would've made an entertaining stream. Sadly, the experience falls short, both in terms of playtime and content. I finished 3 full playthroughs and earned around 50% the achievements in roughly 2h. The soundtrack became repetitive enough that I muted it, and the achievements are still mostly written in Japanese. The anomaly hunting itself also loses its appeal surprisingly fast. …

Tindark ended up being a pleasant surprise. The concept is incredibly simple: you're looking through dating profiles and trying to spot when something isn't quite right. It sounds like the sort of idea that could get repetitive quickly, but I found myself getting more invested the longer I played. The game does a great job of making you second-guess yourself, and some of the anomalies are subtle enough that you'll constantly be wondering whether you're being observant or just paranoid. What I liked most is that the game never tries to be more complicated than it needs to be. The dating-app format feels fresh for a horror game, the pacing stays consistent, and it creates tension through observation rather than relying on constant jump scares. The game does use AI-generated assets, which the developer openly discloses on the store page. I know that's going to be a dealbreaker for some people, but personally I thought the slightly uncanny look of some of the images actually worked in the game's favour given the overall theme. My biggest criticism is that the gameplay loop doesn't change much as you progress. Once you've seen the core mechanic, you've more or less seen what…

ONE OF THE WORST GAMES I HAVE EVER PLAYED ON ANY SYSTEM. THE WORST ANOMALY HUNTER I HAVE EVER PLAYED ON ANY SYSTEM. ABSOLUTE DOGSH*t OF A GAME.

Abszolút ajánlom! +++ Egy ember által fejlesztett játékok között egy igényes és élvezhető anomáliakeresős játék lett. A nézőkkel közösen játszottuk, mindenki élvezte! Még ilyet :) I absolutely recommend it! +++ Among the games developed by only one person, it turned out to be a demanding and enjoyable anomaly-finding game. We played it together with the viewers, everyone enjoyed it! :)

Creepy in concept, but a lot of the horror comes from the AI images looking unintentionally uncanny. The atmosphere is decent and the eerie music helps, but sometimes it is hard to tell whether something is an actual anomaly or just the AI failing to render a normal human anatomy. The English translation is rough, but understandable. The gameplay is very simple: swipe through profiles, then decide if the day had an anomaly or not. Once I realized the swiping choices did not really matter, only the final answer, the tension dropped quite a bit. Fun enough as a quick “spot the difference” horror game, but I did not feel much reason to replay it after clearing Day 9 once.

This was creepy to me. Someone looking at me in a picture is very unsettling, but the actual game loop is not very good. You don't really have to find the anomalies. You can just swipe left (decline) every time and still finish the game, which makes anomaly hunting feel pointless. My record is 1 minute 26 seconds. I can't recommend this.