Dark and Darker is a new first-person dungeon adventure where teamwork matters and the softcore need not apply. It’s a throwback to the days of Eye of the Beholder and Ultima Underworld-style of 90s PC gaming, but made for 2023.

Developer Ironmace has released a new demo in time for Steam Next Fest for this quarter. Here are the Dark and Darker February 2023 PC version alpha playtest #4 patch notes and recent hotfixes; the beta will be available until 13 February (via the official Steam page).

Need help with Dark and Darker? Here’s a guide to sort you out!

New Features

• Gathering Hall – “Hang out at the Gathering Hall and build the perfect dungeon party”
• Karma System – “Rate your fellow allies after your adventure. Beware! Scoundrels and deviants are unable to participate”.
• VoIP – “In-game voice chat to interact with other adventurers”
• Experimental Goblin Caves – “For a solo adventurer experience”
• Trading Channel QoL features
• Report System – “To help us round up and punish the wicked”
• Cosmetics
• New Weapons – Short Sword, Quarterstaff
• Some Unique Weapons have been greatly improved
• Attack Animations: Attack animation improved for the War Maul, Double Axe & Battle Axe. Weapon attack animations now do more varying amounts of damage
•  Armour for ‘Head’
•  Cleric spell – Sanctuary
• Ore
• Craft Items
• Valentine NPC
• Goblin Merchant who sells “mysterious wares”
• Bundled items at merchants
• Improved Party Invite System
• Flavour Text
• Tokyo Region and preliminary Japanese localization – first draft

Hotfixes

• Fixed an issue where the game could not be played in a virtual machine environment.
• Fixed an issue where audio volume channels were mixed up.
• Fixed an issue where the volume could change when turning on/off the VoIP feature.
• Fixed an issue that could cause several crashes.
• Fixed an inability to attack issue that could occur during ranged attacks.
• Fixed an issue preventing some perks and skills from working properly.
• Fixed an issue where the applied state was not displayed correctly when equipping an item.
• Fixed an issue where the Death Beetle’s hitbox was not aligned with the model.
• Fixed an issue where Goblin corpses could end up falling through the floor.
• Fixed an issue where dungeons would not end normally.
• Fixed a place where you could fall off the High Roller Dungeon into the void.
• Fixed an Inferno module that had two overlapping doors.

Goblin Cave Changes

• Goblin health reduced by 10%.
• Goblin Warrior/Archer’s poison damage has been slightly reduced.
• Goblin Archer’s slow effect has been removed.
• Goblin Archer’s damage has been slightly reduced.
• Goblin Mage’s projectile speed has been slightly reduced but it now gives a slow debuff when hit.
• Cave Troll’s damage reduced by 10%.
• Cave Troll now slowly regenerates health.
• One more escape portal has been added to the Goblin Cave.
• Improved the accessibility of the Goblin Town module in the Goblin Caves.

Miscellaneous Bug Fixes

• Merchants now sell Potion of Protection in limited quantities.
• The Goblin Merchant now sells mystery items for 75 gold instead of 100 gold.
• Ore deposits have been added to more locales in the Crypt dungeons.
• Added and corrected translations.
• Reduced the wait time for the tavern to fill up for both Normal and High-Roller dungeons.