The Dark Room

The Dark Room is a mean, addictive comedy puzzler in a retro style, sadism with jokes, as it cheerfully describes itself. A throwback to 1980s text adventures, it throws your hopeless little brain at one brutal deathtrap after another, all for a shot at freedom, with a deep, buried story that only skill, patience and a lot of poking around will reveal.

It cheerfully calls itself the polar opposite of an open-world game, packed with swearing, comedy, body horror, puzzles and logic gone sideways, and carrying more than three and a half hours of recorded material. Level One alone holds an hour of specially motion-captured dialogue and acting, with more across levels 2, 3 and Darkest, and together they unfold who Darren really is. The money you spend feeds straight into making it bigger, louder and more lethal.

The game adapts comedian John Robertson's live interactive stage show, which shares its name. Play the game, then, when the live show rolls through your area, meet up with everyone else who endured it. Just remember: ya die, ya die, ya die.