Do you like Terraria? Ever wanted it to have a smaller field of view, bit snazzier graphics and a female main character? Then look no further, 'cos Darkout is probably for you!

After generating a new world (which is randomly created at the beginning of each game) name it something uplifting, like Tartarus, Hades or FurCon and you’re ready to go. You will find yourself as the recently crashed lady mentioned above. The first order of business is to dismantle your crashed pod, somehow gaining leather and other unlikely materials out of an object probably made from advanced ceramics and other future stuff. Now you have your gun and your tools, it’s time to show the planet who's the boss here. And maybe find out what the hell happened to this planet (oooh, ominous!).

The game is set in several biomes, with the jungle (more of a sparse forest) being the one you crash land it. Caves will be the ones where you fall during early mining and exploration. Fall and die. Not because of the fall itself kills you, but because of the dark monsters lurking there. Other biomes, more exciting ones like deserts, abandoned cities and flying islands await you later on - once you have some weapons, armor and light sources. Most everything benefits from the game’s main strength - art - as this is probably the prettiest environment you’ll feed to your engines of industry and destruction. And while you eventually can get your hands on a jetpack, that could be used to get around caves and other environmental extremes.

Most of the time, it's a pretty run of the mill sidescroller in the same vein as Minecraft (except the sdescroller part). You cut and dig and mine, collect materials, then use them to make things that let you cut, dig and mine some more. On the other hand, the world is a lot less free form – you basically click the trees to cut them down (instead of swinging axe like a mad-woman, hoping to hit something) and if you dig the earth under a plant...well, you're not going anywhere, because the topsoil refuses to be removed while there's a plant growing. Such are the rules of nature you know. What else is included in rules of nature? The game basically shows which patches of dirt you'll be able to shovel after a few clicks. All of which makes you feel more and more tied down.

Crafting here, on the other hand, has nothing to do with that Minecraft nonsense. After you research stuff - you accumulate research points by diggin’, minin’ and stabbin’ - you can craft it as long as you have the resources and the required equipment back home. While it removes a certain part of experimentation, it’s certainly more user friendly as you won’t be in the dark about what and how you can make. Eventually, you’ll be killing critters in style (and stylish armor), although I’m still not happy that the game doesn’t have StarCraft like power armor with chest light beams that would let you crush covering shadow creatures into shadowy pulp.

Speaking about dark... combat. Remember Alan Wake and the shadow monsters that needed some flashlight therapy before they fell down dead? Well, this is a planet sized petting zoo for said monsters. Making light fixtures is very important, because your character doesn't know how to hold a flashlight. Torches, flares – anything you can, you should get (also, you should make the back wall for any building you built, because some critters might use it to get inside). And then, when you run out of bullets, you have to whack everything with electric or just torches. These are the best implements to dispatch dark monsters, since they need both light and normal damage to fall down dead and yield their resources. If dark areas are left unlighted, those buggers can spawn under your feet!

Eventually, you’ll get better and craft better weapons, but at the beginning, even the small bugs are highly annoying and something should be done about them. On the other hand, like in Minecraft, upon death you return back to your bed and this is a form of early transportation, especially since the heroine doesn’t lose her items upon her demise at the claws of various shadow creatures. Now, if those things were made to look somewhat more unique, this game would look much better.

Not that it’s ugly now. One thing to be said about Darkout is that it’s a pretty game. It strives for somewhat more ambitious graphics than its usual craft-gaming peers, but it’s still a far cry from something AAA. Still, the lighting effects are pretty and construction of walls and back walls (never forget the back!) looks good, especially seeing how fluidly the textures stick together. Of course, some people will complain about chest-mold armor, but then again, some people will complain about anything. The music is somewhat bland, but the guns sound really solid and it’s extremely satisfying to squeeze off pistol rounds, preferably into enemies.

With all this and multiplayer possibly in the pipeline, Darkout will be a game about crafting and exploring a strange, beautiful alien world. While it could use more guns with overwhelming firepower (just look at Cortex Command) and tighter, clearer plot integration, it already looks like a tight, casual-friendly game of the whole survival and crafting genre.