Tenebris: Terra Incognita – Demo Impressions

Another day, another random game recommended to me through Twitter (X). More often than not you strike rock mining for gold, but from time to time, you don’t only strike gold, you strike diamond! Tenebris: Terra Incognita is one of these rare diamonds. It’s a turn-based tactical combat RPG that can be best compared to Darkest Dungeon, a tough and long game I very much enjoyed. Like Darkest Dungeon this is a side scrolling adventure with tactical combat interspersed, unlike DD however, this takes place in space, far into the future where bulky futuristic armor, nasty aliens and nano-machines reign supreme.

Crash landing
While calmly traversing through space, your huge spaceship suddenly breaks down and forces a crash landing on a hostile, barren alien world. You are immediately thrown into the fray, since the ship has been boarded by these disgusting critters set out to kill the crew. The demo only contains two missions, so there isn’t much more to the story. Yet, the premise is effective, as I love sci-fi and the mystery of an unknown inhospitable planet to explore. 

The combat works much like Darkest Dungeon. You take turns to maim each other, but there are a lot of ways to heal yourself, and to delay the enemy, which is dependent on what classes you play and skills you have unlocked. The skills have different synergies between them, so there are a lot of combinations between the classes and active skills to try out to make the ultimate squad of reckoning. It also forces you to think before you commit to the upgrades on the talent tree for the characters – will this skill truly help the team, or just to boost the combat unit itself?

The general action had a great flow to it, with tooltips explaining everything well enough. However, I couldn’t figure out the chance-to-hit. Creatures, and your own soldiers can dodge attack, which means there is some form of RNG involved. I have nothing against that, since I’m an RNG lover myself, but I did find it odd that I couldn’t find any chance-to-hit stat when shooting. Everything else is explained in detail, but I have to admit that there is a possibility that I missed it somehow. It has happened before.

I should also note that the side scrolling maps have hidden loot to find, and apparently side passages you can take (according to the tutorial). While traversing the combat map, the background can and will stash concealed goodies for your men that can be easily missed. So you better brush up on the point & click abilities to make the best out of every mission. I liked this aspect, since it rewards those that pay attention to the environment.

X-com things
Beyond the tactical combat, you will have to run a base, also in a very Darkest Dungeon fashion, or how I like to prefer it: X-com style gameplay. However, there wasn’t too much of this in the demo, as it ended after the base presentation. Yet, what I saw looked fine. Here you will be able to recruit (wake up people from hyper sleep) new soldiers, sell items, and build out your base to provide better facilities and bonuses for your men.

Look & sound
The graphics are excellent, and truly felt alive, everything from the cool background action, to the movement of the characters that talk to you. Very nice presentation overall. The combat animations are snappy, and showed exactly what was going on at the moment. The same goes for sound and music. However, nothing is voice acted. I don’t know if it’s planned or not for the full release, but it’s not that it matters that much.

I really enjoyed my short time with the demo (it even has achievements!). It felt great to play, and above all: it was damn fun. Another cool indie game to look forward to, so make sure to add it to your wishlist, and try it for yourself!

Thanks for reading.

/Thomas