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Gist of the story

From what I could gather, I believe we assume the role of Amelia Ash. She is 15 years old and loves to record herself while she laughs. She loves her life. She loves her friends. She felt that she deserved a better birthday so now she can’t enjoy her life anymore. Her number one dilemma is to fend off several haunted dolls that roam her house. They got a bit unruly and found a way to transform into a “human.”
Yeah…I think that’s what it’s about…
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Gameplay

The player must survive until 5 am. The game starts at 1 am and the dolls wake up around 1:30 am. During the course of the 5 in-game hours, you must avoid the dolls, things, whatever they are and try to survive. You can press the space bar to listen “closely” but I never found any use for it. Quite frankly, it’s useless because no matter what you do, the enemy will always get you. There’s the standard light source, in the form of a flashlight (pre-patch), or matches (post-patch). An exclamation mark will appear on the lower right corner of the screen if someone is nearby.
There was a patch that “changed” the game mechanics but in my opinion, it worsens an already terrible game. I actually waited for this patch to happen before I wrote this review but it didn’t change my impression of the game.
So pre-patch, I found an exploit that if you go to the highest floor of the house, and stand on a certain spot, the “dolls” will not be able to kill you. That’s how I was able to beat the game, by just standing there. Now, post-patch, they added this PaPa character to spice up your day. PaPa corrected the exploit I found while adding new problems in the process. PaPa needs to be taken care of so the player needs to search for a music box and wind it. Wait for an exclamation mark on the screen to appear and calm him down. Perhaps I have the timing wrong but this doesn’t work even when I walk towards him while winding the music box. He still jumps on you and ends the game. (Really, that’s the best part of Dark Night)
There is a certain amount of cheapness in how PaPa kills you. I don’t mind games being difficult games. I even don’t mind PaPa but he needs some kind of cooldown or he needs to gradually introduce himself throughout the night so that the player can learn his pattern. This is what the other dolls do…well kind of. Their patterns are pretty basic but they have a pattern.
PaPa’s cheapness becomes apparent during the bonus challenge after the credits. It’s still 1:00 and I’m rushing to get the music box. I figured I have some time. Can you guess what happens? PaPa comes rushing in. Then, I thought to myself, “Maybe, I should memorize the route to the music box.” Okay, that’s should be good. NOPE…he still gets you. I repeated the action several times with improvements here and there but he still gets me. Death after death, I am reminded of my inadequacy. I’m just not good enough. Thanks PaPa.
Lastly, I did mention briefly that there are light sources. The flashlight is there during pre-patch (v1.09) and v1.12 patch replaces the flashlight with the matches. I thought the flashlight was terrible. The battery drained too fast but at least I can see what’s in front of me and conserving the battery is manageable. However, with the matches, it goes out too fast, and the throw of light is nonexistent (Might as well not have the bloody thing!) I know. It’s not fair to the matches. It is a match versus a flashlight. Of course the flashlight will win the day so why remove it?
*clears throat*
Ending rant. Thank you.
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Did ya scare me?

The scare factor of this game, on the scale of 1-10, I rate Dark Night a 1 out of 10. 1 being, “Where are my scares, danggit??”
The jumpscares are always coupled with loud noises so that can be startling but other than that, nothing really happens. I chuckled a few times when the other dudes ganged up on me. That was good. PaPa likes to kill you a lot so there’s that…
If you “listen closely” you can hear garbled groans, moans and voices but they’re nothing more than background noise. They added no tension and just left me annoyed. On the steam page, the game is advertised as a “creepy” game. I wasn’t able to pick up any creepy vibes.
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Graphics and Technical Issues

I didn’t have any issues in terms of crashing. I did encounter a bug where the hostile NPCs would glitch around doorways. It is undetermined whether or not this has been resolved in the patch. The recent patch also added Options in the main menu but there were some strange values in it…
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=604462658
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Wrap Up

I simply cannot recommend this game in good faith. Maybe wait until it’s severely discounted because you’re not missing much. There’s no substance in Dark Night. The “scares” were lousy and the enemies were cheap. I can’t even tell you what the game is about since there are no notes scattered about or narrative that informs you of your purpose. Just survive until 5 am.
I really do not like down voting games because I know developers spend their time working on their games. However, I just couldn’t find anything I like about this game.
I got my first refund. Sorry…
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TL;DR

Pros:
- It can be funny sometimes although I don’t know if that can be considered as a pro in a supposed horror game.
Cons:
- Buggy enemies
- Cheap, loud jumpscares aren’t scary
- In my opinion, the recent patch made the game more terrible.
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If you stuck with me this long, and if you have the time, watch me fool around in Dark Night. I must say that in my videos, I am playing on an earlier version of the game but you’ll get a gist of what it is all about. Thanks for reading and have a nice day.
Dark Night Video