DarkSwitch is a city-builder where you have to build around a gigantic tree, surrounded by a mysterious and lethal fog. You have to make difficult decisions concerning the fate of your settlers, and you also have to keep a close eye on their fear. Build, gather resources, scout, and defend the sacred tree from the fog in this city-builder.
For more information on the game, please visit its official website here.
Table of contents
Introduction
As the game begins, you’ll find yourself in a small settlement built on top of a tree. In this game, you have to build around this Great Tree. You can also build on the ground, but that’s not free of risk.
You have three types of settlers, with each being efficient in different categories. You have Toilers, Craftsmen, and Rangers. You’ll be able to see which type of settler is efficient for a task when you open the building’s interface to hire the settlers.
Securing Food
This settlement’s name is Elaran, and it’s currently led by a researcher called Etnarch Tessen. Your first task here is to secure food.
There’s a structure next to a trunk, behind the City Council. Interact with the Fungus Colony building and hire the workers for it. If you press Max, it will automatically select the efficient workers for it. Don’t forget to hire workers for both shifts.
Now, you have to wait around till the workers gather at least five units of food from the Fungus Colony. After that, you’ll have to build a cooking house.
Cooking houses turn raw food into cooked rations, which will then be consumed by your settlers. You can set up the cooking house on the trunk, either side of the council platform. Once the building is built, you’ll have to assign workers to it.
Scouting The Base Of The Great Tree
After you’ve gathered at least five units of rations from the cooking house, your next task will be to descend to the ground. Here, you’ll find a scout base, an already built building.
You’ll have to create a scout squad here. Note that creating a scout squad requires five free rangers, and each scouting operation consumes materials, including rations.
Once you’ve got a scouting squad ready, you’ll have to investigate the nearby pillar of light. Around the end of Day 1, you’ll receive a signal that the nearby outpost called Ignalis has fallen, and some survivors might be on their way.
After you’ve scouted the area near the river, you’ll be able to build a Fisherman’s Hut here. There’s another pillar of light on the right. If you scout it, you’ll find the area ripe for setting up Lumberjack Huts.
You might be running out of wood by now. There are one or two platforms near the council where you can gather some wood, but they’re not very efficient. You’ll have to assign workers to them for them to produce wood.
Gathering Essential Resources
Once the area near the forest has been scouted, you can place a Lumberjack Hut here. You might be running out of settlers by now, so you’ll have to build more Forest Houses. You can build some on the base, near the huts, or on the trunk.
You can obtain more settlers through story events or by scouting nearby areas. Once you have enough workers and wood, you can build a warehouse near the Lumberjack Hut on the ground.
Don’t forget to select the warehouse and assign the resource it’s going to store, which will be wood in this case. Once you’ve set up the warehouse for wood, you can store 100 units of wood to build the platform on the lower trunk.
After building the lower platform, you’ll have to set up a warehouse on it. You can assign rations to this warehouse, as you’ll be needing a lot of those later on.
Fighting Against The Fog
As you expand on the ground, some of the structures may get corrupted by the fog. To deal with the fog, you’ll have to build Flameguards. You’ll have to assign rangers to these buildings.
These Flameguards provide a light source that protects nearby structures from the fog’s corruption. You should also build the healing quarters by now, as they’ll take care of the ill.
Around the end of Day 2, you’ll receive news that some refugees have lost their minds. You can choose the option to drive them out of the settlements or send them to the healing quarters.
I picked the option to drive them out of the settlement. This action slightly increased the fear of the settlers.
The Luminarchy
On Day 3, the Luminarchy will arrive near Elaran. You’ll have the option to forbid them from landing in the area, or you can choose to allow them, but forbid them from going up on the Great Tree. I picked the option to allow them to land around the Great Tree.
On Day 4, more people will succumb to the fog. After that, the Luminarcs will take random settlers away from the tree to interrogate them. They’ll shortly release them afterwards.
You’ll have to build an Engineerium now to research more technologies. You can build this structure anywhere on the trunk.
Once the building is complete, you’ll have to assign craftsmen to it. After that, you can use this building to research new technologies.
Research the Aether Watch technology from the research tree in the Engineerium. At 16:00 on Day 4, some pillars of light will appear on the right side of the area.
You’ll have to send your scouts to these areas, but keep in mind that it is a time-limited quest.
More Research
On Day 5, the settlers will discover some metal debris near the base of the Great Tree. You’ll then have to go to the Engineerium to research the metal collector building.
This will allow you to collect metal. Build the hut near the metal deposit, which is near the scout building on the ground.
By now, the Aether Watch research should be complete. You’ll then have to interact with the council building. There’s an upgrade tree icon on it. Select the upgrade tree, and here, you’ll find the Aether Watch upgrade.
On Day 6, strange Guzzlers will start to appear near the forest area. You’ll have to send your scouts here to investigate.
The scouts can’t defend all of the places, so now, you’ll have to research the Watch Tower, which is under the defense category on the Engineerium’s tree.
Once the research is complete, you can place some Watch Towers on the ground and assign rangers to them. These towers will protect the nearby area from enemies.
Around the end of Day 6, you’ll get a new quest to research the Solar Extractor. You don’t necessarily need to build it, unless you have extra resources. You might’ve already gathered more than enough by scouting the nearby areas.
Legatus
On Day 7, there will be a story event where the Legatus of the Luminarchs will have finished his investigation. Now, you can choose the option to ignore the sacrifices or choose to protect your people.
I picked the option to protect the people of the settlement. You’ll then have to investigate a pillar of light towards the right of the forest. The forest has some enemies, so your scouts might not make it.
If you lose your scouts, you can hire them again, but you’ll have to make sure you have at least five rangers that aren’t working anywhere else at the moment.
After that, some story events will take place, and the false Luminarcs will run away from the settlement, but they’ll take Helga with them.
Fighting The Fog
You’ll get a new quest to find a way to fight against the fog. On Day 8, you’ll have to make a decision. You can either wait out the Shroudsurge by climbing the top of the tree or descend into the fog and activate the apparatus.
Both options look equally dangerous, so I picked the option to activate the apparatus. Now, you’ll get a new quest where you have 2 days’ worth of time to gather resources and scout the nearby areas.
After gathering the required items, you’ll have to manually press the icon next to the checklist to deliver the items to the quest. You’ll also have to send your scouts to investigate the nearby pillars of light.
Once a pillar has been scouted, a green pillar will appear in its place. This green pillar will allow you to call some of the settlers to take respite in the fog for the meantime, but they’ll leave the settlement, which means that the resource production will slow down.
The Apparatus
Regardless of whether you’re able to complete the quest or not by the time limit, the Shroudsurge will happen on Day 10. The fog will embrace the Great Tree, but Etnarch Tessen manages to activate the Apparatus.
The Apparatus manages to push away the fog, but it destroys most of the settlement in the process. You’ll then see a cutscene where Valfidis arrives at the ruins of Elaran, and that ends the prologue. Chapter One, Seed of Hope, kicks right after the prologue ends.
This concludes the walkthrough for the Prologue of DarkSwitch.
For more walkthroughs, please visit the game’s main hub here. If you’re looking for more to read, please check below:
- Into Indie Games Homepage
- The Occultist – Complete Walkthrough Hub
- Samson Complete Walkthrough Hub
- Modulus: Factory Automation – Walkthrough Hub
- Crown Of Greed – Walkthrough Hub
Fahad Suleman is an avid fan of fighting games who spends most of his time writing walkthroughs and reviews for cozy indie titles or mashing around in Tekken. If he’s not writing or playing any games, you’ll often find him watching historical videos on YouTube for hours.
