Daymare Town is still as creepy, esoteric, and mesmerizing as it was when I first played it in 2007. And just as difficult. I think Daymare Town was made with comments sections in mind. Mateusz Skutnik can be devious in how he toys with the player's expectations, and I think he found his fertile ground in the thin, complex, meandering lines that hid his relics and beings within them.

While the art and world-building just got better and better throughout the series, the new inventory system in DMT3 was frustrating to work with, and DMT4 did not do enough to ameliorate the issues that arose from it. In fact, in some ways DMT4 was worse than DMT3, having far too many items with no apparent purpose while keeping the money system for no apparent reason.

But maybe trying to make the best Daymare Town is a fool's errand. The same thing that makes the games frustrating is what makes them feel so rewarding. When you find a new area or finally find a use for an item, the game just feels so much bigger. Whenever I cheated and pulled up a walkthrough, even when the answer was so obtuse it was unfair, I lost some bit of the mystery.

How strange it is that the distorted, anguished, ruined world of Daymare Town can at the same time feel so cozy.