For a pay what you want game, this is really good! The PDF has some pretty beautiful illustrations, very dark and gothic. It's written well, although there are some ambiguous or loose parts at times.

The theme is great, powerful, it reminds me of the Dark Souls and Demon Souls video games; the world it represents, a world of despair, governed by demonic forces, is easy to imagine, it feels like the dark ages during the blackest moments of inquisitorial assaults. The player fights as a supernatural warrior who can wield demonic power. Darkness fighting against darkness; the main storyline behind the game also communicates this very well.

Gameplay consists of simple checks by generating dice pools, and the player needs to employ his demonic power without letting it control him. It's all a big balancing act. The 'level up' system is pretty simple as well. Those who are looking for a simple, gritty and dark game, need look no further.

Some may not like the dying system, of creating or picking a character to continue the deceased warrior's mission, as there isn't too great an incentive for it. But keep in mind that it was designed like that not only for difficulty purposes, but to communicate the lethality of the game world as well.

Some things have been further balanced and fine-tuned since I played this.

Why Review a Free Product? It will still cost you some time to read and some ink to print if you choose. I'd like to know if it's worth it and I thought someone else might as well. I will not hesitate to spoil the adventure (SPOILER ALERT).

Physical Product This is a 15 page PDF that I paid to have printed out. But because of the font colors (red on white or white on light brown) and the fact that it printed landscape it was too small to read and/or the type of hard to read. I wound up having to read it on my phone.

Introduction This interested me because it was a two-player game and I was curious as to how it would be designed.

Description The setup for the world is that the Chaos Overlords and Demons have taken control of the fantasy land for years. Sorcerers have pacts with demons; all magic is evil and all about demon summoning. Sounds like "Midnight" so far.

Somehow there is a way to bind a demon to the PC, but this requires a strict code of conduct to keep the demon from taking over.

There are two moons and the sun doesn’t shine very much. This is Dark Fantasy with an emphasis on Dark.

To because a demon-marked hero the mark seeks you out like a Green Lantern ring. I like that they state there are only 99 demon-marked. But since if one dies they just go get another I guess there will always be 99. I'd prefer if they could truly be eliminated. It would make survival a priority. After all, if you die, so what - you just roll up another character.

It also states specifically that the GM ("Master") is deliberately out to get you by design. I'm okay with that.

The task resolution system is a six-sided dice counting successes against a difficulty number. It also includes a Partial Success result. I like that. You roll black 'demon dice' as well. The will result in either nothing, more successes to add to yours or more successes and adding a 'Demon Point'.

Damage is subtracted from hit points.

As you get more and more 'possessed' (stages) it becomes harder and harder to hide your demonic nature.

You also gain "Code Points" as experience points for acting in character. These allow you to remove Demon Points which slow down your possession's progress.

Demon Points are spent to use Demon Powers.

Next are two character sheets. These have pick lists for motivations, equipment, stats, skills and which Special Moves you can use your Demon Points for. These are pretty well done. They also give you a choice of what your demon-mark (tattoos) look like.

Next is the "How to GM" chapter. The first rule is (of course) "Keep it Dark!” Pretty typical 3-act structure advice, but of course, a little vague on details.

Next is Example Difficulties for Actions which is nicely done. Then the Combat rules. Lots of dice involved but it looks like it's at least been played with things like Size accounted for.

There is no Initiative in combat. Just a roll for attacking without being damage and a free attack round if surprised.

It also specifically mentions guidelines for House Rules. You will definitely need them if you try to play this as written.

It also gives a brief guideline on money and a starting amount of coins.

Next it talks about Balancing an Adventure. It mainly talks about balancing the difficulty numbers around the different Acts of the adventure. When you're only tool is a dice pool, every problem because a difficulty number.

Next it talks about being possessed by a Demon and how you can move up and down the Stages by your actions and accomplishments. Ultimately if the demon possesses you, you rush to Act 3 die somehow.

If you even get to Stage 2 (out of 3) stages of demon possession you are permanently inflicted with a 'condition' of Wounded, Shaken, Confused or Broken. None of them sound good.

Next is the Enemies chapter. There are 14 stated out examples here including Regular Humans so this is a nice way to get an idea of the type of balance needed for the game. There's also a large illustration of a Chaos Warrior. The illustration is good, but takes up a lot of space. All in all a very useful chapter often overlooked by free RPGs.

Next is Chaos Magic and Combat Stories. Chaos Magic gives seven simple spell examples. Combat Stories is rather confusing. It starts out "When describing the combat, Master and player should try to be narrative in their descriptions." I'm guessing it just means "make it up as you go along". But the general intention seems to be to using descriptions and the dice to generate the story while letting the player make tactical choices. I think. It also talks about ending the adventure and retiring the Demon-marked character. It doesn't usually end well for them.

Next is Adventures Seeds. There are six of these and they are as useless as any other adventure seeds.

Next you are given ideas on how to assign the dice to player characters and rules for how to build characters. The traits give skills which are simple one word descriptions of characteristics related to the traits of Bod, Skill, Mind and Spirit along with a choice of Special Moves. I'm a little unsure of the relationship between Special Moves and Demon Moves, but that's okay.

Next is a blank character sheet. After that is the Story Sheet and a section on Adventure Preparation. Very short advice is given here including "Do not plan in advance for a specific outcome of the Scene or the Act.” Okay. Guess there's been a lot of railroading going on. About a quarter of the page is blank for 'notes'. Why would you have notes if you're not planning for anything to happen?

Overall Well Demon-marked is good at what it does. It presents a very hand-wavy make-it-up-as-you-go-along story of a single Elricy, Chaos-tainted doomed hero. It covers most what is needed for the idea and only leaves holes where it wanted to. Personally, it's something I wouldn't ever play, but I wouldn't object if a player wanted to play a character like this and it would definitely be a good for many Conan-style Sword & Sorcery games. The idea and expression of the way being demon possessed works is neatly done.

I didn't expect to like it much, but I actually didn't get sick of reading it like so many free RPG projects. If this Chaos style of hero is what you are looking for, you could definitely do worse.

I can't say there would be a lot of replay value - the character is pretty much doomed after all - but it could provide for some interesting games.

I should note that it is very well illustrated (5 color) and laid out.

Should I Check Out Their Other Products? Well, even if there are other products, what would they be filled with? Given that the entire game is pretty much 'colorful words' I can't really see that they would need other products. But let's check out www.daimongames.com. Apparently they have a lot of other free games that seem to be along the Fate/Apocalypse World axis.

Well, I learned what I wanted to know. Games with a single player and a GM seem to be heavily 'storytelling' style in order to work. Now I know.