This game has a lot of Overkill

[Argoon]

Isn't the fact that the Shadow is after Daniel what makes him go insane so quickly? One of the notes mention that the Shadow is "leaking" insanity or something like that, so I presume Daniel is feeling the influence of the Shadow that is chasing him. That's what I figured, anyway.

yes and no to an extent, the shadow is that meaty fungus that grows around, not every shadow uder every book and corner...

and besides I think the shadows should be a good hiding place and you shouldn't be afraid of a hiding place... it shouldn't calm you down... but shouldn't scare you

if you know what i mean

They made the dark take out your sanity as a gameplay feature, so you play the game in a constant fear, light is not friendly (enemies can see you) nor dark is friendly (makes you hallucinate and lose balance), so you are always on max alert. If they made the dark a friendly place them they would need to make monster encounters more frequent, but that also have the bad effect of making the bad guys lose their frightening nature, is a question of balance and the developers imo made it right.