lovecraft game

[LupaShiva]

Hello everyone, im a big fan of lovecraft, and i was interesses in creating a game bases on one of her stories, and possibly make it comercially available, my questions are:

-Is something legal or i need some copyright?
-If its free it chances anything about copyright?
-If its not based on one of her stories and its inspires by her creations it chances anything?

[Scavenger]

All of HP Lovecraft's work is in the public domain, you can see here. Legal minefields abound when you get into later works, especially stuff repurposed or portrayed by Chaosium for their Call of Cthulhu game (which uses stuff written by people other than Lovecraft). Lovecraft himself was very free with his creations and really wanted people to write stories about the Cthulhu Mythos, which is partly why it's so widespread today.

If you just use the themes of the Cthulhu Mythos, so long as you stick to ones mentioned in public domain works (most of them), you will be fine.

However, please, I beg you, do not do Shadow over Innsmouth. E v e r y o n e does Shadow over Innsmouth. There must be thirty different adaptations of that one book.

[Mandle]

Lovecraft was a man by the way. Probably not the manliest man of all-time but a man nonetheless...

[LupaShiva]

Thank you scavenger, actually i was thinking in cool air, i love that story, and i think it could be an awesome game with a weird ending :-) and yes lovecraft was the man, he was a step ahead of her time :-)

[Crimson Wizard]

and yes lovecraft was the man, he was a step ahead of her time :-)

I believe Mandle was refering to you using "her" word in regards to him.
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/her

[ollj]

basically, lovecraft novels can not work the same way in any more visual medium:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DyRxlvM9VM

the medium changes the story so much, it is no longer the same, it is abridged/satire at best, and that barely works with lovecraft.

just by SHOWING "unspeakable/undescribable horrors" they are no longer unspeakable/undescribable, and even worse, by making them interactive, it is near impossible to not transform them into something like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOHJUrcVdJk

[Mandle]

basically, lovecraft novels can not work the same way in any more visual medium:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DyRxlvM9VM

the medium changes the story so much, it is no longer the same, it is abridged/satire at best, and that barely works with lovecraft.

just by SHOWING "unspeakable/undescribable horrors" they are no longer unspeakable/undescribable, and even worse, by making them interactive, it is near impossible to not transform them into something like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOHJUrcVdJk

While this is all true to some degree I must disagree with stating it as solid fact.

If done extremely carefully it is possible to hint at the horrors just enough to leave the rest to the players' imagination. A lot of Lovecraft games do just thrust the monsters right out there in the spotlight and this is usually a mistake. But, much like the stories, just a hint of the monsters' true form here and there and the rest left hidden in mist or shadows has also been done, and has worked very well.

No time to search right now for examples though.

[LupaShiva]

Yeah thats true, specially the first vídeo, but i aint making a Cthulhu game, i like other stories from lovecraft, but cthulhu too ;-)

[LimpingFish]

A lot of Lovecraft games do just thrust the monsters right out there in the spotlight and this is usually a mistake.

This is true, although few to the extent that Lovecraft's "Mythos" disciples were guilty of (August Derleth in particular).

"Lovecraftian" as a definition has, somewhat loosely, come to mean stories dealing with ancient gods and unspeakable horrors. While the "Cthulhu" stories are clearly his most famous works, a huge section of Lovecraft's output was more concerned with expressing the myriad reasons why we should fear and distrust that which is different. Being a racist, this was really at the heart of most of what Lovecraft was writing about; obliquely in ...Innsmouth, more directly in, say, The Horror at Red Hook.

Oh, and...

However, please, I beg you, do not do Shadow over Innsmouth.

Seconded.

[mkennedy]

What about a parser based Lovecraft game? Though It'd probably be difficult in AGS you may be able to pull it off in ADRIFT or some other parser based engine.

[Crimson Wizard]

What about a parser based Lovecraft game? Though It'd probably be difficult in AGS 

Why? AGS has a native parser support.
See this for example:
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/1059/

[mkennedy]

What about a parser based Lovecraft game? Though It'd probably be difficult in AGS 

Why? AGS has a native parser support.
See this for example:
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/1059/

Are there many other parser based games that use AGS? Trilby's notes is the first one that comes to mind, but I don't know of many others.
Rather than saying it'd be difficult in AGS I should have said that'd it may be easier in another engine that is specifically made for parser games.

[Crimson Wizard]

Are there many other parser based games that use AGS? Trilby's notes is the first one that comes to mind, but I don't know of many others.

Well, people are just not using AGS for that kind of games, because point n click is easier to design in general (or so it is thought).

What do those other engines have, in particular, that makes it easier to write text parsing games?

[mkennedy]

The main thing would be that for a parser game you may want to use an engine that is specifically designed for  parser games, though that may not necessarily mean that they are any easier to program. The simplest parser engine I found was "World Builder" but it was only available for the Macintosh and wasn't very powerful, in fact it may not even run on more modern Macs. So far I've only really dabbled in other engines but haven't actually done anything with them, Then I've also only 'dabbled' in AGS to, but at least with that I was able to write a module to add primitive parser support to point and click games for it.

[Crimson Wizard]

Then I've also only 'dabbled' in AGS to, but at least with that I was able to write a module to add primitive parser support to point and click games for it.

I am not sure what you mean by "primitive parser support", unfortunately you speak very vaguely.
AGS itself has a built-in parser support. That's why I am interested to know, what it lacks in your opinion. Why did you have to write a module for this? What extra possibilities does this module add? Could you give an example of the problem you had that could not be solved using out-of-the-box AGS features?

[mkennedy]

Then I've also only 'dabbled' in AGS to, but at least with that I was able to write a module to add primitive parser support to point and click games for it.

I am not sure what you mean by "primitive parser support", unfortunately you speak very vaguely.
AGS itself has a built-in parser support. That's why I am interested to know, what it lacks in your opinion. Why did you have to write a module for this? What extra possibilities does this module add? Could you give an example of the problem you had that could not be solved using out-of-the-box AGS features?

Sorry, what I meant was that the module is for adding automatic parser interactions to games that don't have them. So for example you could load up a "Quest for Glory" type game and add this module, then type in "beer Homer" to use the beer object on the character Homer for example. Haven't really had any problems with the AGS parser though.

[Stromvin]

Hi there,
just throwing in my two cents of thought
First of all, i do not see why a parser should be superior to a normal point and click, unless i misunderstand parser, you probably would have to type stuff like "eerie, cycolpean" etc a lot
Second it is true that Lovecrafts "unspeakable" horror is indeed more easy to write/speak about than to actually show it. This becomes most clear in my favorite story "Color out of space" Which i once tried to do a radioplay about, and then realised it was not a good idea.
BUT Storys like Charles Dexter Ward, or Mountains of madness could very well be done as adventure games i think. And always remember: Just because you can show something you do not have to. So even in a graphical medium the unspeakable and unshowable horror can become "reality" (Blair Witch as a more prominent example)

So yeah, if you are a genius, pls do Color out of space
If you are like me just a normal person, try an easier one. And yes, shadow over innsmouth has been done enough times, but so has cthulhu i think...
greez Stromvin