Which is the best Lovecraft-inspired adventure game?

Started by KyriakosCH, Sat 08/10/2016 12:56:47

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KyriakosCH

Simple question :) I have only played a couple. Infogrames' Shadow of the comet is a classic, of course :)

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Amayirot Akago

Eternal Darkness, easily. Game fucked with my head like no other.
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KyriakosCH

Quote from: Amayirot Akago on Sat 08/10/2016 12:57:46
Eternal Darkness, easily. Game fucked with my head like no other.

Wait, that one apparently has women. Very un-Lovecraft :=
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Blondbraid

There's Sherlock holmes and the call of Cthulhu, though it's more Sherlock Holmes than Lovecraft in my opinion.
And there is Darkest Dungeon, and it's more of an RPG than an adventure game, but the narration an art style is wonderfully Gothic and closely inspired from Lovecraft.
And this game is a point and click adaption of his novel The Outsider.


KyriakosCH

#4
^The outsider is one of his best stories, but that game (flash game?) looked a bit underwhelming IMO :)

There is also an AGS game adapted from "The terrible old man". Game itself is ok, although the story isn't among his better ones :=
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Mandle

Isn't "Dark Corners Of The Earth" considered the best Lovecraft game of all time?

Danvzare

#6
Quote from: Blondbraid on Sat 08/10/2016 13:10:52
And there is Darkest Dungeon, and it's more of an RPG than an adventure game, but the narration an art style is wonderfully Gothic and closely inspired from Lovecraft.
I've played Darkest Dungeon, I definitely do not recommend it. I'd say why, but I'd probably just go on a long rant (as a matter of fact, I already have somewhere else entirely).
But to put it in as few words as possible, it's like playing an overly complicated yet more limiting (and thus more simplistic and boring) version of Pokemon, while an angsty emo teenager berates everything you do.

Blondbraid

Quote from: Danvzare on Sat 08/10/2016 20:10:11
Quote from: Blondbraid on Sat 08/10/2016 13:10:52
And there is Darkest Dungeon, and it's more of an RPG than an adventure game, but the narration an art style is wonderfully Gothic and closely inspired from Lovecraft.
I've played Darkest Dungeon, I definitely do not recommend it. I'd say why, but I'd probably just go on a long rant (as a matter of fact, I already have somewhere else entirely).
But to put it in as few words as possible, it's like playing an overly complicated yet more limiting (and thus more simplistic and boring) version of Pokemon, while an angsty emo teenager berates everything you do.
I don't get the Pokemon comparison, but I can see why some might dislike the game. It has some punishing gameplay where a single bad move can easily snowball into a major setback, and it can get rather frustrating at times.

I however, quite liked the game and found the mechanics for insanity most interesting. And I think the narrator for the game is about as far from an angsty emo teenager as you can get.


CaesarCub

It's not the best and I never got around finishing it, but I sort of liked Daughter of Serpents.

Danvzare

#9
Quote from: Blondbraid on Sat 08/10/2016 21:42:34
I don't get the Pokemon comparison, but I can see why some might dislike the game. It has some punishing gameplay where a single bad move can easily snowball into a major setback, and it can get rather frustrating at times.

I however, quite liked the game and found the mechanics for insanity most interesting. And I think the narrator for the game is about as far from an angsty emo teenager as you can get.
Ok then, an angsty emo teenager with a really deep voice. Have you heard what he says in game?
He says things like"You find treasure, but it's hollow and meaningless, like life." which I'm half expecting to be followed by "I'm going to cut myself again."

I didn't mind the frustrating gameplay mechanics, those are fine. After all I play and enjoy Dwarf Fortress which is 10x more frustrating (until you get used to everything).

And because I've just gone on a long rant again (I said I would), I've decided to hide it in case no one wants to read a wall of text. (laugh)
Spoiler
I didn't like it because of the narration that says everything you do is depressing, sad, and horrible, even when you think it's pretty awesome.
And I also didn't like it because of it's combat system.

The reason for my comparison to Pokemon is because like Pokemon, you can switch out your party members, and like Pokemon you have four attacks for each of your party members (and only those four attacks, no normal slashes or anything like that), and like Pokemon it's turn based (although a lot of RPGs are turn based so I guess you can scratch that one off).

But while on Pokemon all of your attacks can be used at any time and place. On Darkest Dungeon, you can only use certain attacks at certain times, depending on where your opponents are situated, and how many corpses are on screen. Thus limiting your four attacks to two or three at most. This makes it kind of boring as you just kind of go through the motions in combat, with very little in the way of choice. There should be an automatic fight button, it's that boring.

And then there's the corpses. Those just ruin the mood of the game altogether.
You're trying to make a super serious and depressing game, and you expect me to take it seriously while I have to hack corpses up in the middle of combat. What kind of crazy psychopath would hack up a corpse in the middle of combat, rather than going around it!
It just spoiled what little mood it managed to build up.

And then their's the quirk system. It sounds good in theory, but it just ended up being a bunch of random debuffs, and little more than an annoyance.
[close]

Blondbraid

Quote from: Danvzare on Sun 09/10/2016 10:54:38
Ok then, an angsty emo teenager with a really deep voice. Have you heard what he says in game?
He says things like"You find treasure, but it's hollow and meaningless, like life." which I'm half expecting to be followed by "I'm going to cut myself again."

I didn't mind the frustrating gameplay mechanics, those are fine. After all I play and enjoy Dwarf Fortress which is 10x more frustrating (until you get used to everything).
Regarding your long rant, well...
Spoiler
You can always turn the mechanic for corpses off in the options menu. I found it annoying too, but I switched it off early on and it haven't bothered me since!
[close]

As for the narrator being emo, yes, he does say mostly depressing things and seems to be in constant contempt and despair. The narration is full of purple prose and bent on making you feel like powerless and small in a cruel and uncaring world, and everything you do is futile. But then again, so is much of Lovecrafts writing.


Mandle

Oh, how could I have forgotten to mention "Anchorhead": It's the best Lovecraft game I've ever played personally:

I think one of its strengths is that it is a text adventure and so the game is never forced to visually show the player the entities that are incomprehensible to the human psyche. That's the problem with mythos entities being graphically rendered: If a human artist could draw them then this automatically negates them being beyond the realm of what the human mind can cope with, and they simply become just another Kaiju...

Anyway: The game is free to play and you can simply play it in your browser here:

CLICK HERE TO PLAY ANCHORHEAD

EDIT: (slight spoilers)
Spoiler
Hahahaha! I just went back and replayed the start of the game, but rather than go through the horrors that I know lie ahead, I just went and found my husband, threw my wedding ring on the ground right in front of him, and then went out to the railway tracks and stood on them until I got hit by a train... (The last thing I did before the train hit me was to put up my umbrella in the rain...) This ending is probably a lot more merciful for my character, considering I know what she has to go through to get to the real game ending... So, yeah: the game has a surprising amount of freedom-of-choice content for an interactive fiction...
[close]

Danvzare

Quote from: Blondbraid on Sun 09/10/2016 23:34:56
You can always turn the mechanic for corpses off in the options menu. I found it annoying too, but I switched it off early on and it haven't bothered me since!
What seriously!!! 8-0
Ok, I'm definitely going to have to boot up the game and try it with that.
Thanks. :-D


Monsieur OUXX

No one even mentionned Chronicles of Innsmouth, made with AGS! It was quite cool. The puzzles and graphics were a bit weak and yet the atmosphere is definitely there and the experience overall quite enjoyable. The makers managed to build a nice little world around the novel.
 

Mandle

Quote from: Monsieur OUXX on Mon 17/09/2018 18:08:44
No one even mentionned Chronicles of Innsmouth, made with AGS!

Most of these posts are from 2016.

KyriakosCH

Wow, I have been in this forum for 2 years!!!
This is the Way - A dark allegory. My Twitter!  My Youtube!

Monsieur OUXX

Quote from: Mandle on Mon 17/09/2018 23:45:26
Quote from: Monsieur OUXX on Mon 17/09/2018 18:08:44
No one even mentionned Chronicles of Innsmouth, made with AGS!

Most of these posts are from 2016.
Oh yeah, I didn't notice the necroposting
 


Mr Underhill

It's not out yet :P Just kidding. My favorite is Call of Cthulhu Dark Corners of the Earth, and I KNOW it's not really an adventure game, buuut it kinda is (up until you get the gun, at which point it kind of spirals down anyway). I'm super curious about Eternal Darkness, is it even on anything else other than Gamecube? I've played a bit of Chronicle of Innsmouth but it was a bit to uneven to get into. Shadow of the Comet is great but the controls are punishing - not to mention the idiotic deaths, ugh.

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