|OT| H.P. Lovecraft gaming - No Shrimp !

Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
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- Art by Sean Phillips

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
- Hamlet (1.5.167-8), Hamlet to Horatio


The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.
- H.P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu (1926)


Alone in the Dark (1992)

Alone in the Dark: Classic Collection brings the seminal survival horror masterpieces of the 90's to your PC today.​
Shadow of the Comet (1993)

You'll take on the role of John T. Carter, a brilliant young astronomer, piecing together the puzzling history of the village and its cryptic inhabitants. Incredibly realistic action and supernatural chaos intertwine to draw players deep into the puzzling mysteries within the Shadow of the Comet.

[followed by Prisoner of Ice (1995)]​


Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem (2002)​
Saya No Uta (2003) NSFW

Bear witness to a love that will change the world, in this classic horror romance visual novel from acclaimed writer Urobuchi Gen.​
Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth (2006)

Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth is a first-person horror game that combines intense action and adventure elements.​
Penumbra Overture (2007)

Penumbra: Overture is a first person survival horror game, emphasizing on survival and problem solving instead of mindless violence and gore.

[followed by Penumbra Black Plague (2009)]​
Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened (2008)

The Sherlock Holmes series returns with this updated version of The Awakened, which brings a whole new dimension to the original title developed by Frogwares. The game puts the player into an investigation of the Cthulhu Mythos - as imagined by Father of modern horror, H.P. Lovecraft.​
Darkness Within: In Pursuit of Loath Nolder (2009)

Explore disturbing corners of the human psyche. Delve into a dimension of nightmares, the occult and a tense psychological world created in classic Lovecraftian style. As police detective Howard E. Loreid, you are tasked to solve the murder of Clark Field, a wealthy man involved in the occult.

[followed by Darkness Within 2: The Dark Lineage (2010)]​


The geometry of the place was all wrong.
One could not be sure that the sea and the ground were horizontal.
- H.P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu (1926)


Amnesia The Dark Descent (2010)

Amnesia: The Dark Descent, a first person survival horror. A game about immersion, discovery and living through a nightmare. An experience that will chill you to the core.

[followed by Amnesia A Machine for Pig (2013)]​




The Last Door (2014)

Something ancient and evil is stirring in Victorian England. Only you can stop it. Journey to the brink of madness and beyond as you set forth alone into the dark.

[followed by The Last Door season 2 (2016)]​






Bloodborne (2015)

Hunt your nightmares as you search for answers in the ancient city of Yharnam, now cursed with a strange endemic illness spreading through the streets like wildfire. Danger, death and madness lurk around every corner of this dark and horrific world, and you must discover its darkest secrets in order to survive.​






Darkest Dungeon (2016)

Darkest Dungeon is a challenging gothic roguelike turn-based RPG about the psychological stresses of adventuring. Recruit, train, and lead a team of flawed heroes against unimaginable horrors, stress, famine, disease, and the ever-encroaching dark. Can you keep your heroes together when all hope is lost ?​
Edge of Nowhere (2016)

Edge of Nowhere is a third-person VR adventure from acclaimed independent developer Insomniac Games. Victor Howard is on a journey to find his fiancée, Ava Thorne, who is part of a lost expedition in Antarctica. His rescue mission takes a sudden turn as he ventures deeper into a dark monstrous world where reality warps and twists around him.​
The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker (2017)

YOU are a psychiatrist, trying to solve a murder whilst treating the unusual patients of the recently deceased Doctor Dekker. Type a question - patients reply in full screen video and have questions for you too but be careful what you say. Your words determine their eventual fates, and your own !​
Conarium (2017)

Conarium is a chilling Lovecraftian game, which follows a gripping story involving four scientists and their endeavor to challenge what we normally consider to be the ‘absolute’ limits of nature. Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft’s novella "At the Mountains of Madness", but largely set after the original story.​
The Shrouded Isle (2017)

Includes the Sunken Sins free DLC! Your Excellency, in this short game, we prepare for the awakening of our Lord. He hungers for human sacrifice. Sinners try to hide their dark secrets, but all must be purged...​
Anchorhead (2018)

You take a deep breath of salty air as the first raindrops begin to spatter the pavement, and the swollen, slate-colored clouds that blanket the sky mutter ominous portents amongst themselves over the little coastal town of Anchorhead.​
Cultist Simulator (2018)

Seize forbidden treasures. Summon alien gods. Feed on your disciples.Cultist Simulator is a game of apocalypse and yearning. Play as a seeker after unholy mysteries, in a 1920s-themed setting of hidden gods and secret histories.​
Call of Cthulhu (2018)

1924. Private Investigator Pierce is sent to look into the tragic death of the Hawkins family. Plunge into a world of creeping madness and cosmic horror. Cryptic clues, shadowy figures, and pure terror bar your way as you fight to retain your sanity and solve an otherworldly mystery.​






Moons of Madness (2019)

Moons of Madness is a first-person, story-driven cosmic horror game where the scientific exploration of Mars meets the supernatural dread of Lovecraft.​
The Hunter's Journals - Pale Harbour (2019)

A coastal town is overrun by horrors, and only YOU can save it!

[followed by The Hunter's Journals - Vile Philosophy and The Hunter's Journals - Blissful Ignorance]​
The Sinking City (2019)

In the 1920s, on the East Coast of the United States, the half-submerged city of Oakmont is gripped by supernatural forces. You're a private investigator, uncovering the truth of what has possessed the city and corrupted the minds of its inhabitants... and yours.​



World of Horror (2020)

Experience the quiet terror of this 1-bit love letter to Junji Ito and H.P. Lovecraft. Navigate a hellish roguelite reality with turn-based combat and unforgiving choices. Experiment with your deck of event cards to discover new forms of cosmic horror in every playthrough. The inevitable awaits...​


That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die
- H.P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu (1926)



- UNORTHODOX EXPERIENCES -



Deus Machina Demonbane NSFW

Darkness hangs over Arkham City. Arkham's protector, the young Hadou Ruri, is the only shield keeping the forces of the evil Black Lodge at bay. Amateur detective and former magic student Daijuuji Kurou wants nothing to do with the turmoil, but when Ruri herself shows up on his doorstep with an offer he can't refuse, Kurou is sucked back into the world of supernatural intrigue that he swore to leave behind.

[no link because NSFW, but published by JAST USA]​
Cthulhu Saves the World (2011)

The lord of insanity, Cthulhu was all set to plunge the world into insanity and destruction when his powers were sealed by a mysterious sorcerer. The only way for him to break the curse is to become a true hero. Save the world to destroy it in an epic parody RPG journey of redemption, romance, and insanity !​
Tesla vs Lovecraft (2018)

Tesla vs Lovecraft is an intense top-down twin stick arena shooter from the creators of Crimsonland and Neon Chrome. Play as the enigmatic inventor Nikola Tesla harnessing the static energy to power up Tesla-Mech and give the lovecraftian nightmares a lesson in horror !​
Fhtagn! - Tales of the Creeping Madness (2018)

Fhtagn! - Tales of the Creeping Madness is a text based adventure game, where choices matter. There's couch co-op and just a hint of betrayal. Play as one of four cultists intent on releasing the Ancient One !​
The Miskatonic (2018)

Explore the most prestigious occult school in North America, The Miskatonic University, in a hilarious dark comedy set after the Lovecraft canon, in which the greatest threat to mankind is its own ambitions.​
Gibbous - A Cthulhu Adventure (2019)

Crazy cultists. Cthulhu. A talking cat. Gibbous takes you on an expansive, traditionally animated, hand-painted adventure. Play as three protagonists and explore a lushly rendered Lovecraft-inspired world, unraveling ancient conspiracies. A comedy cosmic horror adventure made in Transylvania !​

Polynesians, motherfuckers !
- Li Kao, after reading too much H.P. Lovecraft (2020)
 
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Li Kao

Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
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Oh yeah, forgot Moons ! I didn't select The Secret World because I think it takes inspiration in so many wells that it's not really a Lovecraftian experience, but for one that's debatable and then Moons of Madness looks more focused.

Adding the two !

Edit - Man, Saya is old, time flies.
 

fokkusu

Burn baby burn🔥🎵
Dec 9, 2018
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Nice thread!

Loved Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem back in the day. Maybe I should replay it one time.
(Holy shit it's 18 years ago, damn the time flies fast)

Also Alone in the Dark 1 shareware/demo was too scary for my younger self.
 

Exzyleph

Dark Eroge Lord
Oct 9, 2018
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Oh yeah, forgot Moons ! I didn't select The Secret World because I think it takes inspiration in so many wells that it's not really a Lovecraftian experience, but for one that's debatable and then Moons of Madness looks more focused.

Adding the two !

Edit - Man, Saya is old, time flies.
Saya is super old, but it certainly dosen't feel that way, not even the non-HD edition.
It really is a testament to how well made it is.


BTW, I noticed a couple of mistakes in the OP:
Call of Cthulhu (2018) links to Moons of Madness, and Moons of Madness (2019) links to Saya no Uta. And Eternal Darkness links to RetroArch.com, but I'm not sure if that was intentional or not.
 
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Li Kao

Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
7,705
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Saya is super old, but it certainly dosen't feel that way, not even the non-HD edition.
It really is a testament to how well made it is.


BTW, I noticed a couple of mistakes in the OP:
Call of Cthulhu (2018) links to Moons of Madness, and Moons of Madness (2019) links to Saya no Uta. And Eternal Darkness links to RetroArch.com, but I'm not sure if that was intentional or not.
Uh, Eternal Darkness is me joking :sweaty-blob:
But the others are clearly not right, I will look into it asap.

Edit - AFAIK we are just not reading the list the same way, I put Title (Date) before the link.
 
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Exzyleph

Dark Eroge Lord
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Uh, Eternal Darkness is me joking :sweaty-blob:
But the others are clearly not right, I will look into it asap.

Edit - AFAIK we are just not reading the list the same way, I put Title (Date) before the link.
Oh no, I got that the names preceded the links. Besides, such a misunderstanding wouldn't explain what I was seeing.
However, the links look fine now, despite your not having edited the post ..

Maybe the embedding was messing up for some reason? Sorry for the false alarm.
 
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Li Kao

Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
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Oh no, I got that the names preceded the links. Besides, such a misunderstanding wouldn't explain what I was seeing.
However, the links look fine now, despite your not having edited the post ..

Maybe the embedding was messing up for some reason? Sorry for the false alarm.
Oh sorry then, as I was seeing things back to normal this was my only guess :cryblob:
 

FeedMeAStrayCat

When you see me again, it won't be me.
Sep 19, 2018
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Eternal Darkness was one of my favorite games as a youngster. Holds up quite well, too, I've played through it twice in the past 7 or so years with my gf as it's one of her all-time favorite games (to watch, not to play lol).
 
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Li Kao

Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
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Oh yeah a big miss as I am very interested in it. But as you say on the other hand, it's not very traditional. Don't know if I should had it or not.
 
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Exzyleph

Dark Eroge Lord
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Oh yeah a big miss as I am very interested in it. But as you say on the other hand, it's not very traditional. Don't know if I should had it or not.
It's a very Lovecraftian game in terms of the lore, but it is also a very silly game.
Unfortunately the writing does not live up to the quality of the art and I found the story to be mediocre at best.

Other VNs that deserves a mention include Deus Machina Demonbane and L♡vecraft, though the latter only has a demo at this point. The Testimony of Trixie Glimmer Smith also looks interesting.
 
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Li Kao

Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
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I will add a VN subsection, but my weak thread creating skill is showing, this is becoming relatively ugly :sweaty-blob:

edit - yeah, no subsection, at least for now, I like the chronological sorting.
added - Demon Ex Machina
added - NSFW tag for VN
 
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Exzyleph

Dark Eroge Lord
Oct 9, 2018
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I will add a VN subsection, but my weak thread creating skill is showing, this is becoming relatively ugly :sweaty-blob:

edit - yeah, no subsection, at least for now, I like the chronological sorting.
added - Demon Ex Machina
added - NSFW tag for VN

If you want to make an OP with a large'ish list of games, then tables are a handy way to organize it, especially for somebody like me who is bad at visual stuff.

Here are a couple of simple examples (see also this thread for a full example):

2018
Call of Cthulhu
Cultist Simulator

Anchorhead (2018)
You take a deep breath of salty air as the first raindrops begin to spatter the pavement, and the swollen, slate-colored clouds that blanket the sky mutter ominous portents amongst themselves over the little coastal town of Anchorhead.
 
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Li Kao

Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
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Exzyleph
Thanks for the advice and link, it's night & day to the eyes.

I'm thinking that indeed the display by column is great, and then nuke the steam link, just put in the steam art for a clean presentation, and make the art be links to steam. Bu-but, it's some serious work 😱

And considering the many bugs I regularly get with the posting interface here, how are you not mad ?
(if I go by memory I recently had the good old 'bold' making everything bold, I had a link to another topic be applied to the whole text, etc.)
I suppose you have to go full BB code to avoid these annoyances.


Gizmo
We can combo the shit out of it and put it here and in the digital boardgame thread. Then one day, I will do a Tabletop thread and we put it there too :so-good-blob:
 
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Exzyleph

Dark Eroge Lord
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Exzyleph
Thanks for the advice and link, it's night & day to the eyes.

I'm thinking that indeed the display by column is great, and then nuke the steam link, just put in the steam art for a clean presentation, and make the art be links to steam. Bu-but, it's some serious work 😱

And considering the many bugs I regularly get with the posting interface here, how are you not mad ?
(if I go by memory I recently had the good old 'bold' making everything bold, I had a link to another topic be applied to the whole text, etc.)
I suppose you have to go full BB code to avoid these annoyances.
Yeah, I mostly write BBCode by hand. The WYSIWYG editor craps out way too often.

However, in the case of the thread I linked, I have a small python script that generates the OP for me, since it would be a pain to do all of that by hand.
 
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Li Kao

Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
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Hey there. Would it be ok to add my stuff to the list? The Hunter's Journals is a series of Steampunk Lovecraftian text adventures. I have 3 out right now and the 4th coming Halloween.
Despicable self promotion ! The sole punishment for that is BEING ADDED ! :smiling-eyes:

- Do note that due to the overwhelming reception of this thread 371 views and 18 replies, I plan to do a little freshening up of its presentation. If you break the internet, do it in style. Is what my cat(hulhu) just told me in my dreams -
 
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Li Kao

Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
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Version 1.5 is live.
Now excuse me while I have a light nervous breakdown.

Need to do :
  • Nuke the tables border
  • I would like a border around the quotes, I think
  • Find a better mix of font / size for the game titles / description texts
  • Make it clear Eternal Darkness is emulation
  • Resize those horrendous pictures, maybe
  • Cry
  • Cuddle my cat
Edit - Also add a coming next section
 
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Grindwheel Games

Junior Member
Jun 6, 2019
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Now excuse me while I have a light nervous breakdown.
Well it wouldn't be Lovecraft if someone wasn't going crazy. :D My last CoC group had someone gain hysterical deafness and paranoia. So whenever she failed a San check she stopped being able to hear anyone and automatically assumed they were plotting against her.

Also, thanks for the shout out in the list. :)
 
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Li Kao

Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
7,705
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Hmm, yes and no. I legit forgot about it, but as already discussed the thread is more about traditional horror games.
I should make a section for cases like this and The Miskatonic.
 

Exzyleph

Dark Eroge Lord
Oct 9, 2018
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Hmm, yes and no. I legit forgot about it, but as already discussed the thread is more about traditional horror games.
I should make a section for cases like this and The Miskatonic.
There are a lot of Lovecraftian games with a more humerous bent, so it might be a good idea to have a section for those.
Other examples include Ftagn, Gibbous, and Cthulhu Saves the World.

And if you make a section for non-horror, then you should probably move Demonbane there as well.
From what I gather, it is more action than horror.

But WORLD OF HORROR deserves a spot in the main list:
 
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Li Kao

Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
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The new section is done. You work me to the bone, people ! :so-good-blob:

Now if I only could understand why some banner pics are nice and big and some are tiny. Most are hotlink to steam, they should act the same.


Todo - Upcoming games section with Amnesia Rebirth & the Halloween Grindwheel Games
Added - The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker (2017)
 
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Exzyleph

Dark Eroge Lord
Oct 9, 2018
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Now if I only could understand why some banner pics are nice and big and some are tiny. Most are hotlink to steam, they should act the same.
Oh, my bad, I had forgotten about that. The problem is that tables get resized to fit the text, so if the description is long then you get smaller images. The way I worked around that in my own OP was to have my script insert line-breaks, but that's obviously a lot of work to do by hand. Here's an example of resizing in action:

Anchorhead (2018)
You take a deep breath of salty air as the first raindrops begin to spatter the pavement, and the swollen, slate-colored clouds that blanket the sky mutter ominous portents amongst themselves over the little coastal town of Anchorhead. You take a deep breath of salty air as the first raindrops begin to spatter the pavement, and the swollen, slate-colored clouds that blanket the sky mutter ominous portents amongst themselves over the little coastal town of Anchorhead. You take a deep breath of salty air as the first raindrops begin to spatter the pavement, and the swollen, slate-colored clouds that blanket the sky mutter ominous portents amongst themselves over the little coastal town of Anchorhead.

An easier-to-do-by-hand way to work around it would be to add a row at the end where you fill a cell using unicode spaces; those don't get squashed by the browser and allow you to set an minimum width (I'm using U+2003 below):

Anchorhead (2018)
You take a deep breath of salty air as the first raindrops begin to spatter the pavement, and the swollen, slate-colored clouds that blanket the sky mutter ominous portents amongst themselves over the little coastal town of Anchorhead. You take a deep breath of salty air as the first raindrops begin to spatter the pavement, and the swollen, slate-colored clouds that blanket the sky mutter ominous portents amongst themselves over the little coastal town of Anchorhead. You take a deep breath of salty air as the first raindrops begin to spatter the pavement, and the swollen, slate-colored clouds that blanket the sky mutter ominous portents amongst themselves over the little coastal town of Anchorhead.
                
Use [TABLE=noborder] to get rid of the borders and you'll get something close to putting a single blank like after a table.

I'll put my BBCode releated posts in spoilers later, so that they don't clutter up the thread, but it breaks the above example so I can't do it now.
 
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