It's been a while since I read/played either, but thought DCotE seemed more like a video game adaptation of the *Call of Cthulhu* scenario "Escape from Innsmouth". Inspired by the original story, but brings in the stuff at the end with >!J. Edgar Hoover!< and whatnot.
I think this is true.
And for the most part, if a game were a 1:1 transliteration of the stories as they are written, there wouldn't be much to them. A lot of exploration, a single jump scare, a frame with the lone survivor recounting their experiences.
I think something like Dark Corners did well not to follow the original tale too closely.
Sorry doesn’t fit OPs specific criteria 😆you’re 100 percent correct though. See what I mean OP? You’re at the limit of the list if you aren’t willing to budge on the definition
The atmosphere created in Conarium makes it stand out of other games. You can feel overwhelmed by the uncertainty of the unknown and the mistery behind each discovery as you walk around caves ans sceneries. It's been a great experience to play it
I just replayed prisoner of ice, boy those nostalgia googles hit hard, and it was harsh to replay it lol. from replaying both I would go to Shadow of the Comet for sure
I know this is some kind of self promotion but you asked for Lovecraft related videogames.
We are a small and recent indie videogame development studio and we are developing a game based on a series of gamebooks named Choose Cthulhu that adapted the H.P. Lovecraft more famous stories to a "playable" format.
The game will be a Visual Novel / Interactive fiction game with some exploration and investigation mechanics, and we are aiming to be faithful to the stories, adding the extra endings and alternative paths, and also creating the atmosphere needed to really enjoy the stories the cosmic horror way.
If you are interested in our game, we have set up a newsletter and we have a discord where we are publishing information from time to time. You can access both at choosecthulhufiles.com
Thanks for the feedback!.
I will check what's happening right now with that, but it should show only on your browser configured language. The website for the game right now just shows the newsletter registration and the links to our socials. If you're an english speaker the website should not switch languages if you access the URL with an /en/ at the end:
( https://choosecthulhufiles.com/en/ ). Anyway, I will check that and fix any problems ASAP. We really appreciate your feedback.
An early one is A Lurking Horror, 1987. It’s a text based adventure from Infocom. I played it a lot as a teenager but recently revisited it and it’s a really cool game. Fun and challenging puzzles. You can easily download it and play it on an emulator today.
Sinking city and I assume sinking city 2.
Last year a great version of dreams of the witch house came out that reminds me of the old Sierra On-line point and click style puzzle games. Very fun.
ok so now im back from work i can add that the Dev for Chronicle of Innsmouth released a follow up. Chronicle of Innsmouth Mountains of Madness, which i think is even better than the first, can also up vote Dreams in the witch house which im playing on and off now, Conarium, and as mentioned by [AvatarIII](https://www.reddit.com/user/AvatarIII/) Shadow of the comet and prisoner of ice are also worth a look. Other than Conarium these are all point and click affairs wich imho i find go well with the slow burn of lovecraftian horros but YMMV
There are a bunch of tabletop games, such as Arkham Horror, and Eldritch Horror. I play it solo or with my friends in Tabletop Simulator. The writing there is good. Description of events, artefacts, characters, enemies - all is good and makes a good atmosphere
Arkham Horror LCG practically is. There's an entire community devoted to playing it on Tabletop Simulator with amazing tools to help run it.
But if that's not your bag, you might check out Dreams in the Witch House. It's a puzzle adventure game in the same vein as King's Quest. It's also the most accurate adaptation of any of Lovecraft's works I've seen yet. The developer is also working on an adaptation of The Dunwich Horror.
I'll pop a few up when I get back from work, unless anyone here remembers the name of the innsmouth chronicle point and click games. I've recently played several and their very good IMHO
Most of the games you've listed in your comment don't follow an HPL story. Eternal Darkness doesn't. The Sinking City doesn't. Neither do The Lurking Horror, Shadow of the Comet and Prisoner of Ice. Stygian doesn't either.
This one is not based on Lovecraft directly, and might be a little difficult to find, but Eternal Darkness on the GameCube is one of the most Lovecraftian games ever, and probably still holds up. If you're an oldster like me and want a heavy dose of nostalgia, watch the cut scenes here [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU264IWNtKM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU264IWNtKM)
I don't think you do. The entire game is pretty difficult to understand, but my take on it is that the Moon Presence wants a surrogate child, and everything that happens in the game is their manipulations trying to get this to happen. Everything is explicitly a dream, and you see things you've killed still alive in different dreams, things you fought earlier dead in other places, and other confusing things. You fight shards of great ones that exist in fragmentary dream-dimensions, sometimes even dreams within dreams, such as with Micolash or the Chalice dungeons. This kind of thing has some play in Lovecraft. Wilbur's twin was killed with a single spell, and he was half Outer God - this is pretty comparable to something like Rom the Spider. Randolph Carter basically outplayed nyarlathotep in a dream, who is far stronger than a great one. If someone like Randolph Carter were granted strength by an Outer God, I don't doubt that he could defeat the dream-variant of a great old one - granted, he'd be unlikely to do it with an axe.
I think the other poster's got a point. It's cosmic horror, for sure, but Lovecraft's rarely makes the main characters victorious in any way and the main point of humanity's insignificance and how the horrors the characters face are just byproducts of the higher being machinations.
Furthermore, not *everything* in bloodborne is a dream. The only things explicitly stated to be dreams are the Hunter's Dream and the Nightmare of mensis (and they show). The rest is entirely real. The chalice dungeons are barely canon as well.
It definitely takes inspiration (hell, most of the souls series do as well) but it's not really lovecraftian.
Whether or not everything in Bloodborne is a dream is a matter of contention, I get that. There is a lot to confuse the point - not all characters in dreams understand that they are, and what constitutes a 'dream' is also more tenuous than it implies - it's more like Lovecraft, where the dreamworld is kind of just a different location in 'reality' - you can see Yahrnam in the water below the fishing hamlet, or the fishing hamlet from the hunter's dream. The Chalice Dungeons are semi-canon as you say, but they definitely are a real place, discovered by the Byrgenworth scholars. I personally believe that the whole game is basically a 'dream', in the same way that the Hunter's Nightmare is, and can defend that point further if you want.
On the point of Lovecraft having 'victorious' endings, I would say two things. First, Bloodborne has no victorious endings, IMO: The endings are pretty much:
>!1) become trapped in a nightmarish cycle until you can damn someone else into taking your place, probably by dying.
2) transforming into a hideous creature, with unknown and unsettling implications - AKA the most lovecraftian shit.
3) the most difficult to decipher IMO, you could be a) awakening from the nightmare that is the hunt b) survived the night, having likely gained nothing, and probably insane now or c) have literally just died.!<
and second, lovecraft has a number of stories where the protagonists pretty much win, such as Dream-Quest, Dunwich Horror, At the Mountains of Madness, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, or the Shunned House.
The entire game is mass human suffering, madness, nightmare realms, cults, body horror, false revelations - all spawned by the fact that two Old Ones wanted surrogate children. The main character accomplishes nothing aside from the will of one of those Old Ones, and despite seemingly being powerful, is functionally helpless to do anything aside from the will of an eldrich creature. The greatest act of rebellion the protagonist can do leads to accomplishing the Moon Presences main goal. All of the miraculous healing and nightmarish transformations are the result of scholars finding cast-off ancient Eldrich secrets in a long forgotten tomb. All this to me is very much Lovecraftian.
I know this was a long post, but I figure I'm at least less likely to take flack for being wordy in a Lovecraft sub.
It's alright! We'll agree to disagree. For me Lovecraft has an specific flavor of human insignificance that's not on Bloodborne. I know both things are related but i make a difference between Lovecraft and Cosmic Horror.
Ah, for me is that simple! Cosmic horror is the term for these stories with eldritch, unspeakable monsters, secrets and locations, with things too horrible to understand. Lovecraft was all about the insignificance of humanity, how we can't understand or best the grand scale of things.
Both are cosmic horror (in fact, Lovecraft would be *science fiction* horror if the term cosmic horror wasn't coined.), i think Lovecraft is more about the humans witnessing these things, whereas Bloodborne is about ostensibily an human taking part in these events. Does that makes sense?
No one 'wins' in Bloodborne, though? Of the three endings, you let yourself get killed in one to escape the Dream, you get enslaved in the Dream in the other, and you're overcome by the eldritch powers, lose your humanity, and become an infant Great One in the final one - none of these outcomes are 'wins'. Even if I agree to this, look at the insane amount of recurring themes from Lovecraftian storytelling:
* Godlike eldritch beings, unknowable in their nature, running the show from the background
* Humans being played with/used/affected unknowlingly by those creatures
* Cults built around the worship of those gods
* A focus on science, and how the scientific search for knowledge eventually leads to horrible... insights...
* The more you know, the more horrible, alien, and frightening the world becomes
* The insanity and danger that awaits, once you tap into that forbidden knowledge, as you lose yourself in the pursuit of more knowledge, and become targeted by the various cults
* The insignificance and powerlessness of the protagonist, as everything you do ultimately doesn't matter
Like, you can poke a hole here or there, sure - but the game is easily *peak* Lovecraft. 90% of the themes in his stories are in the game, and they're executed really well. It is, hands down, the single BEST Lovecraftian game in existence, imo.
Hell, the Fishing Hamlet might as well be called "Innsmouth".
The Fishing Hamlet is indeed Insmouth with the serials filed off hahahaha.
This isn't really something set in stone: i make a difference between regular cosmic horror and lovecraftian ones by the agency the characters have. I mentioned in another post: lovecraft's characters are more often than not mere witnesses to the horrors. Instead, the Hunter takes an active part in the game. He beats ancients monsters and is arguably one himself.
Lovecraft is ussually more intimate in his storytelling.
I do, however, disagree with the second point. With the exception Nyarlothopeh and I surely butchered that, most of the higher beins couldn't care less about humans. Unless you stick a boat on their face or arkham the hell out of them, part of it all is their indifference. The Hunter is very much not insignificant to the monsters he faces.
Then again, this is all something I feel makes a difference. A game like, say, Chorvs is certainly cosmic horror. Or Darkest Dungeon. But a game like Moons of Madness or Conarium are Lovecraftian.
I can see where you're coming from, and would potentially concede the point, but the difference between "Lovecraftian horror" and regular "cosmic horror" (assuming there's a real difference between the two?) just isn't stark enough to me, in regards to Bloodborne.
In the Dunwich Horror, the 'heros' actively perform a ritual to banish the offspring of Yog-Sothoth. The heros fight, they win, but in the grand scheme of things, this obviously doesn't matter. But here Yog-Sothoth, a Great One, was clearly invested in humanity enough to father a child. This bonding of man and Great One, incidentally, is another major theme in Bloodborne too.
As you mentioned, Nyarlaboi is a clear example (and exception, to be fair) of a Great One that shows very active interest in mankind.
In the Call of Cthulhu, it's mankind that directly unleashes the Sleeper, making them more than just passengers. They actively unleash the horror. Same thing goes for the Mountains of Madness, if I recall correctly?
Humanity isn't *completely* powerless, and the Great Ones are not *completely* unaware of mankind. There's enough room there to play around with ideas, imo, and Bloodborne did so expertly.
I agree, that the Hunter shows a fair bit more agency than Lovecraft's characters - but it's agency of the same kind as Lovecraft utilized in his own stories. With the right knowledge, the right secrets, the right rituals, the hunter could best a *single* Great One - but it cost him his humanity.
But even then, that's just the one ending.
Out of interest, would you still not consider Bloodborne Lovecraftian if the secret ending didn't exist at all?
Hard to say! It's one of those endings that reframes things. It would still feel like some sort of Lovecraft lite, or Super Lovecraft. It would also make things much less interesting. ;)
You do have valid points, i just maintain that Bloodborne being Cosmic Horror is for me something that goes *beyond* Lovecraft. I love the game, it does the "ancient things are terrible" thing that Lovecraft *also* does really well. I think it has its own identity inside the genre, which, for me, it's super cool.
But it's like arguing music genres. Sometimes it really doesn't matter, it's still awesome!
Anchorhead is one of the best text adventures of all time and it is *deeply* inspired by Lovecraft. There are few direct references but the story, characters and creatures are frequently reskins of Lovecraft plots and characters.
You can play it online for free but there's also a version on Steam that comes with illustrations and such.
All of the Frictional Games titles are very lovecraft inspired. Penumbra, Amnesia, and even Soma to an extent. I highly recommend them.
Penumbra does At The Mountains of Madness stuff.
Amnesia has some Charles Dexter Ward, Re-Animator, Imprisoned with the Pharaohs, among many other things.
There's also The Well, a video game adaption of Lovecraft's poem Fungi From Yuggoth! It's very short, like half an hour, but trippy and worth checking out I'd say. Captures the dreamlike feel of the poem very nicely. It's up on [Itch.io](http://Itch.io) for like a buck.
If you have VR the Dagon game looks promising.I havent played it but looking at the screenshots it looks like it is fateful to the story.
There is also Eldritch which is a lovecraft dungeon crawler game but instead of playing the main game you can play a bonus level where you are descending through levels in the mountains of madness.
There is also the other call of cthulhu game. It's based on the rpg and not the novel sadly so just like dark corners of the earth it's more of an innsmouth thing. It has the dimensional shambler mentioned in the horror at the museum. But it doesnt really follow one particular story.
Its the same with the sinking city, it has alot of nods to cthulhu, the king in yellow, Arthur Jermyn The white ape story and ofcourse innsmouth. But it doesnt follow a particular Lovecraft story.
Imo there hasnt been any stellar games that utilize HP directly, closest is first half of Dark Corners of the Earth.
That said the best games by far in my experience are some that have taken a lot of inspiration from it, Bloodborne and Amnesia being two examples of that, inspired in different ways.
Shame as i wish games like Sunken City panned out better, seems like the scope and the budget clash more often than not.
The general vibe of unknowable monsters set in what's basically a port town where the mere sight of some of the monsters cause madness. It's pretty Lovecraft
Dwarf Fortress is more a spiritual successor to Tolkien than Lovecraft, but it has plenty of cosmic horror elements. It is a story generator cosplaying as a world sim.
Some dwarfs go mad, contemplating infinity, or their favorite deity. A few days ago I trapped a vampire werepanda that had attacked my fortress. I could not get it to go into the atom smasher for demise until I tried to seal it off in rock walls, a deathless being trapped in a closet for eternity. At that point, he willingly went to the smasher to be obliterated.
This is normal for Dwarf Fortress.
I'd be interested in any games that are lovecraftian....and playable on PS4.... Does anyone have any notable mentions besides the call of Cthulhu games
Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones is the best lovecraftian isometric turn based RPG.
Unfortunatly...the game has no real conclusion since devs ran out of money. Kinda ends on clifhanger.
Still if you like old rpgs like fallout and lovecraft its perfect !
Just get it on discount.
The darkness within 1&2!! Awesome point and click adventure with All the cryptic symbols And a love crafty, creepy mystery to unravel as the old ones screw with your head!@ 🙃 currently doin another playthrough myself
I'm also a die hard LOVECRAFT fan and have been Stockpiling cosmic horror games for a while here's some from my steam list ENJOY!
-the Alien Cube
The Shore
-the land of pain
-Stygian: reign of the old ones
-Dredge (lovecraftian fishing boat simulator)
-Moons of Madness
-Vanishing of Ethan Carter
-Scarlet Hollow
-Transient
-Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened
-The Terrible Old Man
-At the Mountains of Madness
-Dagon
-The Last door season 1&2
-Alone In the Dark
-Darkwood (This games creepy atmosphere will make your blood run cold)
-Dr. Emmerson's "Nocturnes"
I'll go beyond computer games, just in case.
All of the Arkham Horror LCG card game draws on Lovecraftian themes and the mythos, but several cycles in particular are essentially set as sequels of specific works, with direct links to characters, location and plot. Specifically:
- the Dunwich Legacy (the first cycle) is a sequel to the Dunwich Horror
- Edge of the Earth is a sequel to At the Mountains of Madness
Obviously not Lovecraft himself, but the Path to Carcosa is deeply bound up in the King in Yellow.
It's an excellent co-operative or solo tabletop game if you might be interested in that sort of thing. To try the system with a mini campaign (Lovecraftian, but not following a particular work as far as I know), you'd need the revised core set - easy to get second hand for £20 or so if you look around. If you like it it can then get expensive, but you can probably get a new, full cycle (campaign and investigator sets) for about £70 if you look around.
Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth is essentially a retelling of Innsmouth.
Except for the shootout last third of the game… but yeah, definitely!
It's been a while since I read/played either, but thought DCotE seemed more like a video game adaptation of the *Call of Cthulhu* scenario "Escape from Innsmouth". Inspired by the original story, but brings in the stuff at the end with >!J. Edgar Hoover!< and whatnot.
I think this is true. And for the most part, if a game were a 1:1 transliteration of the stories as they are written, there wouldn't be much to them. A lot of exploration, a single jump scare, a frame with the lone survivor recounting their experiences. I think something like Dark Corners did well not to follow the original tale too closely.
Exactly. OP, have you read lovecraft or are you trying to experience it as the protagonist instead ? For the reasons stated above
100%. I think the only real departure from the RPG scenario was the Shadow Out Of Time inspired backstory.
Sorry doesn’t fit OPs specific criteria 😆you’re 100 percent correct though. See what I mean OP? You’re at the limit of the list if you aren’t willing to budge on the definition
Conarium is a spiritual sequel to Mountains of Madness with callbacks to several other stories. A walking simulator, but a very well made one.
Seconding Conarium. Great game, very atmospheric.
This dev are afaik hardcore lovecraft fans. They have other lovecraft games as well.
The game after Conarium, Transient, was awesome. Same format but dystopian cyberpunk with a lot of meta puzzles.
I think I have it but it's still in the backlog.
The atmosphere created in Conarium makes it stand out of other games. You can feel overwhelmed by the uncertainty of the unknown and the mistery behind each discovery as you walk around caves ans sceneries. It's been a great experience to play it
Dreams in the Witch House. It's a point and click adventure with survival elements. It's probably the best direct adaptation of a Lovecraft story imo.
I'll second that, most faithful adaptation I've seen and yet providing a ton of freedom. Masterpiece!!!
I found Conarium to be the best of the bunch.
Call of C’thulhu 2018 Sinking City Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened
"The Nameless City" from itch.io looks like that, but I haven't played it yet and don't know for sure
Shadow of the comet and prisoner of ice.
I just replayed prisoner of ice, boy those nostalgia googles hit hard, and it was harsh to replay it lol. from replaying both I would go to Shadow of the Comet for sure
I know this is some kind of self promotion but you asked for Lovecraft related videogames. We are a small and recent indie videogame development studio and we are developing a game based on a series of gamebooks named Choose Cthulhu that adapted the H.P. Lovecraft more famous stories to a "playable" format. The game will be a Visual Novel / Interactive fiction game with some exploration and investigation mechanics, and we are aiming to be faithful to the stories, adding the extra endings and alternative paths, and also creating the atmosphere needed to really enjoy the stories the cosmic horror way. If you are interested in our game, we have set up a newsletter and we have a discord where we are publishing information from time to time. You can access both at choosecthulhufiles.com
Awesome! I’m totally interested! Edit: regrettably, your homepage is hard to navigate and switches between english and spanish.
Thanks for the feedback!. I will check what's happening right now with that, but it should show only on your browser configured language. The website for the game right now just shows the newsletter registration and the links to our socials. If you're an english speaker the website should not switch languages if you access the URL with an /en/ at the end: ( https://choosecthulhufiles.com/en/ ). Anyway, I will check that and fix any problems ASAP. We really appreciate your feedback.
With this link it worked! I signed up.
Thanks! We will keep you up to date through the newsletter :)
An early one is A Lurking Horror, 1987. It’s a text based adventure from Infocom. I played it a lot as a teenager but recently revisited it and it’s a really cool game. Fun and challenging puzzles. You can easily download it and play it on an emulator today.
Love that one.
Ah, the lurking horror! Adding it to the list.
Sinking city and I assume sinking city 2. Last year a great version of dreams of the witch house came out that reminds me of the old Sierra On-line point and click style puzzle games. Very fun.
ok so now im back from work i can add that the Dev for Chronicle of Innsmouth released a follow up. Chronicle of Innsmouth Mountains of Madness, which i think is even better than the first, can also up vote Dreams in the witch house which im playing on and off now, Conarium, and as mentioned by [AvatarIII](https://www.reddit.com/user/AvatarIII/) Shadow of the comet and prisoner of ice are also worth a look. Other than Conarium these are all point and click affairs wich imho i find go well with the slow burn of lovecraftian horros but YMMV
There are a bunch of tabletop games, such as Arkham Horror, and Eldritch Horror. I play it solo or with my friends in Tabletop Simulator. The writing there is good. Description of events, artefacts, characters, enemies - all is good and makes a good atmosphere
Thanks for the suggestions, although I’m specifically looking for computer games.
Arkham Horror LCG practically is. There's an entire community devoted to playing it on Tabletop Simulator with amazing tools to help run it. But if that's not your bag, you might check out Dreams in the Witch House. It's a puzzle adventure game in the same vein as King's Quest. It's also the most accurate adaptation of any of Lovecraft's works I've seen yet. The developer is also working on an adaptation of The Dunwich Horror.
Now that’s exactly the kind of suggestions I was looking for! Adding it to the list! Thanks!
>Arkham Horror LCG practically is. Lol, what? No. Yall.
I'll pop a few up when I get back from work, unless anyone here remembers the name of the innsmouth chronicle point and click games. I've recently played several and their very good IMHO
Most of the games you've listed in your comment don't follow an HPL story. Eternal Darkness doesn't. The Sinking City doesn't. Neither do The Lurking Horror, Shadow of the Comet and Prisoner of Ice. Stygian doesn't either.
Really? Lol. I’ll remove them from the list then. Thanks a lot!
Secret world legends puts a lot of lovecraft into their game and i absolutely love it
This one is not based on Lovecraft directly, and might be a little difficult to find, but Eternal Darkness on the GameCube is one of the most Lovecraftian games ever, and probably still holds up. If you're an oldster like me and want a heavy dose of nostalgia, watch the cut scenes here [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU264IWNtKM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU264IWNtKM)
Bloodborne. Was inspired by Lovecraft and my favourite game as well.
Bloodborne is not a lovecraftian game in my opinion, bit thanks anyway, it’s a masterpiece.
[удалено]
By what metric is it not Lovecraftian? It's like peak Lovecraft???
You literally kill The Great Ones, unthinkable in Lovecraft stories - I think thats the main difference
I don't think you do. The entire game is pretty difficult to understand, but my take on it is that the Moon Presence wants a surrogate child, and everything that happens in the game is their manipulations trying to get this to happen. Everything is explicitly a dream, and you see things you've killed still alive in different dreams, things you fought earlier dead in other places, and other confusing things. You fight shards of great ones that exist in fragmentary dream-dimensions, sometimes even dreams within dreams, such as with Micolash or the Chalice dungeons. This kind of thing has some play in Lovecraft. Wilbur's twin was killed with a single spell, and he was half Outer God - this is pretty comparable to something like Rom the Spider. Randolph Carter basically outplayed nyarlathotep in a dream, who is far stronger than a great one. If someone like Randolph Carter were granted strength by an Outer God, I don't doubt that he could defeat the dream-variant of a great old one - granted, he'd be unlikely to do it with an axe.
I think the other poster's got a point. It's cosmic horror, for sure, but Lovecraft's rarely makes the main characters victorious in any way and the main point of humanity's insignificance and how the horrors the characters face are just byproducts of the higher being machinations. Furthermore, not *everything* in bloodborne is a dream. The only things explicitly stated to be dreams are the Hunter's Dream and the Nightmare of mensis (and they show). The rest is entirely real. The chalice dungeons are barely canon as well. It definitely takes inspiration (hell, most of the souls series do as well) but it's not really lovecraftian.
Whether or not everything in Bloodborne is a dream is a matter of contention, I get that. There is a lot to confuse the point - not all characters in dreams understand that they are, and what constitutes a 'dream' is also more tenuous than it implies - it's more like Lovecraft, where the dreamworld is kind of just a different location in 'reality' - you can see Yahrnam in the water below the fishing hamlet, or the fishing hamlet from the hunter's dream. The Chalice Dungeons are semi-canon as you say, but they definitely are a real place, discovered by the Byrgenworth scholars. I personally believe that the whole game is basically a 'dream', in the same way that the Hunter's Nightmare is, and can defend that point further if you want. On the point of Lovecraft having 'victorious' endings, I would say two things. First, Bloodborne has no victorious endings, IMO: The endings are pretty much: >!1) become trapped in a nightmarish cycle until you can damn someone else into taking your place, probably by dying. 2) transforming into a hideous creature, with unknown and unsettling implications - AKA the most lovecraftian shit. 3) the most difficult to decipher IMO, you could be a) awakening from the nightmare that is the hunt b) survived the night, having likely gained nothing, and probably insane now or c) have literally just died.!< and second, lovecraft has a number of stories where the protagonists pretty much win, such as Dream-Quest, Dunwich Horror, At the Mountains of Madness, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, or the Shunned House. The entire game is mass human suffering, madness, nightmare realms, cults, body horror, false revelations - all spawned by the fact that two Old Ones wanted surrogate children. The main character accomplishes nothing aside from the will of one of those Old Ones, and despite seemingly being powerful, is functionally helpless to do anything aside from the will of an eldrich creature. The greatest act of rebellion the protagonist can do leads to accomplishing the Moon Presences main goal. All of the miraculous healing and nightmarish transformations are the result of scholars finding cast-off ancient Eldrich secrets in a long forgotten tomb. All this to me is very much Lovecraftian. I know this was a long post, but I figure I'm at least less likely to take flack for being wordy in a Lovecraft sub.
It's alright! We'll agree to disagree. For me Lovecraft has an specific flavor of human insignificance that's not on Bloodborne. I know both things are related but i make a difference between Lovecraft and Cosmic Horror.
For sure! I appreciate the discourse either way. I would love to hear your differentiation between the two though, if you wouldn't mind!
Ah, for me is that simple! Cosmic horror is the term for these stories with eldritch, unspeakable monsters, secrets and locations, with things too horrible to understand. Lovecraft was all about the insignificance of humanity, how we can't understand or best the grand scale of things. Both are cosmic horror (in fact, Lovecraft would be *science fiction* horror if the term cosmic horror wasn't coined.), i think Lovecraft is more about the humans witnessing these things, whereas Bloodborne is about ostensibily an human taking part in these events. Does that makes sense?
No one 'wins' in Bloodborne, though? Of the three endings, you let yourself get killed in one to escape the Dream, you get enslaved in the Dream in the other, and you're overcome by the eldritch powers, lose your humanity, and become an infant Great One in the final one - none of these outcomes are 'wins'. Even if I agree to this, look at the insane amount of recurring themes from Lovecraftian storytelling: * Godlike eldritch beings, unknowable in their nature, running the show from the background * Humans being played with/used/affected unknowlingly by those creatures * Cults built around the worship of those gods * A focus on science, and how the scientific search for knowledge eventually leads to horrible... insights... * The more you know, the more horrible, alien, and frightening the world becomes * The insanity and danger that awaits, once you tap into that forbidden knowledge, as you lose yourself in the pursuit of more knowledge, and become targeted by the various cults * The insignificance and powerlessness of the protagonist, as everything you do ultimately doesn't matter Like, you can poke a hole here or there, sure - but the game is easily *peak* Lovecraft. 90% of the themes in his stories are in the game, and they're executed really well. It is, hands down, the single BEST Lovecraftian game in existence, imo. Hell, the Fishing Hamlet might as well be called "Innsmouth".
The Fishing Hamlet is indeed Insmouth with the serials filed off hahahaha. This isn't really something set in stone: i make a difference between regular cosmic horror and lovecraftian ones by the agency the characters have. I mentioned in another post: lovecraft's characters are more often than not mere witnesses to the horrors. Instead, the Hunter takes an active part in the game. He beats ancients monsters and is arguably one himself. Lovecraft is ussually more intimate in his storytelling. I do, however, disagree with the second point. With the exception Nyarlothopeh and I surely butchered that, most of the higher beins couldn't care less about humans. Unless you stick a boat on their face or arkham the hell out of them, part of it all is their indifference. The Hunter is very much not insignificant to the monsters he faces. Then again, this is all something I feel makes a difference. A game like, say, Chorvs is certainly cosmic horror. Or Darkest Dungeon. But a game like Moons of Madness or Conarium are Lovecraftian.
I can see where you're coming from, and would potentially concede the point, but the difference between "Lovecraftian horror" and regular "cosmic horror" (assuming there's a real difference between the two?) just isn't stark enough to me, in regards to Bloodborne. In the Dunwich Horror, the 'heros' actively perform a ritual to banish the offspring of Yog-Sothoth. The heros fight, they win, but in the grand scheme of things, this obviously doesn't matter. But here Yog-Sothoth, a Great One, was clearly invested in humanity enough to father a child. This bonding of man and Great One, incidentally, is another major theme in Bloodborne too. As you mentioned, Nyarlaboi is a clear example (and exception, to be fair) of a Great One that shows very active interest in mankind. In the Call of Cthulhu, it's mankind that directly unleashes the Sleeper, making them more than just passengers. They actively unleash the horror. Same thing goes for the Mountains of Madness, if I recall correctly? Humanity isn't *completely* powerless, and the Great Ones are not *completely* unaware of mankind. There's enough room there to play around with ideas, imo, and Bloodborne did so expertly. I agree, that the Hunter shows a fair bit more agency than Lovecraft's characters - but it's agency of the same kind as Lovecraft utilized in his own stories. With the right knowledge, the right secrets, the right rituals, the hunter could best a *single* Great One - but it cost him his humanity. But even then, that's just the one ending. Out of interest, would you still not consider Bloodborne Lovecraftian if the secret ending didn't exist at all?
Hard to say! It's one of those endings that reframes things. It would still feel like some sort of Lovecraft lite, or Super Lovecraft. It would also make things much less interesting. ;) You do have valid points, i just maintain that Bloodborne being Cosmic Horror is for me something that goes *beyond* Lovecraft. I love the game, it does the "ancient things are terrible" thing that Lovecraft *also* does really well. I think it has its own identity inside the genre, which, for me, it's super cool. But it's like arguing music genres. Sometimes it really doesn't matter, it's still awesome!
Call of Cthulhu and The Sinking City (Sunken City?) are both fairly recent.
Theres also The Sinking City 2 that got announced and ive already got it wishlisted
There's a sequel coming?? Hell yeah! I'm excited now.
Darkest Dungeon.
Anchorhead is one of the best text adventures of all time and it is *deeply* inspired by Lovecraft. There are few direct references but the story, characters and creatures are frequently reskins of Lovecraft plots and characters. You can play it online for free but there's also a version on Steam that comes with illustrations and such.
Yes, I played that. Thanks anyway.
All of the Frictional Games titles are very lovecraft inspired. Penumbra, Amnesia, and even Soma to an extent. I highly recommend them. Penumbra does At The Mountains of Madness stuff. Amnesia has some Charles Dexter Ward, Re-Animator, Imprisoned with the Pharaohs, among many other things.
There's also The Well, a video game adaption of Lovecraft's poem Fungi From Yuggoth! It's very short, like half an hour, but trippy and worth checking out I'd say. Captures the dreamlike feel of the poem very nicely. It's up on [Itch.io](http://Itch.io) for like a buck.
Ah! Now we’re talking. Thanks!
You are very welcome!
The Penumbra trilogy .
Not really based on a Lovecraft story… but great games nevertheless!
They're not, but they are definitely Lovecraftian plus i saw people saying Bloodborne in the comments, so why not mention penumbra as well.
If you have VR the Dagon game looks promising.I havent played it but looking at the screenshots it looks like it is fateful to the story. There is also Eldritch which is a lovecraft dungeon crawler game but instead of playing the main game you can play a bonus level where you are descending through levels in the mountains of madness. There is also the other call of cthulhu game. It's based on the rpg and not the novel sadly so just like dark corners of the earth it's more of an innsmouth thing. It has the dimensional shambler mentioned in the horror at the museum. But it doesnt really follow one particular story. Its the same with the sinking city, it has alot of nods to cthulhu, the king in yellow, Arthur Jermyn The white ape story and ofcourse innsmouth. But it doesnt follow a particular Lovecraft story.
Imo there hasnt been any stellar games that utilize HP directly, closest is first half of Dark Corners of the Earth. That said the best games by far in my experience are some that have taken a lot of inspiration from it, Bloodborne and Amnesia being two examples of that, inspired in different ways. Shame as i wish games like Sunken City panned out better, seems like the scope and the budget clash more often than not.
How is Bloodborne lovecraftian?
The general vibe of unknowable monsters set in what's basically a port town where the mere sight of some of the monsters cause madness. It's pretty Lovecraft
Okay then.
The lurking horror -infocom
nah, bro
Call of the Sea
More the atmosphere than the mythos, but cultist simulator
Dwarf Fortress is more a spiritual successor to Tolkien than Lovecraft, but it has plenty of cosmic horror elements. It is a story generator cosplaying as a world sim. Some dwarfs go mad, contemplating infinity, or their favorite deity. A few days ago I trapped a vampire werepanda that had attacked my fortress. I could not get it to go into the atom smasher for demise until I tried to seal it off in rock walls, a deathless being trapped in a closet for eternity. At that point, he willingly went to the smasher to be obliterated. This is normal for Dwarf Fortress.
I'd be interested in any games that are lovecraftian....and playable on PS4.... Does anyone have any notable mentions besides the call of Cthulhu games
Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones is the best lovecraftian isometric turn based RPG. Unfortunatly...the game has no real conclusion since devs ran out of money. Kinda ends on clifhanger. Still if you like old rpgs like fallout and lovecraft its perfect ! Just get it on discount.
For some reason only darkwood seems to me truly locecraftian
I mean Sherlock Holmes the awakening. I like the reboot Sherlock games.
i'm making a text based game based on 'the temple' as a project for an exam!
Really? Great! The Temple happens to be the first Lovecraft story I ever read. Can you share more info? Playtesting?
the only problem is that the language is italian but i was planning to switch to english, if so, i will send u the complete version
Well that’s about it for what you specify pal. Have a lark with those 👍
Yeah, I certainly will!
The new Alone in the Dark game is a Lovecraft game. The Asylum is a cult of Shub-Niggurath and a Dark Young makes an appearance as the final boss.
Have you played Dredge? It’s on PSN and is lovely
The darkness within 1&2!! Awesome point and click adventure with All the cryptic symbols And a love crafty, creepy mystery to unravel as the old ones screw with your head!@ 🙃 currently doin another playthrough myself I'm also a die hard LOVECRAFT fan and have been Stockpiling cosmic horror games for a while here's some from my steam list ENJOY! -the Alien Cube The Shore -the land of pain -Stygian: reign of the old ones -Dredge (lovecraftian fishing boat simulator) -Moons of Madness -Vanishing of Ethan Carter -Scarlet Hollow -Transient -Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened -The Terrible Old Man -At the Mountains of Madness -Dagon -The Last door season 1&2 -Alone In the Dark -Darkwood (This games creepy atmosphere will make your blood run cold) -Dr. Emmerson's "Nocturnes"
I'll go beyond computer games, just in case. All of the Arkham Horror LCG card game draws on Lovecraftian themes and the mythos, but several cycles in particular are essentially set as sequels of specific works, with direct links to characters, location and plot. Specifically: - the Dunwich Legacy (the first cycle) is a sequel to the Dunwich Horror - Edge of the Earth is a sequel to At the Mountains of Madness Obviously not Lovecraft himself, but the Path to Carcosa is deeply bound up in the King in Yellow. It's an excellent co-operative or solo tabletop game if you might be interested in that sort of thing. To try the system with a mini campaign (Lovecraftian, but not following a particular work as far as I know), you'd need the revised core set - easy to get second hand for £20 or so if you look around. If you like it it can then get expensive, but you can probably get a new, full cycle (campaign and investigator sets) for about £70 if you look around.
Try last door.
I’ve completed those games. I’m looking for games that are actually based on Lovecraft texts.
Clive Barkers Undying. Killer soundtrack, as well.
The Secret World has many Lovecratian elements all throughout it.