I’ve been reading a megaton of Lovecraft lately, and am looking for some recommendations for games which are set in Lovecraftian mythology. I’ve already got Shadow of the Comet and Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth and I love them both. I have vague but positive recollections, perhaps tainted with nostalgia, of Prisoner of Ice. Apart from those, and the Alone in the Dark series (definitely best left in my nostalgic memory rather than replayed), I really haven’t played anything.
Anyone have recommendations for good games based upon Lovecraft works? Any platform, any year; I’ll chase them down if they’re good.
Eternal Darkness was on the GameCube and if I remember right it had a pretty Lovecraftian story. It was one of the few games I finished so that says something for it. I have fond memories of Realms of the Haunting but I cannot really remember enough of the plot to recall if it had that Lovecraft feel.
I see now in your post you’re looking for actual Mythos stuff. The ones you name are about all that I can come up with too.
The Penumbra games and the recent Amnesia are Mythos games without officially being Mythos. Definitely recommend them - especially Amnesia. Heck, their engine is even called “HPL”.
If you’re interested in some more lightweight games, there was a competition on Tigsource a while ago to make games based on ideas from Lovecraft’s notebook. At least one commercial game, Eversion, came out of it.
For a particularly Lovecraftian atmosphere, I would recommend Carrion Reanimating (very high production values), Insomnia (a great feeling of druggy doom; I’m surprised this didn’t do better in the competition) and the Clatter of the Keys (classy typing game; my own entry - sorry about the screwed-up timing near the start).
There’s also this list on the H. P. Lovecraft Archive site.
On a non-game related sidenote, I recently read the Cthulhu-mythos inspired Laundry novels by Charless Stross and I recommend them (The Atrocity Archives, The Jennifer Morgue, The Fuller Memorandum).
Eternal Darkness not strictly Lovecraft, but it’s close enough as makes little difference. It’s quite good, and has an unusual Sanity mechanic that screws with you pretty effectively once your character has gone insane. Which they will.
It’s on my “I mean to play this through a second time when I’ve forgotten enough” shelf.
Eternal Darkness is actually a very good game that holds up surprisingly well…it’s probably the main reason I’m not annoyed at having a bought a Wii along with a few other GC winners. The different eras gameplay is fantastic.
If you have a DS, Strange Journey is Lovecraft + scifi + Shin Megami Tensei Demon Pokemon. It’s very well written and a good update of hardcore jrpg mechanics. It and ED both suggest that “somewhat inspired by” has a much better chance of being great than direct Lovecraft games.
If you’re up for board games, Fantasy Flight has Arkham Horror + a million expansions, and Betrayal at House on The Hill was recently re-released, which is apparently pretty good.
Arkham Horror is pretty token-heavy, basically a RPG-lite experience, while House on the Hill is shorter, and seems to have be built around exploring a randomly generated house (based on room-tiles) with a traitor mechanic.
Of course, how well the theme works depends on the crowd you’re playing with.
I think Mansions is a much more promising bet than Betrayal, which seems more dated every time I pull it out. Arkham Horror is great, and it was my entry point to boardgaming because I was looking for something lovecraftian and had grown frustrated with the videogame options.
Betrayal probably owes a little more to Hammer horror films and Vincent Price than to Lovecraft, and it has a really weak first half of the game as compared to the exploration component in Arkham. But it’s definitely in the ballpark, and with the right group (as you said) could probably be a lot of fun.
Well, technically the final threat in Terror from the Deep is very Lovecraftian. But nothing else about the game is, and you never directly fight the end menace.
You say that about a game where you actually fight face to face with Deep Ones? It’s not the most obvious Lovecraft game but the influences are there. Not directly fighting the menace behind it all…is not very Lovecraftian…?
