If you have a vivid imagination, one of my earliest Infocom games was The Lurking Horror. It’s a text adventure, yes, but it included sound effects and audio samples which added creepyness in many places. It’s not as long or well developed as Anchorhead, but it’s historic for me.
I dunno about that. Anchorhead is great, and very Lovecraftian, but there are probably better games in the entire IF genre, and more friendly to modern sensibilities. It’s from the 90s, after all. Hadean Lands, for example, is incredible and really user-friendly as IF goes. Etc.
But in terms of Lovecraft in gaming, it’s right up there.
I would definitely say SS is Lovecraftian, but heavy on the “-ian”. A few locations are thoroughly Lovecraft-influenced, and there is a definite vibe of unseen and possibly malevolent gods throughout, but the effect is fairly subtle…admittedly I haven’t finished it though.
Haven’t played it, but wasn’t Alan Wake supposed to be inspired by Lovecraft?
I was just looking at interactive fiction games, and clocking in at 13th place there is also King of Shreds and Patches, which is an adaptation of a Call of Cthulhu adventure module. It’s circa 2009 so definitely more recent the Anchorhead. (Although on the same top 50 list Anchorhead clocks in at 4th place!)
Alone in the Dark, the first one, was Lovecraft as heck.
Though obviously it’s a very old game and it hasn’t aged gracefully.
FFG has both Call of Cthulhu and the upcoming https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2016/8/2/enter-the-mythos/
If they are anything like the Lord of the Rings LCG, they are thematically excellent.Call of Cthulhu is an older game, but I expect Mythos to incorporate everything learned from CoC and LOTR and be the game to watch.
For a moment you had me thinking that they’d gotten the license to Chaosium’s old (excellent) CCG Mythos, which was a much more faithful approach to the subject material than FFG’s Call of Cthulhu LCG (which feels more reskinned Magic than anything in the actual style of his stories, what with all the monster-on-monster battling). The game you linked to is actually just called Arkham Horror: The Card Game.
I’m posting way too early. You are right, I read the announcement title as the game title :( I still claim Arkham will be better thematically!
I asked the same question a few years back, and maybe there may be some more useful info in this thread.
Forgeforsaken already mentioned Bloodborne, so I’m just going to second it.The crazy blood splashes and ultra-violence really aren’t very Lovecraftian at all.
However, I think the core of Lovecraft is the idea that the universe is unknowable, that there are corners of it where we will always lack comprehension, and that those corners may be filled with concepts that could destroy us without even really caring we exist. Bloodborne captures those ideas really well. It ties the concepts of madness and knowledge together (you gain “insight” from an item called “Madman’s Knowledge”) and then uses that stat to reveal parts of the world you can’t see otherwise. This “other world” is filled with creatures who don’t care about our existence but are worshiped as gods anyways (a pretty direct Lovecraft reference). And seemingly the closer the player gets to the “truth” of the world as the game progresses, the less coherent any of it becomes (much like each of the short stories). It gets at that feeling of the universe being far bigger, unknowable and terrifying then you originally thought and then descends into madness.
I think Bloodborne gets at a bunch of the themes and ideas of Lovecraft really well. Most games, like Arkham or Eldritch Horror, are more focused on capturing the narrative of a Lovecraft story and in my opinion lose the point of them in the process. Bloodborne does the opposite, with very little obviously Lovecraftian about it on its surface, but nailing a lot of the themes as it develops.
How about Inside - the new game by the Limbo devs. Or even Limbo, for that matter. The atmosphere seems Lovecraftian to me.
Oh good, at least it wasn’t just me mentioning Eternal Darkness. It got more than a few passing nods in there.
Again, while not strictly Lovecraft I couldn’t tell the difference. It’s obviously inspired and draws heavily from the mythos. Losing your sanity, elder gods, unmentionably horrors - it was definitely a landmark title in this niche for it’s time.
Just found my copy out in the garage, I wonder if my gamecube still works or if I can play it on the Wii…
Eternal Darkness was excellent, though I suppose few people will be able to play it on their current hardware.
Fallout 4: Dark Harbor maybe, I just got there, seems to fit.
Well supposedly you can use the Wii’s backwards compatibility for Eternal Darkness. I see it’s also compatible with Dolphin, but ripping games off the Wii the last time I did it was a pain in the arse.
Wasn’t that old game “Realm of the Haunting” very lovecraftian? Sorta a first person shooter/horror thing? Interplay I think – you know I believe I saw it on GOG.
Just wanted to say thanks to Tom and all of you for a great thread. Lots of goodies in here I missed that I can go hunt down now.
Mansions of Madness second edition. It is FFG’s latest attempt at an application driven board game. It’s is cooperative with the application running the story/ evil things. The inclusion of creepy music and critical moment sound effects along with a rather obtuse yet narrative horror and combat system maintains a feeling of exploration in a world of humans playing with things they should not.
It has template level randomness so time will tell if that is enough to increase replay value. First and third play throughs are fantastic so far though. Best solo friendly Lovecraftian game for me by far. And not to spoil anything, but they do some cool things to really push the theme. Good stuff.
It could be streamed with Steam and a vanity cam pointed at the board, but any viewers would be robbing themselves of a rather unique game experience.