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A lengthy Lovecraftian game based on The Shadow over Innsmouth, October 11, 2020I'm a big fan of 'Lovecraftian' horror, (although I generally like the genre referred to that more than Lovecraft's work himself; I especially like The Willows, which I think was before him).
Lovecraftian horror is a major genre for parser games, including XYZZY- and IFComp-winning games: Anchorhead, Coloratura, Hunger Daemon, The King of Shreds and Patches, Cragne Manor, Theatre, Strange Geometries, The Lurking Horror, Slouching Towards Bedlam, Lydia's Heart. Outside of parser it still does well; I especially like Heart of the House and Fhtagn! - Tales of the Creeping Madness, Anya DeNiros' Feu de Joie series, and the Failbetter oeuvre.
So I approached this Lovecraftian Twine game with eager interest, especially given the extended length.
In this game, you are commissioned as a private detective to investigate the disappearance of her son. The missing young man has been spending too much time at Innsmouth, a city inhabited by strangely fishy people.
As I write this review, I looked up Innsmouth, and realized that most of the story elements of this game are borrowed from the story The Shadow Over Innsmouth (and I now see that was mentioned in the blurb). This actually relieves me, because I felt like parts of the game were echoing the worst part of Lovecraft. The man whom the adjective Lovecraftian was named after is not the best author in his own genre.
This game has a lot of great elements in it; it's smooth, looks good, the writing flows well line by line. But I have problems with the pacing and the interactivity.
First, the pacing. As the opening quote of the game makes clear, fear of the unknown is one of humanity's most primal fears. That's why Lovecraftian games thrive off of slow burn. Outside of maybe one initial bizarre event, most great Lovecraftian stories start with mundane but disturbing situations. Slowly, over time, more frightening (but still plausible) events occur until by the end you are confronted with horrifying unknowing realities.
This game spills the beans really early on, though. An intelligent, sane man explains all of the game's mysteries very early on, with no skepticism, and shows you an impossible artifact. There are no major revelations after that; everything in the game follows directly from his pronouncements.
Despite this, the game follows the usual tropes of the protagonist refusing to believe in the supernatural. Here's some text soon after those revelations:
(Spoiler - click to show)When this case began, you had no idea it would lead you to the old, decaying port town of Innsmouth. You didn’t even know the place existed. Now, the more you hear about it, the more you are filled with a sense of foreboding. It’s not that you believe the wild stories you’ve heard. People living on a razor’s edge of disaster are apt to fill the world with all kinds of fantastical tales and superstitions. But Professor Armitage’s words and seeing the Innsmouth tiara in person give you pause. Still, the world is filled with enough man-made nightmares; the supernatural needs not apply.
Despite the professor explicitly saying [spoiler]the townspeople breed with fish demons[/spoiler], the protagonist is stymied by a genealogy chart:
(Spoiler - click to show)His wife’s name is listed as Pht’thya-l’y, an odd name who’s ethnic origin you can’t place.
My second issue is the narrative structure. It's what Sam Kabo Ashwell calls the Gauntlet is his very good article on shapes of narrative games. Every optional choice is either wrong and leads to death (with an undo, thankfully) or right and progresses the story. There are usually few clues as to which one is the right answer, making it somewhat an exercise in frustration.
I think both of these issues come from adhering to closely to the original story. By having a plot that 'must happen' to match the story, it forces the gauntlet structure. To make sure the stories are connected, the author doles out information at weird times. I had the exact same issues when I adapted some Sherlock Holmes stories.
The very best parts are when the author goes out on his own. I would love to see a game that has a lot more of the author in it and a lot less Lovecraft. The whole story revolves around a sub-species of human that is less than human and is characterized by bulging eyes and flat noses, which definitely stems from Lovecraft's obsession with racial panic; and Lovecraft's treatment of the homeless man and his thick accent isn't my favorite.
So I definitely think this is an amazing author and programmer who made this, I just would prefer an original story and structure next time (and I hope there is a next time)!
+Polish: The game looks great, no bugs that I saw.
+Descriptiveness: The game goes into significant detail about objects and people.
-Interactivity: The gauntlet structure didn't really work for me.
-Emotional impact: The early reveals spoiled a lot of the emotional oomph for me.
-Would I play again? Since there's only one main path, I don't think there's a lot of replay value.