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[wierd]

So, I learned about this recently, and saw there was no thread.

I see gameplay footage, which looks promising.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzi-55CCXEI

It looks like a take on Shadow over Insmouth, so I have some idea what to expect...

Has anyone bought the game?  Is it any good?  Various reviews say it has good replayability because you can solve the mysteries/cases differently, with different consequences, each time, and that it has a freeform exploration/open world feel.

[MCreeper]

Got it, but don't know if it's great yet, played only 1.5 quests so far and put it on backburner. Only variativity i seen so far is a choice between concluding that murderer acted under influence of chtuluhtus\on his own and sparing\giving him away, with you recieving thanks note from him if you spare him.
PTW. 

[nenjin]

Being an Epic store exclusive means I wouldn't have tried it for a while anyways.

Watched a Jim Sterling video, wasn't overly impressed.

I also just played the new Call of Cthulhu back in October which was also....ok if not amazing. So for a more action oriented game I was interested in this. But I dunno, after a watch my jets are fairly cooled.

[wierd]

Steam is supposed to be getting it next year, but meh.

[forsaken1111]

Yeah same feeling as nenjin. Looked at it, was mildly interested. Watched some gameplay and no longer interested. Watched Jim's video on it since nenjin mentioned it, and he kind of nails it. The game is okay-ish but not good

[Cthulhu]

I decided to get it cause it's not like I have principles or anything.

ehhhhhh.  I dunno.  Kind of intriguing, I like the investigation in principle, big open city, finding clues and piecing them together from multiple locations, at least in theory a good node-based mystery which is the best way to do a mystery plot.

In practice, the investigation feels weak.  Your character has postcognition and uses it when he's gotten a few clues from the scene.  With the exception of the intro case, so far these have all basically boiled down to "walk into an area, pick up a couple random clues, then use psychic powers to put everything together in a way that's not really implied by the information the game gives you"

For example, one of the early scenes you have to check out a ship and its captain.  The evidence you find is two dead bodies, a table with lots of beer, and witness testimony that one guy ran away from the scene.  From there you use postcognition to decide that everyone went insane and chased the captain away from the boat, and that he's wounded and headed to the hospital.  In retrospect, makes sense, but the game doesn't bother to let you piece that together yourself.

That's frustrating.  It simultaneously holds your hand and also denies the information you would need to come to conclusions on your own.

The combat is also bad, at least so far.  Guns are floaty, damage is low, insanity mechanics feel pretty lame so far, looking at a body killed by natural violence causes the same types of hysteria as seeing a horrible monster. 

I'm still playing, cause I want to see if it gets more interesting further on, but right now it really just makes me want to play tabletop call of cthulhu, where I can moderate the inherent lameness of Lovecraft-imitation.  I know that sounds silly coming from the guy named Cthulhu, but it really is lame.  It's possible to do Lovecraftian stuff well, Lovecraft did it after all, but most of what came afterward is just aping the aesthetic without any of the oomph.  Sanity stuff is almost always lame, the writing always reads like a mad libs, tentacles, it's all boring.

It did give me an idea for a Call of Cthulhu adventure, too bad I'm already DMing D&D.  Massive hurricane hits Louisiana and just stays there, held in place by some improbable weather pattern, millionaire hires a private rescue team to get his daughter who's living in a backwater parish, they find that the hurricane isn't natural and Things are coming up out of the flood.  Riding their boat through the flood and seeing some massive shape gliding through the water, trying to rescue the lady from innsmouth-syndrome maniacs, some climactic scene in a crashed tanker ship with an elder deep one trying to get them, hmm...

[ChairmanPoo]

It's possible to do Lovecraftian stuff well, Lovecraft did it after all, but most of what came afterward is just aping the aesthetic without any of the oomph

I agree. I think.. Darkest Dungeon is possibly the one who keeps up the best with cosmic horror, as far as videogames go? I honestly can't think of any other videogames that get thebgist of the genre in recent times, let alone give a decent gameplay experience at the same time.

As far as writers go, I actually have two recommendations for you:
- Adam Nevill: I'd say this one is the best I've read in a while. Its certainly not your traditional post-lovecraft tentacle pastiche. He really gets cosmic horror and he does his own thing. I'd say it's better described as "cosmic horror in an urban setting". In a way, imagine the inhabitants of Lovecraft setting adapting from rural New England to an urban setting. It works fairly well. Early novels tended to start very strong but lose energy towards the end, but they did start very strong. And the latest ones are more balanced.

The other one I'm going to recommend is Tim Curran. Mind you I'd say he's a B series horror author in general but I found his "Hive" series a surprisingly good homage to Lovecraft.  "Dead Sea" is more of a combined Lovecraft/William Hope Hodgson homage, starts very strong but ending is weak. Nonetheless I liked the beginning a lot so I'd give it a go if I were you.

[Cthulhu]

My favorite post-lovecraft author is Thomas Ligotti, though its more pessimism than cosmic horror.

Lovecraft stuff works best when its relatively mundane with horrible insinuations, like deep ones and serpent people which are basically just terrestrial organisms, but if they exist then humans aren't the only or even the first or most advanced intelligent life on earth.  That's something you lose sanity for, thinking about the hostile intelligences potentially right under your feet, making you wonder every time something bad happens if its part of some conspiracy against mankind.

That, or things so alien its hard to grok them as even being a living organism, think ramiel and leliel from evangelion.  Mi-go fall into this, I describe them as constantly shifting geometric masses of black plastic with colorful filaments sprouting wherever, that slide or float or jitter around, react to things before they happen, move through walls and flicker in and out of existence, etc.

Instead of just some dumb bug with colorful tentacles, which is lame.

[ChairmanPoo]

Lovecraft stuff works best when its relatively mundane with horrible insinuations

I definitely think you should give Adam Nevill a spin. I think it fits the bill of what you're looking for.

Re: Ligotti I vaguely recall having read something but I cannot remember any specifics. I'll revisit this. Any other suggested authors?

[nenjin]

Currently reading Lovecraft right now, and it always bugs me that he tips his hand way too early.

Like in Thing On The Doorstep, by page two he makes it abundantly clear what's going to happen. And Asenath often hypnotized people and they experienced something like switching bodies. (Emphasis his.)

Followed immediately by Asenath often said she wished she had a man's brain since they're capable of doing things and going places that a woman's brain is not.

That's like, the whole goddamn short story by page 2, and the rest is a long drawn out series of "well we were told this thing that none of us believed and OMG it actually happened that way!"

Maybe it's less deflating upon first read, but once you've read a story of his once, if you don't remember what it was about, be assured that Lovecraft will laboriously spell it out way too early.

He doesn't do this in every story (The Horror At Red Hook manages to tap dance around what's actually going on much more effectively, as does The Outsider.) But I feel like many of his stories are undercut by this behavior. Which usually makes Lovecraft-inspired stories better than some of his originals because modern authors understand narrative construction for modern audiences. Maybe it's just a product of his time or where he was at in his writing career.

[Cthulhu]

To be fair I'm pretty sure lovecraft hated the thing on the doorstep and considered it his worst story.

Then again, I know he hated the outsider, which was great.

[nenjin]

The Outsider was one of the first stories I read by Lovecraft. (The Tomb is actually the first) and it's one of the stories that made me a fan of his. Too bad he was so hard on himself. Lord knows how he would have handled modern criticism of his work. Neil Gaiman, despite respecting him, absolutely lays in to his work in a way that makes me feel bad for Lovecraft.

[Scripten]

Another good space for Lovecraftian horror is Charles Stross' Laundry Files series. No video game yet, but the books and the (mildly non-canon) TTRPG are very good. Granted, they have elements of office comedy and spy thriller alongside the existential horror, so they may be too different from trad Lovecraft for some, but I enjoy the series quite a bit.

[MorleyDev]

Separate from the tabletop, I do think the Delta Green short story collections are pretty good for that 'modern lovecraft' vibe.

As for Lovecraft tipping his hand early, it's a fair point but I think part of that is because it's not meant to be a true mystery. Helplessly watching events play out, rather than trying to figure out what's happening alongside the main character. It's why I think Delta Green often works better than Call of Cthulhu, in CoC your character has to start out pretending everything is normal whilst in Delta Green you already know you're fucked.

As for this game, seems like there's an interesting core plot in here bogged down by meh gameplay. Shame, really. Funnily enough, it does also tip it's hand a little early on some things, "Huh so your a mysterious man in a yellow suit that the PC even goes out of their way to comment on. Hmm, nah it's probably nothing." But considering my reaction to figuring that out was basically "Oh shiiiiiiit, so that's how it be, huh?"

[ChairmanPoo]

To be fair I'm pretty sure lovecraft hated the thing on the doorstep and considered it his worst story.

Then again, I know he hated the outsider, which was great.

I think his favorite tale was The Color out of Space, and his least favorite was Herbert West: Reanimator (I think Cool Air was an attempt to do HW:R "right". The theme is very similar but it's a superior piece).

Coincidentally the very first tale I read of Lovecraft was the Color out of Space.