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Cyanide's Call of Cthulhu - "RPG-Investigation" game based on tabletop ruleset

Infinitron

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RPG elements explained! http://www.pcgamer.com/call-of-cthulhu-makes-an-eerie-rpg-of-survival-horror-and-detective-work/

Call of Cthulhu makes an eerie RPG of survival horror and detective work
Stay with me here: it’s a walking sim RPG with Ace-Attorney-lite detective sections and sanity-driven survival horror. And it’s cool? It’s cool.

The most interesting part of the live demonstration I saw of Call of Cthulhu wasn’t when the eyeless monster crawled out of a painting. It was the heart attack the main character nearly had hiding in the closet while he watched it happen. Had he stayed in any longer, it’d be game over.

He has a fear of small, enclosed spaces, but that won’t necessarily be the case for everyone. Like Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Call of Cthulhu is a first-person survival horror game with a sanity system. See too many strange things, read too much impossible knowledge and you have a chance to get hit with a phobia, but exactly what that phobia is will vary.

So picture this: a Gone-Home-esque detective game with investigation scenes that play out like Ace-Attorney-lite, interspersed with puzzle and monster evasion sections. And as you flee in terror, you'll possibly be kneecapped by an assortment of random fears. Tight.

Jeepers, a clue!
Investigation scenes play out exactly like Gone Home, but with stats. Hell yeah, stats! You’ll look around a room for clues and the number you can ‘investigate’—in videogame terms they’re the objects you can interact with by pressing a button, which gives you information—is determined by your Profession skill level. You literally won’t be able to interact or ‘notice’ all the clues in a room without a high enough skill level in some instances. Beyond that, a Knowledge skill level determines your ability to understand those clues, so even if you find everything in a room because you’ve juiced that Profession number, the character won’t be able to pull as much detail from them.

In an example we saw, the player pressed X to investigate a painting, but didn’t notice the flames painted in the background. The whole narrative impetus is based around investigating a strange police report describing the death of some folks in a spooky, island mansion, so flames in the background of their portrait should pique some curiosity at the very least. This dolt didn’t notice a damn thing. He just said something like, ‘Hmm, two people in a painting. Curious.’

It’s weird, because as a player, you might notice such a detail, but because you’re roleplaying a doofy, gruff detective, his skills might not be high enough to notice. The more items you investigate and understand, the more options you have to hold up against the police report from the incident that took place in the house you’re investigating. Once a room is cleared of clues, the character says something to indicate it’s time to think. At that point you can bring up a menu that lists all the clues next to whatever you’re currently trying to prove or disprove.

The police report said the fire started around midnight, but we found a burned clock with the hands stuck at 10 pm, so we checked a box next to that clue. After checking boxes next to a few more clues contradicting the report, the clues are submitted and if they do the trick, you complete the objective and can move on. I’m not sure how you can fail these sections, and what happens if you do, but it’s a fun, light touch spin on walking sim types.

Talk it out
The more thoroughly you disprove something, the more XP you earn. That earns you skill points for upgrading Investigation and Profession skills, but you can also dump them into Social. Throughout Call of Cthulhu, you’ll meet more than a dozen characters, all of whom you’ll have a ‘status’ with based on how your interactions with them go. They can be used to subvert investigation scenes at times as well, so if you’d rather talk your way through a scenario, it’s possible.

Even though you’ll get XP for thorough investigations, the chance of seeing something that fills up your sanity meter increases.

Right at the outset, we needed a key to get into the mansion. The groundskeeper confronted us outside the front door, a grumpy old dude, and we had the option to intimidate, lie, or use a clue to persuade him. Because we noticed some fresh flowers on a grave on the walk up, the persuade option worked just fine. We offered to shed some light on the tragedy, telling him, ‘I saw the flowers you left,’ and it hit home. The successful interaction gave us some XP and he handed over the key. But if we had a high enough Social skill, we could’ve just lied or intimidated him, though each option has its own skill check based on what the character would be most susceptible to.

All of these systems coexist with a sanity system, which goes up the more you see or read Lovecraftian things. The implication is that even though you’ll get XP for thorough investigations, the chance of seeing something that fills up your sanity meter increases. And when it reaches a certain point, you’ll get a new phobia, a fear that has a severe impact on how you play.

As mentioned earlier, in our demo a monster climbed out of a painting and when the player ran and hid in a closet, their heart rate increased at a steady rate. Any longer and it’d be game over. I like the idea of hitting the most thorough players with random modifiers that force them into bizarre playstyles, but I’ll need to see what the other fears entail before getting too into it.

Let's be real: I love injecting RPG systems into everything I can. Give me a shoe that gathers XP for stepping well and has a skill tree for extraneous step flourishes, like toe strength and heel impact. But I don’t quite understand how the skill points and XP will distribute throughout Call of Cthulhu. It’s not like you can grind out investigations, so there must be a finite amount of XP in the game, and a finite number of skill points as a result.

Can my investigation skill be so low that I literally can’t complete the game? If my character is incapable of socializing at all, will I get a special brand of fail state? Honestly, I hope so. If the skill points and RPG systems are just a flourish for a semi-linear narrative game, I’ll feel cheated. I want to be forced to role-play, to think like a depressive detective with perpetual five o’clock shadow and a weak ticker. Don’t we all?
 

Roguey

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Can my investigation skill be so low that I literally can’t complete the game? If my character is incapable of socializing at all, will I get a special brand of fail state? Honestly, I hope so.

That'd be Sierra-tier garbage, pal.
 

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b984d5772fdfc13f57907c9ec46a57f1--hp-lovecraft-cthulhu-mythos.jpg
 

Roguey

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They're going to wind up competing against Stygian. French versus Turks using an American setting, fight fight.
 

udm

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Will be an interesting competition for sure.

Especially if when Stygian wipes the floor with this pretender :obviously:
 

Zombra

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Talking the talk. Not too much meat, but perhaps worth a skim while waiting for real news.

https://www.neowin.net/news/intervi...er-of-call-of-cthulhu-the-official-video-game

Interview with the Lead Designer of Call of Cthulhu: The Official Video Game

By Dreyer Smit @dreyer_smit

Recently, several developers have announced a slew of new games based on, or inspired by, the works of H.P. Lovecraft, an author who is known for his neo-gothic novellas. In the past year, games including Moons of Madness, Black Mirror, and Conarium have all aimed to take us back to the murky depths of these short stories.


Focus Home Interactive announced that it, in partnership with Frogwares and Cyanide, were working on a game for the latest generation of consoles and PC in 2014. Since then, it has remained pretty quiet on the development of the title, however, last year we finally received some news, most importantly what the horror title would be based on. It was revealed through several cryptic trailers and teasers that the game would take inspiration from the works of the famous author, and focus heavily on attempting to stay true to both the board game and the worlds imagined by Lovecraft.

We discussed the game with the Lead Designer, Jean-Marc Gueney, as we attempted to try and dig out some more information surrounding the upcoming horror title. Gueney has been credited with games such as The Saga of Ryzom, an open-world multiplayer game, and Dofus 2. He has been with Cyanide Studios since 2015, and it will be quite interesting to see how his vision for the title will come to life when it finally launches.

In the last year, we have seen renewed interest in the works of H.P. Lovecraft after it being absent in video game narratives for some time. Why do you think there is a sudden interest in these horror tales?


Jean-Marc Gueney: I wouldn't say that the interest and use of Lovecraft novels in games are sudden. There is evidence of it many years ago, before even titles like Alone in the Dark or Resident Evil. However, it’s definitely become easier for developers to create a ‘Lovecraftian’ atmosphere, as modern hardware and techniques allow for greater immersion – now on par with that possible in movies. I don't know about the future, but I do hope there will be more games of this style and type (especially for our studio). There are already some very promising games in development. I can't wait!

H.P. Lovecraft was known for several horror stories, most notably Call of Cthulhu. On which of these are your game based on?


JMC: We had the chance to work with Mark Morrison, a renowned author who wrote many RPG books and scenarios set in the Lovecraft universe. Mark wrote an original story for us that is highly influenced and closely follows the narrative structure of a Lovecraft novel. There’s certainly inspiration taken directly from many of Lovecraft’s existing novels here and there, but it's up to the player to find them.

Will the insanity system be integrated into the game much like the board game and Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth?


JMC: As in Dark Corners of the Earth, we have a Sanity system. The SAN is mostly a narrative element - as the story advances, the player’s SAN can only go down. Depending on your SAN level, our hero will experience and see different things, real and otherwise.

I read somewhere that the game will not feature a lot of gunplay, more specifically, you will focus on stealth and trying to avoid danger at all costs. Why did you decide on this specifically, and will it have crosshairs on screen?


JMC: In the Lovecraft universe, supernatural beings are extremely powerful, and guns are not much help against them. We believe it a core 'Lovecraftian' concept that humanity should be insignificant, even helpless against such creatures. If you can defeat them with a gun, they are not much of a threat. That said, there will still be some moments when a gun is of use. And yes, there will be a crosshair.

The trailers have been extremely cryptic up to now, not spoiling much of the story and what it is about. Can we assume that the game will have its fair share of twists in the narrative?


JMC: The very essence of a Lovecraft novel is to discover horrible truths that hide behind our reality, so yes there will be some twists!

How did your studio come to decide on developing a game specifically based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft, which up to now has been, as mentioned, pretty rare?


JMC: Lovecraft influenced many authors, designers, scenarists, writers and is still today. I wouldn't say that it hasn't been explored for some time. Our game is not only a faithful adaptation of the Lovecraft universe, it is also the official adaptation of the pen-and-paper RPG by Chaosium. Focus, our editor, looked for a studio to develop a game based on those licenses. Having a long working partnership Cyanide was a natural choice.


When you announced the game you noted that you were taking great care as to keep to the authenticity of the worlds created by the author (graphically). Can you give some examples of this, and how you're implementing them?

JMC: The horror met by its characters is often described as unspeakable. When designing our creatures, we asked ourselves what can be so frightful that one can’t even describe it in words later? One way we tried to answer that is by giving special effects to the creatures when the player looks at them.

Will we see a Shoggoth or Cthulhu? Might we visit R'yleh in-game? Or do you want it to be a surprise?


JMC: In previous demonstrations, we showed a 'dimensional shambler', a creature that can travel through dimensions to track its prey. There will be cultists, twisted human beings, and other creatures. Whether Cthulhu will be physically present… well, you’ll have to wait and see.

Will the game allow you to explore the cities and/or towns in the game to find hidden nooks and crannies where you might find unspeakable horrors?


JMC: Yes, the game takes place on Darkwater Island. There, you'll have to explore many places, including settlements, to discover the truth behind the case that led you there. Through this case, the player will uncover terrible truths about our reality.

It's a hot topic this one, but will you support both PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X with higher-fidelity graphics?


JMC: The decision regarding PS4 Pro and Xbox One X support hasn’t yet been made.

You haven't announced an official release date yet, any clue as to when we all might experience the horror you will bestow upon us?


JMC: Stay tuned!

Anything you might want to add for those (including myself) looking forward to the game?


JMC: When developing our game, we emphasized giving players an experience as close as possible to that of the pen-and-paper RPG set in the Lovecraft universe. It’s our hope that players will enjoy our creation as much as we’ve had developing it!
 

Zombra

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https://www.gamereactor.eu/news/633593/Call+of+Cthulhu+makes+you+question+whether+events+are+real

Cyanide Studio's Call of Cthulhu is very much an investigative game, one that sees you weave your way through a Lovecraftian narrative, and when we chatted with lead game designer Jean-Marc Gueney in Paris recently we also learned a little bit about what the gameplay entails, including the lack of combat.

"You will have to find a way to survive and escape, but you won't have direct confrontations, you won't have guns to fight [...] so sneaky of course, be perceptive of your environment and how to defeat them. So if you have information, you will have better chances of surviving, in fact," he explained.

As you can see in the full interview below, we also experienced an encounter with some aggressive tentacles, and this has to do with the protagonist's sanity. "Later in the game you will learn the truth about Darkwater Island, and the case of the hauntings [...] and then you will realise what lies beyond this reality, and your sanity will go down and you will experience more and more of such events," Gueney explained. "We have to make choices during these events. Is it real, or is it not? Do we want to learn more about [mysterious events] or just go on and try to solve the case of the death?"

For more on Call of Cthulhu, check out the full interview down below, where we also discuss the section of the game we played in Paris. Do you like this approach to sanity in the game?

[Link to video] https://www.gamereactor.eu/grtv/359853

For those who don't have 8 minutes, there're some gameplay visuals in there, with a cutscene of the protagonist kicking some dude for no reason, reading words, and later experiencing a hallucination or is it??

The skill page was shown; some skills have been recategorized and a new category "Physical" has been added with two new skills.
Social: Intimidation, Persuasion, Small Talk
Profession: Spot Hidden, Investigation, Psychology
Physical: Lockpicking, Hitting (?)
Knowledge: Forensic, Occultism (?), Folklore (?)

There is a main character but occasionally a mission will let you play as a secondary protagonist.

There will be about a dozen levels in the game averaging an hour of gameplay each.

No save scumming. One rolling autosave and that is it. Choose your conversation options wisely.
incline.png


Release is scheduled for this year, seems pretty definite.
 
Last edited:

Infinitron

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https://www.dailystar.co.uk/tech/ga...-PS4-and-Xbox-One-s-next-cult-hit-horror-game

Call of Cthulhu preview: Could this be the PS4 and Xbox One's next cult hit horror game?
CYANIDE's newest horror RPG could be just what players hankering after a new eldritch thriller are looking for.

Call of Cthulhu could be the next cult hit horror game to satisfy the tastes of console players.

After the likes of Outlast and Layers of Fear came out of nowhere to grip horror fans with their claustrophobic tales of dread, Call of Cthulhu could be the next game of the generation to offer a nasty surprise to genre fans.

In a hands-off preview early in February, Daily Star Online was treated to a short playthrough of the game's first area: a grim, misty port on the mysterious island of Darkwater near Boston, Massachusetts.

The premise of the game is simple: you're a private investigator heading onto the island to look into the death of a famous family, one whose daughter was a renowned painter.

Unlike many horror games on the current console generation, Call of Cthulhu will focus primarily on investigative gameplay, rather than survival or combat. The title is a semi-open world investigative RPG with elements of stealth and psychological horror, to use the words of the studio itself, and offers a nice change from simply running for your life.

Thanks to the slower pace of the game - and the way it makes you look deeply into all the evidence you find, study the odd texts you discover on the island - there is a much more distinct feeling of dread at play... there's a creeping horror in the game, not the jumpscares you'd find elsewhere.

The bay area of Darkwater that we're initially introduced to is dank, slimy, wet and miserable. Everything is dark, and all the light sources somehow come off slightly green and creepy.

From the second you set foot on the island, you can tell no-one there really likes you. They want you gone. They don't trust your motives in looking into this case - or maybe they're hiding something from you.

Some fisherman sing a tragic tale of a big catch from decades ago - a catch that ended the whaling trade on the island. Smugglers talk in hushed tones outside a warehouse they're tasked with guarding. The whole island reeks of deception... or maybe that's just the killer whale killed by something unknown (but clearly massive) on the shore.

So far, so Lovecraftian. Everything's lit by torchlight. Nothing seems right. Fog clings to the island, and from what you can discern, odd gases seep from underground caves, making everyone seem slightly... off.

We see the RPG elements in action as we investigate one of our victim's last paintings: it's a portrait of a man, but not quite. There's something inhuman about it - the face is the only part intact and it looks like the doomed artist gave the male model... gills? A slightly squid-like appearance? It's hard to tell.

But checking it out bolstered our observations skillset a bit, so that's something. The whole RPG element of the game is built around the 1981 role-playing pen and paper title the game shares a name with, so there are a lot of elements to draw on.

You can increase your strength to allow you to open doors you otherwise wouldn't be able to, you can increase your knowledge of the occult to better understand what's happening around you, increase your perception to spot clues otherwise hidden from you.

The RPG element of the game seems fairly skinny and straightforward, but if it helps you unpick the mystery, it all adds up.

The final - and most interesting - aspect of the title is the creeping, unrelenting madness that sets in as you play.

Strange things start to happen to your main character as you progress - some of it is madness triggered by the events of the game, other parts are genuinely real, grotesque events.

It's up to you as a player to use your judgement to act on things you perceive as real, or just let them slide as side-effects of your encroaching insanity.

It's an interesting way of putting a horror narrative in the hands of the player, and something we're keen to see experimented with more as the game goes on.

It's no secret that the game is all about the impending revival of the Great Old One Cthulhu, but whether or not you let that happen - and just what happens if you do - lays the foundation for a truly interesting horror game... one unlike anything we've seen on the PS4 or Xbox One so far.

Call of Cthulhu is out on Xbox One, PS4 and PC this year.
 

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  • Highlighting objects of interest.
  • Objective pop-ups.
  • Cutscenes from the perspective of god knows who.
  • Secondary missions from the perspective of other characters? Why?
  • Thin rpg elements.
The more I follow this, the more disappointed I get. :negative:
 

Blaine

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  • Highlighting objects of interest.
  • Objective pop-ups.
  • Cutscenes from the perspective of god knows who.
  • Secondary missions from the perspective of other characters? Why?
  • Thin rpg elements.
The more I follow this, the more disappointed I get. :negative:

No kidding. Plenty of full-blown decline-loving consoletards knocking around the Codex who'll spam "Excited!" ratings, no matter what—but then again, that's been the case for a good long while now.

The very first thing I did when I opened this thread was begin searching through available images and video to see if I could find some actual darkness in this game. Lack of darkness is totally inexcusable in a Call of Cthulhu game, but the protagonist holding a lighter and pretending it's actually dark truly is the proverbial icing on the cake. We're achieving levels of farcicality that shouldn't even be possible.

Thiaf has been forgotten, it seems, and green-smeared not-darkness is now the in thing and not decline in any way, shape, or form.
 

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