Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Incline CYCLOPEAN CHASMS Development Updates (Lovecraft inspired Walking Simulator)

Master

Arbiter
Joined
Oct 19, 2016
Messages
1,160
Uh, Lovecraft has been a thing for a long while now. Have you been living in a bunker all this time?

He is correct in that there has been a mini explosion of Indies doing 'Lovecraft' type stuff recently.
I was under the impression that Lovecraft, Cthulhu and so on, are like cliches by now.
There are a lot of "lovecraftian" games lately but they are like that, like tolkienesque fantasy.
OP says he wants a Lovecraft inspired game... Although afterwards says a Lovecraft-themed game. Which one is it? Please dont make another shitty cliche one.
 
Last edited:

Citizen

Guest
Are u gonna use grimoire's character system, or something new and more suited to a lovecraftian horror theme? (with sanity as a stat, mind affecting attacks, etc.)
 

thesecret1

Arcane
Joined
Jun 30, 2019
Messages
5,676
Uh, Lovecraft has been a thing for a long while now. Have you been living in a bunker all this time?

He is correct in that there has been a mini explosion of Indies doing 'Lovecraft' type stuff recently.
I was under the impression that Lovecraft, Cthulhu and so on, are like cliches by now.
There are a lot of "lovecraftian" games lately but they are like that, like tolkienesque fantasy.
OP says he wants a Lovecraft inspired game... Although afterwards says a Lovecraft-themed game. Which one is it? Please dont make another shitty cliche one.
The majority of "lovecraftian" games are just "Dude, tentacools!". There are very few games that actually tried tackling the essence of Lovecraft's works, and even fewer that succeeded to any degree. While Lovecraft is talked about fairly often nowadays, few of the proles that talk of him have ever actually read him. They're secondaries.
 

thesecret1

Arcane
Joined
Jun 30, 2019
Messages
5,676
I have saved this model from 3DMaesen for four years in an asset collection I was putting together specifically for this very game because it instantly made me think of Pickman's model :

index.php

Lovecraft said:
These figures were seldom completely human, but often approached humanity in varying degree. Most of the bodies, while roughly bipedal, had a forward slumping, and a vaguely canine cast. The texture of the majority was a kind of unpleasant rubberiness.
I can see the rubberiness, but the posture and head make it look like a normal zombie, to be honest.
 

Dorateen

Arcane
Joined
Aug 30, 2012
Messages
4,332
Location
The Crystal Mist Mountains
Are u gonna use grimoire's character system, or something new and more suited to a lovecraftian horror theme? (with sanity as a stat, mind affecting attacks, etc.)

Grimoire already has a Spirit bar mechanic, which could be re-purposed for Sanity. And lots of mind affecting attacks exist in the game.
 

Cleveland Mark Blakemore

Golden Era Games
Übermensch Developer
Joined
Apr 22, 2008
Messages
11,557
Location
LAND OF THE FREE & HOME OF THE BRAVE
The last time I gave too much away on this forum I saw both my title and premise up on Steam as early access game.

This game is an elaboration on THE STATEMENT OF RANDOLPH CARTER that assumes a previous Miskatonic University expedition established a beachhead in the area being explored with scientific instruments and phone lines to the surface. The main character is Harley Warren.

It is not an RPG but there are perks acquired during the game that improve many aspects.

I'm telling the truth when I say I wrote a version previously in FPS CREATOR around mid 2009 and it wasn't all bad. I played around with it for a while and constructed several levels. Nothing compared to what I have built in Unity so far. The first version was actually called THE STATEMENT OF RANDOLPH CARTER but I realized by taking a few liberties I could greatly expand on Lovecraft's theme in the original.
 

jungl

Augur
Joined
Mar 30, 2016
Messages
1,420
How you do horror for a adult audience? I was sort of horror junky when i was teen and young adult. Looking for horror movies to watch so I can get dopamine lucid dream nightmares. I'd say after age 21 the novelity is gone and nothing is scary.
 
Joined
Aug 10, 2012
Messages
5,871
I think Lovecraft was at his best when aping Dunsany in his Dreamlands stories. His aping of Poe is too puerile and his main mythos stories are too formulaic - the first person narrative and the shlock last-minute revelations grow a bit dull.

Cleve, I like the idea of real-time hallucinations rather than cutscenes, I'm sure it would work much better as a storytelling device. It's not a great game, but have you seen what they did with Eternal Darkness for the Gamecube 17 years ago? They had some decent ideas for real-time hallucinations that would alter gameplay in some small way. It was decent popamole.
 

Ninjerk

Arcane
Joined
Jul 10, 2013
Messages
14,323
How you do horror for a adult audience? I was sort of horror junky when i was teen and young adult. Looking for horror movies to watch so I can get dopamine lucid dream nightmares. I'd say after age 21 the novelity is gone and nothing is scary.
Horror for the young seems to me to be the threat of something in the world coming after you personally. Horror for the adult I would think would require threatening children or some other thing the adult values that isn't itself.
 

Parsifarka

Arcane
Joined
Dec 31, 2014
Messages
1,022
Location
Potato field
Horror for the young seems to me to be the threat of something in the world coming after you personally. Horror for the adult I would think would require threatening children or some other thing the adult values that isn't itself.
Precisely, it must be something out from this world. What is in the world can only kill you once. As the Lutheran hymn goes,
Let goods and kindred go,
this mortal life also -
The body they may kill
God's truth abideth still


Methinks true terror is that which threatens not the body, but the soul; fear not of death but of the second death -the kind that makes you a believer, since Fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom.
Conveying such a thing in a videogame is, of course, extremely difficult, but I reckon the way is to surround the player with uncertainty, let him imagine fates worse than reloading -that would require not only smart game mechanics but a remarkable work both in sound and visuals as well.
Otherwise, a game may aspire to build up tension, such as a good shooter, but not fear.

Looking forward to see how the 'Thal plays with saps minds.
 

Parsifarka

Arcane
Joined
Dec 31, 2014
Messages
1,022
Location
Potato field
The comic is alright but the blog entry absolutely retarded -he mocks Christ yet has the gall to tell us what the more intelligent sort of Christian should believe. He sounds quite like the meme
Dfvkph6WsAA_s_z.jpg
I wonder why would you link to that shit, another reminder of the atheistardism surrounding HPL. I hope they never get their filthy hands on Arthur Machen.

Anyways, as an avid reader of your thalposting I trust you know what makes Lovecraft stories so unsettling and will deliver. The only question is when.
 

Alex

Arcane
Joined
Jun 14, 2007
Messages
8,750
Location
São Paulo - Brasil
The comic is alright but the blog entry absolutely retarded -he mocks Christ yet has the gall to tell us what the more intelligent sort of Christian should believe. He sounds quite like the meme
Dfvkph6WsAA_s_z.jpg
I wonder why would you link to that shit, another reminder of the atheistardism surrounding HPL. I hope they never get their filthy hands on Arthur Machen.

Anyways, as an avid reader of your thalposting I trust you know what makes Lovecraft stories so unsettling and will deliver. The only question is when.

The post is rather silly, actually. The main point of the comic is that it doesn't really matter what you do, all you are deciding is how much you will suffer, which is actually closer to the atheist materialist view that there is no meaning in the universe.

About real horror, I think the best lovecraft stories were more about pulp heroes than straight horror.

The basic premise of horror in his stories is, to my understanding, that the human mind is ultimately unable to really understand the universe. It is not even that there is no meaning in the universe, but that even if such thing exists, it is forever beyond the reach of human race which in the end doesn't matter at all. All we think we understand about existence, or even our own world is false or at least severely lacking. That we are like a small bugs in the road, completely unaware of the danger of incoming cars, which will kill us not because they hate or despise us, but simply because we are in the way.

Now I suppose this kind of view might be relatable to some, and maybe you could make it into straight horror. But I think most people ultimately find it a bit silly, and as such I think the stories work better as pulp. Lovecraft could also write pretty depressive stories that were just bleak, with no heroes or similar. Like the Colour out of Space. But those weren't really scary per se, I thought, but rather just sad. Those are also pretty good, although I don't think they would work so well for a game.
 

Cleveland Mark Blakemore

Golden Era Games
Übermensch Developer
Joined
Apr 22, 2008
Messages
11,557
Location
LAND OF THE FREE & HOME OF THE BRAVE
Now I suppose this kind of view might be relatable to some, and maybe you could make it into straight horror. But I think most people ultimately find it a bit silly, and as such I think the stories work better as pulp. Lovecraft could also write pretty depressive stories that were just bleak, with no heroes or similar. Like the Colour out of Space. But those weren't really scary per se, I thought, but rather just sad. Those are also pretty good, although I don't think they would work so well for a game.

"The Colour out of Space," "Trapped With the Pharoahs" and "The Shunned House" are some of the most interesting candidates to adapt into computer games after I finish this one based on THE STATEMENT OF RANDOLPH CARTER.
 

OndrejSc

Full Auto
Patron
Joined
Apr 1, 2014
Messages
8,299
Location
Central Europe
PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015
My theory: Cthulhu is a word play on catholic. The cosmic horror of/for Lovecraft was metaphysical Catholicism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cthulhu_Mythos_cults
The Church of Starry Wisdom, also known in the story as the Old Free-Will Church, was based by Lovecraft on the real St. John's Church on Federal Hill in Providence, Rhode Island, the principal Catholic church in the area in Lovecraft's day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Haunter_of_the_Dark
His researches reveal that the church has a sinister history involving a cult called the Church of Starry Wisdom and is dreaded by the local migrant inhabitants as being haunted by a primeval evil.

Blake also discovers an ancient stone artifact known as the "Shining Trapezohedron" which has the property of being able to summon a terrible being from the depths of time and space.
HyAxsVx.jpg


The trapezohedron rests in a metal box with a hinged lid; the box is incised with designs representing living but distinctly alien creatures.
YymutIp.jpg

His last words refer to his perception of the approaching being. "I see it-- coming here-- hell-wind-- titan-blur-- black wings-- Yog-Sothoth save me-- the three-lobed burning eye..."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichthys
ΙΧΘΥΣ (ichthys), or also ΙΧΘΥϹ with a lunate sigma, is an acronym or acrostic for "Ἰησοῦς Χριστός, Θεοῦ Υἱός, Σωτήρ" (Iēsous Christos, Theou Yios, Sōtēr; contemporary Koine [ie̝ˈsus kʰrisˈtos tʰeˈu (h)yˈjos soˈte̝r]), which translates into English as 'Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour'.

Yog-Sothoth = Yios, Sōtēr (Son, Saviour) ?
 
Last edited:

Zed Duke of Banville

Dungeon Master
Patron
Joined
Oct 3, 2015
Messages
11,759
"of or pertaining to the under world," 1882, with -ic + Latinized form of Greek khthonios "of the earth, in the earth," from khthōn "the earth, solid surface of the earth" (mostly poetic), from PIE root *dhghem- "earth."
https://www.etymonline.com/word/chthonic

Chthonic might seem a lofty and learned word, but it's actually pretty down-to-earth in its origin and meaning. It comes from "chthōn, "which means "earth" in Greek, and it is associated with things that dwell in or under the earth. It is most commonly used in discussions of mythology, particularly underworld mythology. Hades and Persephone, who reign over the underworld in Greek mythology, might be called "chthonic deities," for example. "Chthonic" has broader applications, too. It can be used to describe something that resembles a mythological underworld (e.g.,"chthonic darkness"), and it is sometimes used to describe earthly or natural things (as opposed to those that are elevated or celestial).
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/chthonic

Though somewhat ironic, since Cthulhu, rather than underworld and earthly, is both submarine and celestial.:M
 

Pika-Cthulhu

Arcane
Joined
Apr 16, 2007
Messages
7,421
Is it wrong that I thought of a lovecraftian themed fleshlight range under the name cyclopean chasms, "now with taint tickling tentacle action!"

My mind is diseased, and I cant stop giggling at my own stupid joke
 

PrettyDeadman

Guest
In our nighted slumbers we tossed and turned most violently, sweat bathing our pale flesh, panting out each breath like an ancient, eyelids flickering as nightmare visions beset our gaze.

Dreaming or voyaging in realms where no man was meant to tread, dark timeless places, where no star has ever shone or mundane life blossomed. Only the foul intelligences of the gargantuan, eldritch abominations that slumbered within illuminated that place, a foul, sickly corona that wracked our bodies with pain and twisted our minds.

When shall our nights and dreams be free of distant, nighted Codexia? I know not, but I hope and pray for it with every fibre of my being.

Dear traveller heed my words and venture not down that troubled path, some knowledge carries too much of a price, often your soul entire.
Sounds like very sweaty gay erotica!
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom