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Game News Stirring Abyss is an upcoming Lovecraftian tactical RPG set at the bottom of the ocean

Infinitron

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Tags: Sleepy Sentry; Slitherine; Stirring Abyss

Stirring Abyss is an upcoming Lovecraft-inspired tactical RPG by Finnish indie studio Sleepy Sentry, where you take charge of the crew of a submarine who have found themselves stranded at the bottom of the ocean among the ruins of a forgotten civilization. The game was first announced way back in 2016, but we only spotted it at the end of 2018 shortly after the failure of its crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo. Despite this setback the developers decided to press on, and yesterday it was revealed that they'd won the support of venerable strategy game publisher Slitherine, who will be publishing Stirring Abyss as part of their new K-Project indie label. Here's their press release along with a couple of trailers. Note that the gameplay trailer is from 2018, so it might out be out of date.



Epsom, 26th May 2020. Slitherine and Sleepy Sentry, an indie game development studio based in Turku, Finland, are proud to announce Stirring Abyss.

Stirring Abyss is the second indie title to be published under the newly launched K-Project label. A tactical squad-based game with strong RPG elements and a Lovecraftian narrative, Stirring Abyss plunges players into the deep end as they take charge of the surviving crew of the USS Salem, a submarine struck by disaster whilst on a top-secret research mission in the early years of the Cold War. They find themselves surrounded by the ruins of a forgotten civilization, their badly damaged vessel lying stranded at the bottom of the ocean.

Stirring Abyss proves how different and innovative a strategy game can be,” says Marco Minoli, Marketing Director at Slitherine. “K-Project was created for this purpose: we look at different angles for the genre and different approaches to a sometimes tired niche. Good ideas often come from small, bold studios that are willing to experiment and we are here to fully support this.

Stirring Abyss is a weird and scary beast. It stays true to the Lovecraftian tradition of merging strange creatures and situations with a fearful yet immersive atmosphere; while investigating the uncharted seabed, horror comes from the depths of the human mind as much as from the depths of the ocean.

The developers are creating an experience that, unlike other horror games, doesn’t rely on jump scares or unexpected loud sounds to give you chills. Instead, Stirring Abyss takes inspiration from classic board games and traditional RPGs, translating madness and exhaustion into game mechanics, as well as the inevitable fascination for the horrifying, forgotten creatures of the abyss, allowing the weird, disturbing atmosphere to seep into every aspect of play.

Taking inspiration from the short story The Temple by H.P. Lovecraft, in which a German submarine gets lost underwater during the First World War, in Stirring Abyss you follow the horrifying destiny of the members of the USS Salem’s crew, as they suffer from disturbing nightmares and hallucinations after the discovery of an ancient, cursed relic. In Story Mode, you slowly unravel the mysteries of the depths in a desperate quest to rescue your missing crewmembers and fix the crippled Salem. The choices you make determine the fate of your crew – and that of the entire world.

Every expedition lives or dies by the strength of its crew. You have a diverse array of character traits and skills at your disposal, each opening exciting new options for both combat and story events. As you delve ever deeper, you may also subject your crew to powerful but grisly mutations; the price of survival is high, and no one escapes the abyss unchanged.

The horrors of the void hiding in the deep waters can become too much to bear, and your crew may experience episodes of exhaustion and insanity. Will their psyche get stronger, or will it be forever damaged? Only a game of dice with Fate itself will determine the outcome.

Salvaged resources can be turned into weapons, armor, or other useful supplies – or used to repair and upgrade the Salem, giving your crew a crucial edge in the fight for survival. The more you explore the abyss during the missions, the more chance you have of finding lost treasures of the deep.

The hauntingly beautiful environment holds many secrets and mysteries to explore, but danger lurks just outside the feeble circles of light you can bring with you. Be wise, and use your skills to scout the black waters and light up the path: unseen terrors may be hiding just out of sight.

Endless Mode pits your crew in a roguelike battle against a never-ending army of enemies that will grow stronger and stronger as you progress. It is the ultimate test of strategic ability as you not only decide how to improve your own squad, but also pick your poison and choose which powers your foes will gain.

Slitherine have decided to call Stirring Abyss a "tactical squad-based game with strong RPG elements" rather than a straight RPG, but that didn't stop PC Gamer from describing the game as a strategy-RPG in their short preview, not to mention the developers on their Twitter account. Since we missed it the first time, I don't mind giving it a shoutout. According to its Steam page, Stirring Abyss is "coming soon", presumably this year.
 

Grauken

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Holy Terror from the Deep vibes, I need this game. Hopefully doesn't end up like Stygian
 

Serious_Business

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It is sad to see this brilliant author's works get raped over and over and over in sub-par title after sub-par title.

I'll rape you kid if you keep moaning like this

Should we really say that Lovecraft's work was already "raped" by Derleth, and that the Lovecraft mythos, by definition, is a great betrayal of the master's work? Doesn't stop it from being a staple in fantasy and science-fiction, though. In fact, it becomes nonsensical at some point to redirect lovecraft influence uniquely to Lovecraft's work, as it's something much more culturally diffuse by now. Pretty sure you'll find "lovecraft based" works of fiction from people who barely read Lovecraft, but then, how does it matter? Does Lovecraft have some sort of monopoly on cosmic horror, or quite simply the horror that men can have of the black ocean, of sea creatures? It's just something that is expressed in his work : the cosmic, the depths, the unknown, the dark origins of life. That shit may be "lovecraftian", but it goes beyond Lovecraft. If you want to be anal about any of it, I suppose you'd have to retrace influences to Poe as well, and other gothic litterature. No one wants you to wank in their face, though, which is very sad
 

luj1

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Quite frankly, I believe we have really gone beyond the saturation point of HP Lovecraft in today's computer gaming world.

There can be no saturation because there are no actual Lovecraftian games coming out mate. Name dropping does not make a game "Lovecraftian". Much like Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones (a Lovecraft pop quiz), this game is yet another tasteless parody.
 

normie

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Insert Title Here
Lovecraftian:
8m6c4wc.png


Lovecraft:
When, long ago, the gods created Earth
In Jove's fair image Man was shaped at birth.
The beasts for lesser parts were next designed;
Yet were they too remote from humankind.
To fill the gap, and join the rest to Man,
Th'Olympian host conceiv'd a clever plan.
A beast they wrought, in semi-human figure,
Filled it with vice, and called the thing a Nigger.
 

CappenVarra

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inspired by The Temple - the story where ze germans are worse than any supernatural horror and rightfully perish for being subhuman scum?

:hmmm:

On the afternoon of June 18, as reported by wireless to the U-61, bound for Kiel, we torpedoed the British freighter Victory, New York to Liverpool, in N. Latitude 45 degrees 16 minutes, W. Longitude 28 degrees 34 minutes; permitting the crew to leave in boats in order to obtain a good cinema view for the admiralty records.

The ship sank quite picturesquely, bow first, the stem rising high out of the water whilst the hull shot down perpendicularly to the bottom of the sea.

Our camera missed nothing, and I regret that so fine a reel of film should never reach Berlin.

After that we sank the lifeboats with our guns and submerged.

When we rose to the surface about sunset, a seaman's body was found on the deck, hands gripping the railing in curious fashion.

The poor fellow was young, rather dark, and very handsome; probably an Italian or Greek, and undoubtedly of the Victory's crew.

He had evidently sought refuge on the very ship which had been forced to destroy his own - one more victim of the unjust war of aggression which the English pig-dogs are waging upon the Fatherland.

...

Kienze and I usually slept at different times; and it was during my sleep, about 5 A.M., July 4, that the general mutiny broke loose.

The six remaining pigs of seamen, suspecting that we were lost, had suddenly burst into a mad fury at our refusal to surrender to the Yankee battleship two days before, and were in a delirium of cursing and destruction.

They roared like the animals they were, and broke instruments and furniture indiscriminately; screaming about such nonsense as the curse of the ivory image and the dark dead youth who looked at them and swam away.

Lieutenant Kienze seemed paralyzed and inefficient, as one might expect of a soft, womanish Rhinelander.

I shot all six men, for it was necessary, and made sure that none remained alive.
 
Last edited:

Plane Escapee

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Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Bubbles In Memoria A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
Don't see enough of this type of UI. That heavily stylized clunky interface is a significant part of what made the old games so aesthetically pleasing. Rest looks good too.
 

Darkozric

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Is this a parody of TFTD? And why the sand floor is a plain white canvas? What kind of retarded art is this?
 

Roguey

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The problem with making games about Lovecraftian horror: if the player can fight back, you have already failed.
The army bombed the deep ones in Innsmouth and the boat guy drove a ship through Cthulhu's head.
 

Infinitron

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I wonder if there's any particular significance to the fact that this game takes place during the early Cold War.

Is it just for the 1950s aesthetics? Will the Russkies show up? Maybe it's just the earliest possible period (closest to classic Lovecraft time) where humans surviving at the bottom of the ocean for long would be technologically feasible. Is the USS Salem a nuclear sub?

Too bad these guys took down their failed Indiegogo campaign, there might have been more details there.
 

Grauken

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I wonder if there's any particular significance to the fact that this game takes place during the early Cold War.

Is it just for the 1950s aesthetics? Will the Russkies show up? Maybe it's just the earliest possible period (closest to classic Lovecraft time) where humans surviving at the bottom of the ocean for long would be technologically feasible. Is the USS Salem a nuclear sub?

Too bad these guys took down their failed Indiegogo campaign, there might have been more details there.

Not quite what you had in mind, but something about their approach to designing the game

http://www.sleepysentry.com/stirring-abyss-announcement/
http://www.sleepysentry.com/the-art-of-inspiration/
http://www.sleepysentry.com/meet-the-team/
http://www.sleepysentry.com/fun-vs-balance-design-philosophy/
http://www.sleepysentry.com/feature-spotlight-spineskulker/
http://www.sleepysentry.com/first-official-screenshots/

And an older version of their current landing page with some more concept art
https://web.archive.org/web/20200313212315/https://stirringabyss.com/
 
Last edited:
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It is sad to see this brilliant author's works get raped over and over and over in sub-par title after sub-par title.

I'll rape you kid if you keep moaning like this

Should we really say that Lovecraft's work was already "raped" by Derleth, and that the Lovecraft mythos, by definition, is a great betrayal of the master's work? Doesn't stop it from being a staple in fantasy and science-fiction, though. In fact, it becomes nonsensical at some point to redirect lovecraft influence uniquely to Lovecraft's work, as it's something much more culturally diffuse by now. Pretty sure you'll find "lovecraft based" works of fiction from people who barely read Lovecraft, but then, how does it matter? Does Lovecraft have some sort of monopoly on cosmic horror, or quite simply the horror that men can have of the black ocean, of sea creatures? It's just something that is expressed in his work : the cosmic, the depths, the unknown, the dark origins of life. That shit may be "lovecraftian", but it goes beyond Lovecraft. If you want to be anal about any of it, I suppose you'd have to retrace influences to Poe as well, and other gothic litterature. No one wants you to wank in their face, though, which is very sad

"kid" ? Now thats a laugh. The last time I saw 20 was fucking Vietnam.

You really are becoming tiresome, mate.
 

Grauken

Gourd vibes only
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It is sad to see this brilliant author's works get raped over and over and over in sub-par title after sub-par title.

I'll rape you kid if you keep moaning like this

Should we really say that Lovecraft's work was already "raped" by Derleth, and that the Lovecraft mythos, by definition, is a great betrayal of the master's work? Doesn't stop it from being a staple in fantasy and science-fiction, though. In fact, it becomes nonsensical at some point to redirect lovecraft influence uniquely to Lovecraft's work, as it's something much more culturally diffuse by now. Pretty sure you'll find "lovecraft based" works of fiction from people who barely read Lovecraft, but then, how does it matter? Does Lovecraft have some sort of monopoly on cosmic horror, or quite simply the horror that men can have of the black ocean, of sea creatures? It's just something that is expressed in his work : the cosmic, the depths, the unknown, the dark origins of life. That shit may be "lovecraftian", but it goes beyond Lovecraft. If you want to be anal about any of it, I suppose you'd have to retrace influences to Poe as well, and other gothic litterature. No one wants you to wank in their face, though, which is very sad

"kid" ? Now thats a laugh. The last time I saw 20 was fucking Vietnam.

You really are becoming tiresome, mate.

Despite his edgy approach, he has a good point
 
Joined
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Messages
425
Location
Georgie's shitter
It is sad to see this brilliant author's works get raped over and over and over in sub-par title after sub-par title.

I'll rape you kid if you keep moaning like this

Should we really say that Lovecraft's work was already "raped" by Derleth, and that the Lovecraft mythos, by definition, is a great betrayal of the master's work? Doesn't stop it from being a staple in fantasy and science-fiction, though. In fact, it becomes nonsensical at some point to redirect lovecraft influence uniquely to Lovecraft's work, as it's something much more culturally diffuse by now. Pretty sure you'll find "lovecraft based" works of fiction from people who barely read Lovecraft, but then, how does it matter? Does Lovecraft have some sort of monopoly on cosmic horror, or quite simply the horror that men can have of the black ocean, of sea creatures? It's just something that is expressed in his work : the cosmic, the depths, the unknown, the dark origins of life. That shit may be "lovecraftian", but it goes beyond Lovecraft. If you want to be anal about any of it, I suppose you'd have to retrace influences to Poe as well, and other gothic litterature. No one wants you to wank in their face, though, which is very sad

"kid" ? Now thats a laugh. The last time I saw 20 was fucking Vietnam.

You really are becoming tiresome, mate.

Despite his edgy approach, he has a good point

Mate, he may have a good point in his argument regarding Lovecraft, that is neither here nor there. I am just sick of his Mr. Muscle posts vs. little 'ol me.
 

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