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KickStarter Stirring Abyss - Lovecraftian underwater tactical RPG

sser

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Mar 10, 2011
Messages
1,866,662
What made Lovecraft scary and what does it really mean being lovecraftian ? Information around is cluttered with tropes.

Cosmic horror/horror of the unknown. You're probably running into a lot of tropes because Lovecraft founded so many. If you read At the Mountains of Madness, Shadows over Innsmouth, and Colour out of Space you'll immediately see Lovecraft's influence all over modern horror/scifi. Even smaller stories have some spooky trope setters like The Statement of Randolph Carter or Pickman's Model.
 

The Jester

Cipher
Joined
Mar 1, 2020
Messages
1,414
I got
THAT CREAMY, VIVID IMMENSITY...
......... yeah


Basically the fear of unknown, that the outside space might be filled with entities beyond our human comprehension, that could crush us like a bug, perhaps without even realizing it so.
His descriptions were quite good and evocative.
I don't think the creatures themselves are the most important thing. It is the feeling of hopelessness and isolation that grips you after encountering something unbelievable or traumatic. There is no salvation, only the passage of time until everything is consumed or assimilated. Stephen King has a pseudo-Lovecraftian novel, The Mist, which kinda touches on some elements but never gets the point. The people are isolated in the supermarket, but they are together, and they believe each other because they are experiencing the same thing. That's not Lovecraftian imo. The point in this novel is how extreme circumstances lead to extreme actions and the creation of factions that mistrust each other. The creatures in Lovecraft are, at their core, intimate and personal, like trauma, something that horrifies you to the point of being unable to live your life but is completely immaterial to other people. It's a good point, but the prose is stilted and it gets muddled around the inclusion of the 37th creamy, vivid immensity.
Game developers be like:
Nah we know what TRUE Lovecraftian horror is all about
800px-Tako_to_ama_retouched.jpg
 

Removal

Scholar
Joined
Jun 23, 2017
Messages
204
I could get used to only having 3 crew on a mission, but fighting the same repeating group of one-two tentacle-orca, two fish men, and one octopus-man gets very stale very fast
 

Saduj

Arcane
Joined
Aug 26, 2012
Messages
2,547
Can anyone explain the logic behind the save system in this game? You can save as much as you want. The game also creates autosaves during missions. Every single one of these saves creates a unique save file. So this is not iron man or even limited saves. But if you want to exit the game, you must save before exiting. What purpose does that serve? It isn't forcing you to live with a mistake because next time you start the game you can just load a previous save. Or you can just reload your last save file before saving and exiting. Also, in game you can only load your last save but at the main menu you can reload any of the dozens of save files the game forces on you either automatically or by creating a save file every time you exit. Why? There is no limitation here, just tedium. Am I missing something?
 

Beowulf

Arcane
Joined
Mar 2, 2015
Messages
1,963
Can anyone explain the logic behind the save system in this game? You can save as much as you want. The game also creates autosaves during missions. Every single one of these saves creates a unique save file. So this is not iron man or even limited saves. But if you want to exit the game, you must save before exiting. What purpose does that serve? It isn't forcing you to live with a mistake because next time you start the game you can just load a previous save. Or you can just reload your last save file before saving and exiting. Also, in game you can only load your last save but at the main menu you can reload any of the dozens of save files the game forces on you either automatically or by creating a save file every time you exit. Why? There is no limitation here, just tedium. Am I missing something?

Didn't they add the manual saving option recently. I though it was only save when exiting on release, but I might be wrong.
 

Saduj

Arcane
Joined
Aug 26, 2012
Messages
2,547
There is manual saving too but in game you can only load the last save. At main menu you can load any save.
 

Taka-Haradin puolipeikko

Filthy Kalinite
Patron
Joined
Apr 24, 2015
Messages
19,117
Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Bubbles In Memoria
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1178210/view/3042715855917486908

Major Update - Harvester Patch (update 1.06)

A major update for Stirring Abyss is now available, introducing a new enemy type and new maps. Check out the full changelog.

MEET THE HARVESTER

9c700afabc1106dbeae5a3800ec6dddf64948380.jpg


It approaches in silence, lurking in the twilight zone where the electric glow of their lamps is drowned out by the eternal darkness of the deep ocean. Pupils dilate, the hair on their arms stands on edge, a cold sweat forms. The Harvester is near, and the fields are ripe with frightened minds.

f92843040a7768ab4dda35cd4e5c79cc1eca5d1a.png


The Harvester is a creature of nightmare that
feeds upon the Sanity of your crew
and grows more dangerous the more it consumes. These otherworldly monstrosities stalk the deep trenches and ruins of the Abyss, ready to reap their unwilling harvest. Harvesters can be encountered in both Story and Endless mode, and will spawn in campaigns started before the patch as well.

be3a3a1d24b0a76123f9bd9c411fe3133de0c976.png


NEW MAPS

8f351c8c40c620713c526f27590ca80ff2f89204.png


For those players who have already thoroughly explored the Abyss, we are adding a couple of new maps for bonus missions - one new Seal Defense mission set on a rooftop plaza of ancient Akoratya, and one new Diver Rescue mission that sends you delving into the depths of the abyssal trench.

90029e931430b534c99999adf6fccf4b07585343.png
 
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Lord_Potato

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Nov 24, 2017
Messages
9,836
Location
Free City of Warsaw
I've finished Stirring Abyss yesterday. Frankly, I'm a bit surprised this game does not get more attention from the Codex, especially from the combatfags.

Its turn-based combat is quite good and provides both tactical challenges and lots of options to deal with them. Characters have multiple ways to advance: leveling with experience points, three science trees unlocked with clues, mutations granted by special artifacts that appear for a brief period of time on the battlefield. Combined with three character classes (officer, sailor, science officer) with distinct skill sets the game provides enough tools to build your squad in different ways. With each experience level, you get to upgrade one of 4 main stats and choose between 2 skills available for the diver's class. Instead of a base, you've got a damaged submarine. Using limited resources you have to pump out water from its sections, repair damaged equipment, and assign roles for different rooms, that grant additional bonuses between missions (faster healing, recovering sanity, or even a possibility to resurrect fallen soldiers) or during exploration (sonar, lights) and combat (torpedos!). Issues like sanity or corruption also heavily influences the battlefield, so there rarely is a dull moment throughout the game.

Because exploration and combat are happening on the sea bottom the divers have a limited amount of oxygen, which serves as an unofficial turn limit and adds additional tension (there are actual time limits for some missions too). When divers get hit their suits can get damaged which leads to oxygen leak. You can however find additional sources of oxygen during missions, and even make one of your guys carry an additional oxygen tank from which all the team can take advantage of. However it takes an inventory space and these are strictly limited: each diver can only carry two objects (three if he mutates and gets an additional limb, yes, the mutations are crazy like that).

The story is quite limited: it's year 1958. During a mission in the Atlantic Ocean USS Salem's crew had a mysterious blackout. When the commander regained consciousness he was in a diver's suit on the bottom of the sea. While he quickly finds a way back to the submarine and meets several sailors, it appears the ship is heavily damaged and unable to emerge to surface, while most of the crew is missing. Quickly the team assembles to search for the lost and thus an expedition into the heart of madness begins. During the game you'll meet eldritch beings and remains of ancient civilizations, but also traces of a former Soviet expedition that also explored the place not long ago. Following the footsteps of the Soviets and uncovering what happened with them provides some context to the events but the game does not really focus on that. You don't have dialogues with vast conversation trees or get to make tough decisions that heavily alter the story (okay, there is one such decision, but it happens in the very last mission). Mostly it's just exploration and combat during main and side missions which you better do to get experience, find additional sailors and gather clues that will aid you during the plot-critical battles.

The aesthetic side of the game is delicious: it's very good pixel art, heavily reminiscent of X-Com: Terror from the Deep. The design of the diver's suits, the eldrich creatures, the locations - it all brings back quality memories. The music is fitting for a horror genre and sometimes scary, maybe a bit too repetitive.

The whole campaign, including side missions, last around 15 hours but there is also an additional 'endless' mode in which submariners simply fight incoming waves of monsters and try to survive as long as possible.

Being a huge fan of X-Com: Terror from the Deep I greatly enjoyed its spiritual successor with strong Lovecraftian vibes. The game streamlines some of the mechanics (base building, research and manufacture programs) but also adds numerous elements to develop the formula (character development, oxygen management, support received on the battlefield from the submarine). I recommend it to everyone that likes a good mixture of combat and exploration, with minimal story that does not get in the way of pure fun.
 

KeighnMcDeath

RPG Codex Boomer
Joined
Nov 23, 2016
Messages
12,874
X-com TOTD was pretty cool and that's the vibe I was hoping this title would project. Cool.

Edit-- lordy I hate these digital keys. Always hitting the wrong keys.
 
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KeighnMcDeath

RPG Codex Boomer
Joined
Nov 23, 2016
Messages
12,874
Anime bounty is also $4. +M+M

Anyway, how does Fanatical Compare to humblebundle? They pretty legit?
 
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fork

Guest
For 4 bucks it's worth it.
 

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