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Arkham Horror: Mother's Embrace - investigation game with turn-based combat

Red Hexapus

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Excited to play this next week. I wonder which 12 investigators you can choose from - the series has about 50.

Some guy have posted this comment on Reddit based on the gameplay video:
"They show gameplay of Harvey, Agatha, Jenny, Rex, Roland, Jim, Zoey, Carolyn, Marie, Kate, and what looks like William Yorick. The 12th is not clear. They show pictures of Mateo and Vincent and Norman is shown in game but might be an NPC."
 
Unwanted

Savecummer

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On the Creation of Niggers

From a hectographed poem credited to "H. P. Lovecraft" in the Howard P. Lovecraft collection at Brown University Library, with manuscript date "1912" in an unknown hand. The hectograph is the only extant copy of the poem, and the attribution is frequently questioned but generally accepted as accurate.

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.

t. HPL kek

Lovecraft's horror comes from the idea that humans are nothing more than ants in an indifferent universe caught in a cosmic war between beings far beyond human comprehension.
I am reading Lovecrafts stories chronologically, not yet at the core mythos books as I understand it, and literally all his stories are childish 'fear of the dark' - thats all his horror is. Its purple prose about literally nothing!
 

Harthwain

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The professor narrating like this is really annoying. I hope she fades away after the tutorial, but somehow I doubt it.
 

Skdursh

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I'm a sucker for Lovecraft shit, so I'm probably going to buy this. Looks decent enough and it's only $15.99 on GOG right now.
 

Infinitron

I post news
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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
No launch day reviews. Between that, its troubled development history and the low price, this is almost certainly shovelware. But we thank you for your sacrifice.
 

Zombra

An iron rock in the river of blood and evil
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One of those games where you have to physically unplug your controller because there is no way to turn vibration off.
decline.png


Never mind, someone smarter than me taught me how to turn it off.
 
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Skdursh

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No launch day reviews. Between that, its troubled development history and the low price, this is almost certainly shovelware. But we thank you for your sacrifice.

Oof I might hold out on this one anyway. The Steam reviews are far from positive at the moment.
 

Zombra

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Finished the tutorial level. I like it so far. There's a time mechanic that echoes the time pressure in the tabletop Mansions of Madness: whenever you find something to interact with, you have two or more options (example: shake a locked box to listen to what's inside, or just force it open?). Choose the wrong option, and the "Mythos Track" advances. Advance too far, and there is a Mythos Event such as sanity damage or maybe even monster attacks (I don't know yet). Characters with the right investigative style will know the right option to pick (example, my Physical investigator knew that it would be easier to force open a locked drawer than pick the lock), so you'll want your team to have a broad range of styles but even then you'll still have to guess most of the time. Cool.

Otherwise very adventure gamey with some simple turn-based combat thrown in. I was attacked by some cultists, and exactly like the board games there was no option other than killing them. (Even punching people out is lethal.) So far very simplistic - I expect more complication in later levels.

You get to choose your first character from a half dozen or so. It seems that the rest of the characters will appear throughout the story. Then when each mission begins, you get to pick your team for that scenario. The party size seems to be 3, not 4 as advertised, which is fine as the game is kind of claustrophobic and a large party size would be very cramped.
 
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Harthwain

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Am I getting old like the rest of the codex? :negative:
Everyone gets old, but this doesn't have to be the sign of imminent fossilization. You could like some graphical style over the others. I have great admiration for quality 2D or pixel graphics, so in my book you are going to score some points for that alone (although it also depends heavily on artist's style).
 

Zombra

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The second mission is substantially longer than the first, and does a good job of slow-burning the story. More cultists show up and attack innocent people, and there are more clues to lead you to their motivations. It still feels weird that lethal force is the only way to respond when it seems so easy to knock a guy over the head and ask what the hell he's up to. But at the risk of repeating myself, this is faithful to the source games.

Player characters learn they can use magic spells, and it's not dwelled on. (You find a spell book and a character says, "We should see if that actually works," and it does. End of conversation.) This is also exactly like the tabletop games so again it's fine. Using magic can and often does have adverse effects on the party.

Party members can each only hold 4 items, including weapons, healing items, spell books, and utility/defensive items - I was barely able to carry everything I found on the second mission. Looks like I will have to make some hard decisions soon. Incline.

Tactical positioning, ammo management, buffs and debuffs, etc. are already coming into play and I'm mildly surprised at the complexity. Obviously this is not for the hard core angry strategy nerds with something to prove but I pleasantly have to stay awake during combats.

Actually reading dialogue is helpful. When a witness says a critical NPC was seen carrying a heavy red book, pay attention. Incline.

The AA graphics are 100% fine. Anyone demanding more than this is a whore. Also, I like the idle animations when characters are standing around.

The portrayal of Jim Culver (the musician, my favorite player character from the original games) is disappointing. Instead of the laid back, deep-voiced jazz guy I expected, he's a dull investigative type who mentions music a lot. He says idiotic shit like "We should carry this tune to the end," meaning, "We should continue the investigation until we learn the whole truth." Also he has a very youthful voice. He sounds like a young actor who has never smoked a cigarette, not the middle aged guy who spent his whole life in bars I wanted.

Looking forward to continuing my playthrough.
 
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Azalin

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The second mission is substantially longer than the first, and does a good job of slow-burning the story. More cultists show up and attack innocent people, and there are more clues to lead you to their motivations. It still feels weird that lethal force is the only way to respond when it seems so easy to knock a guy over the head and ask what the hell he's up to. But at the risk of repeating myself, this is faithful to the source games.

When you say source game which ones ra you referring to?Arkham Horror?Mansions of Madness?
 

Fedora Master

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Yea sorry this is fucking retarded. Cultists attacking the university during the middle of the day, taking a weird Mythos creature cadaver with you because YOLO, random sanity checks from looking at innocuous notes. Has all the hallmarks of a bad PnP session.

Also the graphics are generally okay but glitchy as fuck, the camera is bad and movement is way too slow. To say nothing of the aforementioned negros and stronk womyn everywhere.
 

Harthwain

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When you say source game which ones ra you referring to?Arkham Horror?Mansions of Madness?
Very excited that this project resurfaced. The original board game is super fun - I've played a number of different board/card games in the series. [...]
[...] First off, there were several different tabletop games in this universe and I was talking about Mansions of Madness, not Arkham Horror. Mother's Embrace (the video game the thread is about) started off based on Mansions and that's what I was talking about. Mansions had two editions, 2011 and 2016, and the way the timing works out I more likely played the 2011 version, which was not perfect but still excellent.

I did also play the proper Arkham Horror game, most likely the 2005 version, which was also super good. (This was the game that contained the Azathoth card I showed above). The scope of Arkham Horror is the entire city, and much of the play takes place out on the streets, dodging/fighting monsters while moving, square by square, between key locations. The gameplay is more traditionally "board gamey". Mansions is more of a miniatures-based "dungeon crawl", going room to room, positioning units etc., although notably the game is not all combat all the time. Think of a dungeon crawl with equal parts combat, traps, and "tricks", where fighting is often inevitable but you want to avoid triggering it as long as you can; you want to be searching for clues, getting the right key to the right door etc. all on a time limit. Anyway, Embrace looks much more like a dungeon crawl and is clearly still modeled on Mansions.
 
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Zombra

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The second mission is substantially longer than the first, and does a good job of slow-burning the story. More cultists show up and attack innocent people, and there are more clues to lead you to their motivations. It still feels weird that lethal force is the only way to respond when it seems so easy to knock a guy over the head and ask what the hell he's up to. But at the risk of repeating myself, this is faithful to the source games.
When you say source game which ones ra you referring to?Arkham Horror?Mansions of Madness?
Yeah, in this context, all of them. They're board games and card games, an enemy appears, you roll dice/draw chits/play cards until the bad guy has 0 hit points, then you won and you move on to the next thing. No one asks "But what if I want to capture them for interrogation?" because it would be totally out of scope for games of that type.

So that's what happens here too, but it's weird because you're playing the characters at "eye level" instead of looking down on a game board, and it really doesn't make sense that you'd see a mysterious person, wonder what they're doing here, and then beat them to death when they threaten you. The very first cultist you meet isn't even armed! You can shoot or stab him but that seemed like overreacting so my guys punched him out. Then he was dead and I moved on to the next scene. It's a small thing. really, but I found it jarring.
 

Testownia

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Playing any RPG on release... I laugh at you, plebs. Every single one is a broken mess on release since the first Fallout, with almost no exceptions. See you in a year.

EDIT: But, to be frank, that's true - with a few exceptions, like Planescape: Torment, playing an RPG on release is doing yourself a disfavour, especially in this age, when Release Day is more akin to Early Access.
 
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Fedora Master

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The issues with the game aren't the inevitable bugs.
Also it's not an RPG.
 

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