Incline CYCLOPEAN CHASMS Development Updates (Lovecraft inspired Walking Simulator)

[Master]

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.

 

[Citizen]

Cleveland Mark Blakemore, I prob just missed it, but what is the general gameplay formula for this? Is it gonna be a gridbased blobber + horror game mashup? With a full fledged rpg system underneath?

 

[Citizen]

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]

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]

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 :

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]

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]

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]

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.

 

[Great Deceiver]

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]

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]

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.

 

[Cleveland Mark Blakemore]

In Lovecraft's reality, death is the easy option. Becoming a mote of consciousness owned by one of Lovecraft's creatures, still fully aware and sleepless but unable to do anything observe for all eternity. Lovecraft horror posits things much worse than death in his stories.

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=135

 

[Parsifarka]

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=135

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

Spoiler

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.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Eternal Darkness already did this
Would recommend, underrated game. Can't believe it was a GameCube exclusive.

 

[jungl]

https://youtu.be/PtDOZ7pggBw

 

[Alex]

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=135

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

Spoiler

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]

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.

 

[Makabb]

Cleve you got a trailer made already

 

[OndrejSc]

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.

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

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) ?

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

"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.

 

[Cleveland Mark Blakemore]

Main Menu. Screenshots soon.

 

[Butter]

 

[Pika-Cthulhu]

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]

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!

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

View attachment 11154
Main Menu. Screenshots soon.

Your creative choice of font for the title reminds me of the classic Infocom text adventure The Lurking Horror.