Frogwares' The Sinking City - that other Cthulhu game

[fantadomat]

Oh hey, what's Codex's opinion of this-

Yeah this game seems to have some weird sympathetic tendencies towards Dagon worshipers. I don't feel bad that the government destroyed Innsmouth and I don't feel bad that the "refugees" are being mistreated.

? Why is MC deadset on whiteknighting his balls of for fish monsters, to the point of slaughering KKK over it, while being fine with poisoning strangers with ricin or killing an elderly lady seeking to save her son?

Every. Damn. Time. Even when they proclaim the game is racist, at some points devs immediately backpedal. Of course there's also a DRUMP! attack as well, setting and consistency put aside. Why do SJWs still keep raging him?

here were numerous references that it was

... Why would they give Cthulhu a family? I don't remember this being a thing in classic Lovecraft stories.


Oh well, it explains why this game had a low score in Meristation, a hard-to-achieve feat.

Yeah,there is a lot of political quotes taken from the real life. The writers are really retarded to put all that garbage in the middle of lovecraftian game. Also there is no racism in the game,it is only between the fishdemons and the ape fuckers. It is really disgusting.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Innsmouthers literally aren't human – they're essentially a larval stage of Deep Ones and they all do worship Dagon.

It's a sad reminder that not that long ago the Deep Ones' larvae weren't even considered human (despite identifying as such) and were discriminated based on their religion.

 

[thesecret1]

speaking of politics (keep in mind this is supposed to be 1920's):
-women have full equality in the game, one even brags about how the town is really progressive
-depite the game warning you about racism, there isn't actually any (except against Innsmouthers) and it feels as though the race of a character has been determined by RNG, regardless of his or her occupation
-there's at least two cases of gays (one being between an old guy and old monkey guy. Photographed for your enjoyment.)
-KKK bad, deep ones good
In other words, the setting's time period is thrown out the window save for old cars (and I suspect they might have added 30's cars there, albeit I'm not sure), and you get stupid stuff lore-wise as mentioned above.

 

[Life of the Party]

I did warn you.

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.p...ing-city-that-other-cthulhu-game.89181/page-6

KKK is literally worse than Cthulhu

The end of the world means the end of the world but racism could mean anything, even the end of the world.

 

[Alienman]

At least we have Stygian coming.

 

[randir14]

... Why would they give Cthulhu a family? I don't remember this being a thing in classic Lovecraft stories.

They didn't create her, she's part of the extended universe made up by other authors. Another character in the game is Cthulhu's half-brother. Something I noticed is the game never mentions Cthulhu by name (only calling him The Dreamer) even though it mentions Dagon and Shub Niggurath. I wonder if they were scared of being sued by Chaosium.

 

[Solid Snail]

How many main missions in this game? I'm feeling I should drop it, the game keeps going proposing nothing new.

 

[lightbane]

Modders could mod this for the steam release (maybe they get from steam some closed access and steam released is delayed?) so they will make this game great again and defeat epic.

You're assuming it will have modding capabilities, which rarely happens nowadays.

I wonder if they were scared of being sued by Chaosium.

Likely. Cthulu and Dagon are also a bit overdone. What about Hastur, Shub-Niggurath and the others? Few Lovecraftian games focus on these instead of aping CoC over, over and over.

 

[Solid Snail]

I completed the game. In the end it is just...forgettable? It's a shallow version of Lovecraft's myth, the whole package is repetitive and boring. What you do in the first case is exactly what you will do until the end of the game. I only did the main missions and I feel like I wasted my time. Also the stuff about Innsmouther pissed me off, because all citizens in Innsmouth were just here to give birth to Dagon's sons later in their lives, in this game they are just a minority persecuted for apparently no reason.

 

[Zombra]

Taking it slow and I'm still very much enjoying the game.

Turning off "long distance icons" was critical for me. Also turning Investigation difficulty to Hard turns out to have been absolutely necessary. Otherwise I'd just be breezing through, essentially solving every case by button mashing.

With "all icons" only, and with no feedback as to whether I have all the clues yet, I often have to sweep a scene a few times before I find everything and I'm sure I'm still missing some things, which all feels legit. It gives me time to really think over the cases, which in turn draws me in to care about the story. Again, that use of negative space is critical for the atmosphere.

I'm surprised at people panning the exploration aspect. I'm finding a lot of stuff off the critical path: a weird artifact in a junkyard triggered an independent investigation, citizens with various side hustles, abandoned buildings with cultist gold hidden inside, not to mention infested zones packed with monsters and hobo stashes (the more dangerous the area, the more profitable the loot).

Combat continues to grow on me and I don't even have all the guns yet. What was overwhelming at first has become a challenge (and decision) I look forward to. Mastering my arsenal with both personal skill and character upgrades is appropriately satisfying. I am killing more monsters, yet still feel that "clear cutting" is often a poor option and I frequently grab what I need and get out. At Hard difficulty, it feels right.

I continue to believe that what you get out of this game is determined by your pacing as a player. It's easy to see how a straight line, "get it over with" approach would indeed turn it into a chore. I'm a player who appreciates an opportunity to let things soak in. Taken at a measured tempo, this is really turning into something worth my time.

Seriously though, everyone who found this lackluster, what difficulty were you playing on and did you use the UI helpers?

 

[Barbarian]

I have a pet goldfish named Dagon.

Sad this turned out to be a disappointment, but I will still buy it and try it out. It can't be worse that Cyanide's CoC right?

 

[vota DC]

As game it is easy, coc Is a walking simulator with the exception of reaching the warehouse and escaping the asylum that could be done in different ways.
For lovecraftian feeling from what I read Coc Is better. Coc main character is more similar ti a real person, here we have a guy "trololo health inspector won't be happy" when he finds corpses cut in pieces inside a restaurant.... what poor cthulhu Is supposed to do? I figure cthulhu becoming crazy like hypnotist against Asterix.

 

[Zombra]

The whole package is repetitive and boring. What you do in the first case is exactly what you will do until the end of the game.

I thought about this some more. You make this sound very negative, but repetitiveness itself is not a bad thing in gaming; it's whether you find the repetitive thing fun in the first place. (How many of our most exalted RPGs have truly diverse gameplay?) You didn't like the combat or the investigations, which is fine (I still think you probably played on "follow the waypoints" difficulty which was your bad decision, but that's not the point ). When you say that repetitiveness is bad, you invite bullshit minigames and the like. Look at Frogwares' previous game, Sherlock: Devil's Daughter, which has at least 25 different minigames (I stopped counting when I quit) including a fucking shoe shining minigame. Pro reviewers and customers alike rightly panned this stupidity and thank god Frogwares learned their lesson this time around.

The loop of this game includes traversal, navigation and map reading, combat, exploration, conversation, scavenging and resource management, searching for clues, reading and comprehension, and even (!) some reasoning and deduction. To complain about doing the same 9 things over and over seems rather odd. What more do you really want in a detective game?

Again, it's OK if you disliked those 9 things. Just be careful what you wish for when you complain about a reasonably focused experience.

 

[Serious_Business]

Thanks for the heads up Zombra. I played this for a bit, but not enough to make an opinion... the backlash seemed a bit exaggerated. It doesn't look to be a terrible experience. Some interesting ideas, and you can't fault the esthetics. Still unsure, but we'll see.

The problem right now is that some fuckers here are really going too wild with their political opinions - if you can call it that. This is a fun phenomenon - the usual anti-sjw rhetoric is that progressive games are "too political", but reactionaries can't get over it themselves ; logically you should want to look beyond politics in order to judge the game on its own merits, but you implicitly refuse to do so because it's "too political" - so everyone is too fucking political, apparently. The only way to be above this shit is not to care about it. It ain't a big fucking formula, here. If you get your pussy irritated because of some anti-racist statement, you aren't being a genius about this shit. I guess caring is just too important ; talk about being emotional, fucking hell.

 

[fantadomat]

Thanks for the heads up Zombra. I played this for a bit, but not enough to make an opinion... the backlash seemed a bit exaggerated. It doesn't look to be a terrible experience. Some interesting ideas, and you can't fault the esthetics. Still unsure, but we'll see.

The problem right now is that some fuckers here are really going too wild with their political opinions - if you can call it that. This is a fun phenomenon - the usual anti-sjw rhetoric is that progressive games are "too political", but reactionaries can't get over it themselves ; logically you should want to look beyond politics in order to judge the game on its own merits, but you implicitly refuse to do so because it's "too political" - so everyone is too fucking political, apparently. The only way to be above this shit is not to care about it. It ain't a big fucking formula, here. If you get your pussy irritated because of some anti-racist statement, you aren't being a genius about this shit. I guess caring is just too important ; talk about being emotional, fucking hell.

Fuck off retard! A Lovecraftian game shouldn't be about muh fish people are oppressed minority refugees and how KKK are the most evil scum on the earth because they stop the poor fishpeople from summoning demons and raping kidnapped women. Such a game should be about madness,creatures in the darkness and mystery. No matter what political leaning you have,if you don't agree on this then you are fucking retard!!!

 

[fantadomat]

Ohhh come on Zombra ,you can't be such a faggit and say that this shit feels right in place in the game. I would think that even if the KKK were modern day antifa,that they still feel not fitting in this game. It is not about the politics per se.

 

[thesecret1]

No kidding, how am I supposed to enjoy a lovecraftian story when MC goes, at random times, on tirades about poor opressed deep ones who dindu nuffin? Like at the very start, guy's son gets shot through the skull by an Innsmouther... and you tell the guy that it's his fault for being so racist against fish people. Then you find out Innsmouthers are responsible for the better part of the bullshit going on in the city... and proceed to go "not all Innsmouthers are bad, also you're a bigot". I mean seriously? What the actual fuck is this doing in a Lovecraft game?

 

[Zombra]

I will say that I just got to the first anti-bigot speech and was like well ....... that was out of place.

 

[RNGsus]

speaking of politics (keep in mind this is supposed to be 1920's):
-women have full equality in the game, one even brags about how the town is really progressive
-depite the game warning you about racism, there isn't actually any (except against Innsmouthers) and it feels as though the race of a character has been determined by RNG, regardless of his or her occupation
-there's at least two cases of gays (one being between an old guy and old monkey guy. Photographed for your enjoyment.)
-KKK bad, deep ones good
In other words, the setting's time period is thrown out the window save for old cars (and I suspect they might have added 30's cars there, albeit I'm not sure), and you get stupid stuff lore-wise as mentioned above.

Right. So this one's yet another pinkhair's attempt to subvert Lovecraft. He's been a thorn in their side for quite awhile. Imitators might nail the monsters (in fact they go beyond to make them look less pulpy), but I can tell they've seldom read any Lovecraft. They never get his gallows humor or follow through with his racism, which are integral to the atmosphere and cosmicism. They don't understand him at all, they just fell for the dank squid maymays.

 

[Zombra]

Following up on that, I've been continuing the game and it didn't spiral downhill or anything after that one weird moment. It was just, "That was weird," and then it went back to good spooky stories and fighting spiders and tentacle bears. I expect there'll be a few more "moments" later but it's nowhere close to that being what the game is about.

Does anyone remember the Verizon commercial in Alan Wake? That's kinda what this reminds me of.

EDIT: After finishing the game, there were no more weird moments like that at all. There is one line in the game that is preachy and out of place. That's about 5 seconds out of a 30 hour game. And that's if you choose that dialogue line.

 

[JDR13]

Just finished it. It's decent, but the ending(s) are underwhelming. The game itself wasn't bad though at least compared to other Lovecraft games. Yes, I realize that's not saying much when you consider the competition.

 

[Lagole Gon]

Hold on a second...
Is it true that KKK hunts opressed fishmen in this game? Hashtag, NotAllFishmen.

 

[JDR13]

Hold on a second...
Is it true that KKK hunts opressed fishmen in this game? Hashtag, NotAllFishmen.

Silver Lives Matter?

 

[Zombra]

The mission writing and cases are turning about to be very well done. It helps that I'm streaming to an audience and we're conversing about what all the clues mean and so forth. Having to explain out loud what's going on in every case really draws attention to the thought and consistency that went into everything. I started off liking it okay - the more I examine it, the more impressed I am.

 

[Sukhāvatī]

The sewing case was my favourite in the game

Spoiler

aside from the ending