KickStarter Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones - a Lovecraftian Computer RPG

[Trash Player]

It is advertised as an Eurojanky ride in Lovecraft Land, there is nothing wrong with that. Cargoculting something venerable is almost a trademark of such effort, only this one is about the Mythos, instead of Fallout.

I have yet to complete the game. The narrative is well done as a PnP CoC campaign. Suspense is there, the atmosphere is immersive, it is easy enough to get into yet outlandish at the same time. It doesn't transfer to CRPG well though. Backtracking is more than neccessary, a non-issue in PnP form. Places and people pop up depending on plot coupons, justifiable by the narrative but jarring to the exploration process. There isn't enough feedback with the crunch and the less said about the documentation the better. And yes, the setting is a double-edged blade. On one hand, it does allow the theme park and souvenirs, along with a lot of narrative leeway in terms of plot device. On the other hand, there is neither any sense of mystery or dread. It is even narmy.

From what I gathered and experienced so far, the game is actually railroaded. You get choice how to proceed but the consequence is at best minor. However, the narrative is good enough to motivate the player to follow the crumbs rather than strap them on the car. Whether it is good or bad is up to taste. I do not have any expectation that the devs will follow up with a sequel or even new content, it is unlikely with the sales and reviews at this point. Yet, I do not regret my purchase. Warts and all, the game is worth that much by graphics alone.

 

[HoboForEternity]

Kickstarters are cancer. It costs you passion to make a game. If don't have one, don't even dare to make games. I believe this one had some passion at the beginning of the process , but it soon transformed into a chore work. And then we get this type of crap

Fuck you dude, you pirate everything but you also have requirements from the developers? Fuck off

I don't give a shit about developers. They are faggots

dont play videogames then, and just eat dirt and fuck stray cats you filthy beggar.

 

[Prime Junta]

I don't give a shit about developers. They are faggots

And you're a cunt. Which would explain why they won't have anything to do with you.

 

[luj1]

It's kind of weird to describe as "subtle" and "allegorical" the author who is notorious for passages such as these:

Shrieking, slithering, torrential shadows of red viscous madness chasing one another through endless, ensanguined corridors of purple fulgurous sky . . . formless phantasms and kaleidoscopic mutations of a ghoulish, remembered scene; forests of monstrous overnourished oaks with serpent roots twisting and sucking unnamable juices from an earth verminous with millions of cannibal devils; mound-like tentacles groping from underground nuclei of polypous perversion . . . insane lightning over malignant ivied walls and daemon arcades choked with fungous vegetation.

Lovecraft's stories are each about one particular thing. Stygian is a Mythos-fest that's about a lot things from those stories. There's a word for that difference, but it doesn't make Lovecraft "subtle", lol

His elaborate use of adjectives doesn't translate to "lets violate the basic rules of good art (less is more) and TRY HARD to drop Lovecraftian terminology at every corner... Ohhh look this game is lOvEcRafTian"

Stygian is a Mythos-fest that's about a lot things from those stories.

Stygian is literally a Lovecraft pop quiz, that alone makes it pretty cheap and unsophisticated

 

[luj1]

I don't give a shit about developers. They are faggots

And you're a cunt.

Which would explain why they won't have anything to do with you.

Why would they have anything to do w/ him? Are you another influencer reporting for duty?

And he is right, you shouldn't give two fucks about developers. You don't owe them anything. If I'm buying something, they need to pitch it to ME. Make ME want to buy it. Dont be a fucking apologetic cuck like Fluent or Pepe. Ohh support these brave developers... Fuck that. They are creating the product, they are bringing it to the audience, it was their initiative and no one is forcing them to do anything.

As a potential consumer you have every right to criticize sharply and it's actually better that way for everybody because it keeps a high standard. Which is literally the opposite of what has been happening for years (consumer standard sunk dramatically)

 

[Prime Junta]

If I'm buying something

Beggar wasn't buying anything. He was pirating it, then bitching about it to the devs. That makes him a c.u.n.t cunt.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

What's influencer?
And is it what they carry airborne?

 

[luj1]

If I'm buying something

Beggar wasn't buying anything. He was pirating it, then bitching about it to the devs. That makes him a c.u.n.t cunt.

And who are you, their lawyer? Who said that to criticize you must first buy? Sheeple like you brought this decline.

 

[Jimmious]

And who are you, their lawyer? Who said that to criticize you must first buy? Sheeple like you brought this decline.

It's one thing to criticize gameplay that you don't like and something completely different to talk about how the developers didn't work "with passion" and it seems like it was a "chore" in the end and shit like that, WHILE YOU DON'T EVEN WANT TO PAY THEM.

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

I disagree. He was actually kind of shit when attempting to ape them, those stories came across as almost embarrassingly bad cut-rate knock-offs. He’s at his best when the cosmic intrudes: his innovation was to make the protagonist, and humanity in general, utterly insignificant and incapable of even understanding the true nature of the world, let alone mastering it. When he pulls that off, it’s dynamite.

Nyarlathotep is one of his greatest inventions and he owes it to Dunsany. But I agree with your point, more or less. Don't get me wrong: I love Lovecraft. But it was his ideas which created his legacy. Even his best stories (At the Mountains of Madness) are very poorly written. His anachronistic prose is embarrassingly pretentious. Ashton Smith was easily the most talented prose writer of the bunch. I just think it's funny that he cared less about his talents than about galavanting with the women.

 

[GentlemanCthulhu]

Even his best stories (At the Mountains of Madness) are very poorly written. His anachronistic prose is embarrassingly pretentious.

Those are some very serious allegations my friend. You sure that'll hold up in a court of law?

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

Yes.

 

[V_K]

I think I got it: this is a Lovecraftian game for people who aren't Lovecraft fans. Like me, for example - I like the Mythos as a rich lore source, which would - and in this case, does - make a fresh and interesting RPG setting. And as such, it works really well for Stygian. But I couldn't care less about the stories themselves and whether the game stays true to their spirit.

 

[Prime Junta]

Nyarlathotep is one of his greatest inventions and he owes it to Dunsany

IMO Nyarlathotep is actually one of his weaker inventions. HPL is at his strongest when coming up with stuff that really doesn't: that's so alien, vast, ancient, or cosmic that humanity pales into complete insignificance. The Colour out of Space, Azathoth dancing at the centre of the Universe, Cthulhu who drives humanity mad simply by dreaming and destroys it simply by awakening, even the Antartic Elder Race and the Shoggoth, or the Mi-Go that appear to have some kind of scientific curiosity about us, enough to dissect us and stick our brains in jars anyway.

Nyarlathotep OTOH makes us feel that we matter in some way. That panders to our vanity and the fiction is weaker as a result.

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

[Nyarlathotep OTOH makes us feel that we matter in some way. That panders to our vanity and the fiction is weaker as a result.

The idea that we matter? I think the opposite, especially if we're talking about Unknown Kaddath. Nyarlathotep plays with us like we are mice in a maze. We matter only insomuch as he can gain amusement from us. And the legacy of this character, IMO, is one of his best (especially if you consider all that came from it eg. Masks of Nyarlathotep).

But again, you're kind of proving my point: All of those ideas are incredible. And it is that which has left a lasting impression on the world. Not his ability to write prose or necessarily skillfully tell a story.

 

[Prime Junta]

Nyarlathotep plays with us like we are mice in a maze. We matter only insomuch as he can gain amusement from us.

But that's the problem right there. Nyarlathotep is one of the powers that are vastly beyond us. We really shouldn't be of any interest at all to something at that level, not as a cruel amusement or scientific curiosity -- we're like microbes, except that he already knows everything there is to know about them. The Mi-Go or the Elder Race are much more like us, in that they're limited, physical, embodied intelligences; their scientific curiosity makes sense, as would any cruelty they might exhibit. Not so for the cosmic powers. If something like Nyarlathotep can derive amusement from us, it already means we matter more than we ought to.

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

I still have to disagree. I don't think playing with what's in front of you means that what's in front of you matters. Similar to the Elder Things who created us to do menial work for them. You could argue that in this case we matter too much, but it's just as sanity-breaking as the flutes piping and dancing around Azathoth.

 

[Fedora Master]

Where's muh patch

 

[Life of the Party]

Azathoth dancing at the centre of the Universe

Sleeping.

Out in the mindless void the daemon bore me,
Past the bright clusters of dimensioned space,
Till neither time nor matter stretched before me,
But only Chaos, without form or place.
Here the vast Lord of All in darkness muttered
Things he had dreamed but could not understand,
While near him shapeless bat-things flopped and fluttered
In idiot vortices that ray-streams fanned.

They danced insanely to the high, thin whining
Of a cracked flute clutched in a monstrous paw,
Whence flow the aimless waves whose chance combining
Gives each frail cosmos its eternal law.
“I am His Messenger,” the daemon said,
As in contempt he struck his Master’s head.

Azathoth is basically Dunsany's Mana-Yood-Sushai.

MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ is a fictional deity in the works of Lord Dunsany, mainly The Gods of Pegāna, but also mentioned in a later work, Time and the Gods. In these books, he is the first god and creator of all other gods.

The first description of him:

• "Before there stood gods upon Olympus, or ever Allah was Allah, had wrought and rested MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ."

He first appears at the beginning of The Gods of Pegāna:

• "In the mists before the Beginning, Fate and Chance cast lots to decide whose the Game should be; and he that won strode through the mists to MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ and said: "Now make gods for Me, for I have won the cast and the Game is to be Mine." "

In other words, the creator god obeys either Fate or Chance, though it is not disclosed which.

In the mythology of the books, he created the gods and then was made to sleep, kept that way by the continual drumming of Skarl the Drummer, since when he awakes he will destroy the world and all the other gods and create them anew.

No-one may pray to MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ, as any prayer would awaken him from his slumber. Even so, there is a cult of MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ, led by the prophet Ood and a group of priests. Since they are forbidden from praying to MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ, they chant day and night in an attempt to awaken MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ to bring about the end of the world.

When MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ awakens, the world will end:

• "But, when at the last the arm of Skarl shall cease to beat his drum, silence shall startle Pegāna like thunder in a cave, and MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ shall cease to rest..."

The more I read fantasy the more I appreciate Dunsany. There's just something authentic about his work, it's like all the other fantasy writers that came after him completely missed the point of the genre.

So I came down through the wood to the bank of Yann and found, as had been prophesied, the ship Bird of the River about to loose her cable.

The captain sate cross-legged upon the white deck with his scimitar lying beside him in its jewelled scabbard, and the sailors toiled to spread the nimble sails to bring the ship into the central stream of Yann, and all the while sang ancient soothing songs. And the wind of the evening descending cool from the snowfields of some mountainous abode of distant gods came suddenly, like glad tidings to an anxious city, into the wing-like sails.

And so we came into the central stream, whereat the sailors lowered the greater sails. But I had gone to bow before the captain, and to inquire concerning the miracles, and appearances among men, of the most holy gods of whatever land he had come from. And the captain answered that he came from fair Belzoond, and worshipped gods that were the least and humblest, who seldom sent the famine or the thunder, and were easily appeased with little battles. And I told how I came from Ireland, which is of Europe, whereat the captain and all the sailors laughed, for they said, 'There are no such places in all the land of dreams.' When they had ceased to mock me, I explained that my fancy mostly dwelt in the desert of Cuppar-Nombo, about a beautiful blue city called Golthoth the Damned, which was sentinelled all round by wolves and their shadows, and had been utterly desolate for years and years because of a curse which the gods once spoke in anger and could never since recall. And sometimes my dreams took me as far as Pungar Vees, the red-walled city where the fountains are, which trades with the Isles and Thul. When I said this they complimented me upon the abode of my fancy, saying that, though they had never seen these cities, such places might well be imagined.

 

[Barghest]

I love Lovecraft, but honestly this isn't a very good game. I feel bad that I backed it.

 

[veevoir]

Patch is out. "Companions can also perform crafting now"

Changes:

• Credits video

Improvements:

• Improve inventory active handset sync after combat
  
• Companions can also perform crafting now

Fixes:

• Fix combat logs that are appearing on Desktop.
  
• MacOS Retina resolution issues
  
• Fix dropdown does not read display resolutions in settings
  
• Winston and Wilkins spawned in the attic even they are killed
  
• Character Creator summary screen placeholder text removed
  
• Chinese Look-At pop-up display time fixed
  
• Fix tough characters’ throwable issue
  
• Fix dead enemies being looted after combat ends
  
• Isidore's challenge UI must be inactivated if TheBankOfLunatics is active
  
• Fix reload shortcut “R” not working / blocking the game
  
• Sonia Greene Carter intro dialogue 2 token
  
• Grimoire HP Cost Display Issue
  
• Blood Circle wrong spell cost description (numeric)
  
• If an equipped item is not present in inventory, causes soft lock after trading
  
• Outsider Cutscene Issue In Old Eel Attic

 

[Van-d-all]

Yeah, 1.0.3 just came out and right off the bat, if you create an aristocrat character, the butler is broken and doesn't follow you. Funnily enough I was just about to test how viable is it to get him killed early on.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Fedora Master]

Patch is out. "Companions can also perform crafting now"

Changes:

• Credits video

Improvements:

• Improve inventory active handset sync after combat
  
• Companions can also perform crafting now

Fixes:

• Fix combat logs that are appearing on Desktop.
  
• MacOS Retina resolution issues
  
• Fix dropdown does not read display resolutions in settings
  
• Winston and Wilkins spawned in the attic even they are killed
  
• Character Creator summary screen placeholder text removed
  
• Chinese Look-At pop-up display time fixed
  
• Fix tough characters’ throwable issue
  
• Fix dead enemies being looted after combat ends
  
• Isidore's challenge UI must be inactivated if TheBankOfLunatics is active
  
• Fix reload shortcut “R” not working / blocking the game
  
• Sonia Greene Carter intro dialogue 2 token
  
• Grimoire HP Cost Display Issue
  
• Blood Circle wrong spell cost description (numeric)
  
• If an equipped item is not present in inventory, causes soft lock after trading
  
• Outsider Cutscene Issue In Old Eel Attic

Even the patch notes contain spelling errors.

 

[V_K]

house of spectres

Spoiler

where do i learn answer to question about spectres given name? Must have missed some clue

Spoiler

You haven't.

Spoiler

The correct answer is "I don't know".