Lovecraft Tales

Lovecraft Tales is an adventure game with RPG and survival features released on PC and inspired by the work of the master of scary tales, Howard Philips Lovecraft. The title was created by a Polish studio, Crystalvision, led by Sewer Hrehorowicz – the co-creator of platform game OddPlanet released in 2013. The game was in development for a few years during which the studio was also working on other digital projects unrelated to video games.

Plot

The story of Lovecraft Tales takes place in Vermont, New England – in the area that is well known by fans of Lovecraft’s work – and it contains motives taken from master’s stories related to the so-called Cthulhu mythology. What’s characteristic for the game is that it doesn’t have a specific story objective. During the game, players complete various tasks in order to combine uncovered tracks and pieces of notes into one, consistent whole. The order in which player completes missions and how much he gets into the game depends only on him. The game can be completed without learning anything about its story. On the other hand, the necessity to make decisions that exclude each other makes it impossible to learn everything about the story during a single playthrough.

Mechanics

Lovecraft Tales combines features of classic point-and-click adventure games with traits of RPG and survival games. The action takes place in a large, open world, traveling through which can take even a few days for the protagonist. Due to the fact, the protagonist must eat and drink, find a safe place for the night and take care of his mental state threatened by various supernatural dark forces.

Most of the game player explores, completes various story tasks and speaks with NPCs. What’s interesting, the attitude of other characters towards the player depends on what choices had he made during the game. Hence, the NPCs can prove to be very helpful or they can make things harder. The game also contains sequences during which the protagonist can die. Depending on the selected difficulty level, the death can be permanent or not.

Technical aspects

Lovecraft Tales released on PC was developed by using the popular Unity engine. The style of the game is similar to such games like Limbo and the previously mentioned OddPlanet. What’s characteristic for the game is the fact that it combines 2D and 3D elements and that it has hand-drawn graphics inspired by the German romanticism and by the works of such painters like Caspar David Friedrich. An original, climatic soundtrack also helps in creating dark tune of the game.

Last updated on June 12, 2016