Video games, that is, and PC games in particular. Here's a rundown of the top Lovecraft-inspired games and their best moments. Mild spoilers coming up, but they won't ruin the game.
Here we go, in suspense-filled reverse order:
5: Penumbra
Indie developer Frictional Games' two-hit punch consists of Overture and The Black Plague. The episodes are two halves of the Penumbra series, representing around 10 hours gameplay in total, and could be classified as first-person adventure games, with dollops of action. Both are great and horrible in their own way, but they get the scary bits right.
Moment: You're stuck down an abandoned mine in Greenland. You find a mining office with some scattered letters around the place, hinting at spiders or some such. You think you're alone, but you hear someone behind a locked door. You try to find a way in, which eventually takes you under the floor boards. You crouch around, looking for a way into the room above, with no weapons and meager lighting. It's not long before you pass through the cobwebs... and that's when you hear the scratching.
4. Lovecraft Country: Arkham By Night
Skotos has an interesting portfolio of online games. They're all text-based -- or 'prose-roleplaying' --games, kind of like a MUD, but this whacky company has the audacity to charge you for it. It's a good thing the games are worth it, even though the text parser is arse.
Lovecraft Country is one of the games available. It foregoes stats, combat, quests and other nonsense for straight up roleplaying in a perpetual night-time representation of 1930s Miskatonic University. Oh, and the university and its surrounds are enveloped in a mysterious fog that kills people. You'll probably spend hours looking for something to do -- like, say, investigate that strange fog -- but most players seem content to just hang out at the pub. Kind of like a regular university.
Moment: One night, I ended up back in my dorm room with a girl. She said she'd help me study, but when we entered the room, she adopted a coy demeanor and started batting her eyes before reclining lazily on the bed. I was so scared I ran out of the room. I waited a few minutes to compose myself and figured I'd just walk right back in and lie to her. I opened the door and she was still there, on the bed, in full reclination. She asked why I ran out of the room. I said I'd heard something and went to investigate, but she didn't buy it. Instead, she stood up, walked over to me and unzipped my fly. Oh, the horror.
3. Shadow of the Comet
Infogrames' Shadow of the Comet is like a Lovecraft cocktail. It's as pointy and clicky as adventure games get, and the CD version makes it speaky as well. The sequel, Prisoner of Ice, is apparently the lesser game, but I've not played it.
Moment: I'm going to cheat and repeat myself from an earlier post. The CD version also comes with a virtual Lovecraft Museum. There's an immense collection of paintings, statues and other objects found in the Lovecraft canon, all with sweet little descriptions and brilliant pixel art. When I figure out a way to get DOSBox to take screenshots, I'll post them. Problem solved, check it out.
2. Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth
Despite its name, Bethesda's Lovecraft opus is really an action-packed retelling of The Shadow Over Innsmouth. It wasn't nearly as successful as it should have been, which is probably a consequence of it being too first-person shootery for the survival horror crowd, and too survival horrory for the first-person shooter crowd. Nonetheless, it's more than suitable for the Lovecraft crowd, particularly the first half of the game -- no guns, just mystery, suspense, and a creaking creepiness.
Moment: You wake up to an angry mob beating down the door to your hotel room. There's another door leading to an adjoining room, so you rush through the door, close it, and lock it -- but what about the door leading to the hallway? You sprint across the room and slide the bolt, but the mob's still coming. Heart racing, you run through the next adjoining door, and close the door behind you, lock it and do the same to the hallway door. Again, you head through the adjoining door, close it, lock-- shit, the lock's broken. You grab the wardrobe and drag it across the door, but you're taking too long. The hallway door smashes open and there's only one way out: through the window...
1. Anchorhead
It's almost too easy to give the top spot to Mike Gentry's Anchorhead. The tight prose and rich plot comes closer to Lovecraft than anything I've read -- in any medium -- and the logical puzzles and steady pace make this one of the best text-adventures of all time. Gentry is apparently working on a special edition, which can't come too soon.
Moment: It's hard to choose the best moment. Maybe it's something obvious like being trapped down a well while a monstrous thing stomps around above you. Or perhaps something subtler, like the feeling of loneliness and isolation when your husband suddenly becomes despondent and preoccupied with something else. Or maybe the most defining moment is when you're looking through a telescope and see an unimaginable horror flying through space -- and on closer inspection, you discover it's looking DIRECTLY AT YOU.
Adam Byrne sends us word that upcoming comic The Strange Adventures of HP Lovecraft is expected to hit stores by September this year.
