The innsmouth case test6/17/2023 ![]() However, on the Xbox One version of the game, the sensitivity of the A button is so high that I was often skipping pages, making choices I hadn’t even seen and sometimes wasn’t aware of. The gameplay of The Innsmouth Case solely includes clicking through pages of writing, and choosing dialogue options or actions. Source: Screen capture – Conor Smith Gameplay and Accessibility I wasn’t invested at any point, and while RobotPumpkin is a German developer, I feel the writing of the game wasn’t sophisticated enough to pull off any layers of subtlety or nuance. I couldn’t quite appreciate them, however, as I never felt the story had earnt it. While I personally didn’t get on with Innsmouth‘s story, I think fans of very silly humour in a Lovecraft setting will enjoy the twists and turns of the jokes inside the game. To progress through the game, you need to pick the right option, and it often isn’t the one you’d instinctively choose. While I occasionally enjoyed picking the right choices in dialogue decisions to get an item that would unlock a new area, the game defeats any sort of role-playing available, because there are strict paths that get you from A to B down different storylines. Source: Screen capture – Conor SmithĪs far as story goes, each character you are introduced to is wildly eccentric and a variation on a cult member, fish person, or crazy person. I declined Dahlia’s offer to visit Innsmouth to search for her missing daughter, and thus I got my first ending of a possible 27: ‘Let’s call it a day!’ Okay, I thought, so I’m going to have to play along if I want to see what the game has to offer. The choices you have for dialogue are only ever ridiculous, ignorant, or clever, with his commentary throughout being unnecessarily antagonistic, rendering his personality unlikeable.įor instance, I went into this game trying to play as intelligently as possible – prepared for the game to be a test of survival. ![]() ![]() Firstly, the protagonist you play as is completely unrelatable. There are multiple problems that players will run into if they try to take this game seriously. This is a comedy, and an incredibly silly one that wears a Lovecraft skin. ![]() This is not a horror narrative in the vein of Lovecraft‘s unique cosmic, psychological terror. This was such an incongruent shift in tone – an unsuccessful attempt at bathos – that it really sums up what the game’s going for. When Dahlia shows you a photograph of her daughter, Tabitha, the camera zooms in on the child’s face with dramatic music, and the detective character you play as comments on the strange appearance of the child. While I found the writing and characters to be cliché, it was soon clear that these clichés were being used for comical effect. The first character introduced to you is Dahlia Marsh, the game’s femme fatale who asks you to find her missing daughter. The Innsmouth Case begins with the exact same scenario as 2018’s Call of Cthulhu: you are an alcoholic and failing private investigator slumped in your office, when a case walks in the door and prompts you to go to a secluded coastal town where (most likely) the residents are members of an Ancient One-worshipping cult. Source: Screen capture – Conor Smith Narrative and Tone While my text adventure experience is limited, having played Zork once or twice through another popular game, I was interested as a literature student and writer in how the merging of reading and gaming would be executed. Yet here comes The Innsmouth Case, a seemingly original take on the Lovecraft formula by placing its narrative within the text adventure structure, where the story is tailored to your choices. While some still remember the 2005 cult classic, Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, we’ve also received the detective titles Call of Cthulhu and The Sinking City alongside the recent film adaptation starring Nicolas Cage, Color Out of Space. Lovecraft, known for his Cthulhu mythos and unique underwater cosmic horror, has enjoyed a resurgence of interest and adaptations in recent memory. The Innsmouth Case, developed by RobotPumpkin Games, is a text adventure game based on the works of H.
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