Lovecraft is kind of an odd slice of horror, because a decade of pop culture references and cuddly board game expansions have somewhat dulled the visceral horror of a big ol' squid-boy eating a planet. I've been DMing a cosmic horror campaign for the last six months or so, and I've given a lot of thought to what makes horror tick—particularly Lovecraftian horror.

Unfortunately it's not ticking so much in the arcadey Lovecraft's Untold Stories. Like any Lovecraft protagonist, the game seems a bit befuddled and maddened, pulling a mish-mash of trendy pseudo-roguelite mechanics into a spooky, roaring twenties twin-stick dungeon crawler. The problem is that these trendy mechanics don't quite fit into a spooky, roaring twenties setting.

Action-crawler (Gungeon, Isaac, Nuclear Throne, e.g.) game design is very much at odds with the slow burn of cosmic horror setting, which means Lovecraft's Untold Stories is doomed to disappoint. Examples? Well, you use the right stick to shoot! Cool, except your weapons are old timey boomsticks and the like, with some weird omnidirectional issues that don't feel good. Status effects like madness and bleeding are very punishing and need special treatment! Great, except this is an action game full of frequent combat and having an inventory full of fiddly junk is grating when you need to eat your damned antitoxin. Enemy design is really creepy and weird and cool! Ok, but having bloodrunes block every exit before you even see the monster somewhat dulls the impact of an encounter, turning it into an arena brawl rather than an encounter with unfathomable beings of darkness.

There's a reason many effective Lovecraftian games use little to no combat. Combat gives the player power, and power inoculates the player against the horror of the unknown... because they can just shoot the unknown. But an action dungeon crawler needs combat, which leaves these untold stories at an impasse.

One example here is the first boss. Going from rando cultists to a cosmic starspawn in one staircase isn't good cosmic horror pacing... at least slip in some Cats of Ulthar or a ghoul before you go full tentacle titan. It doesn't help the fight pins you in a hall right away and is brutally unfun, but the bigger problem is that nobody should punch out Cthulhu in chapter one, y'know?

I didn't make it much further into the second level. The game structure seems interesting (collect clues on various old ones, most of which are character or dungeon exclusive) but it's also a bit befuddling. Technically the game isn't actually a roguelite—dying just restarts you at the beginning of the level with your character state rewound—but it feels like it should be. As is, going through the exact same rooms again with the exact same enemies, encounters and treasures is a bit dull, which is particularly bad for that Lovecraft atmosphere.

Anyway, it might be fair to say I didn't give Lovecraft's Untold Stories enough of a chance—I'd suggest checking out other reviews if it seems like I'm unfairly writing the game off after an hour. There's some great ideas in the game—I liked the text based encounters with cursed objects, even if a lot of them were a bit "HEY REMEMBER CTHULHU?" It just feels like an odd genre mashup, and the structure and pacing are a little too loose to hook me into the madness.

Lovecraft is kind of an odd slice of horror, because a decade of pop culture references and cuddly board game expansions have somewhat dulled the visceral horror of a big ol' squid-boy eating a planet. I've been DMing a cosmic horror campaign for the last six months or so, and I've given a lot of thought to what makes horror tick—particularly Lovecraftian horror. Unfortunately it's not ticking so much in the arcadey Lovecraft's Untold Stories. Like any Lovecraft protagonist, the game seems a bit befuddled and maddened, pulling a mish-mash of trendy pseudo-roguelite mechanics into a spooky, roaring twenties twin-stick dungeon crawler. The problem is that these trendy mechanics don't quite fit into a spooky, roaring twenties setting. Action-crawler (Gungeon, Isaac, Nuclear Throne, e.g.) game design is very much at odds with the slow burn of cosmic horror setting, which means Lovecraft's Untold Stories is doomed to disappoint. Examples? Well, you use the right stick to shoot! Cool, except your weapons are old timey boomsticks and the like, with some weird omnidirectional issues that don't feel good. Status effects like madness and bleeding are very punishing and need special treatment! Great, except this is an action game full of frequent combat and having an inventory full of fiddly junk is grating when you need to eat your damned antitoxin. Enemy design is really creepy and weird and cool! Ok, but having bloodrunes block every exit before you even see the monster somewhat dulls the impact of an encounter, turning it into an arena brawl rather than an encounter with unfathomable beings of darkness. There's a reason many effective Lovecraftian games use little to no combat. Combat gives the player power, and power inoculates the player against the horror of the unknown... because they can just shoot the unknown. But an action dungeon crawler [i]needs[/i] combat, which leaves these untold stories at an impasse. One example here is the first boss. Going from rando cultists to a [spoiler]cosmic starspawn[/spoiler] in one staircase isn't good cosmic horror pacing... at least slip in some Cats of Ulthar or a ghoul before you go full [spoiler]tentacle titan[/spoiler]. It doesn't help the fight pins you in a hall right away and is brutally unfun, but the bigger problem is that nobody should punch out Cthulhu in chapter one, y'know? I didn't make it much further into the second level. The game structure seems interesting (collect clues on various old ones, most of which are character or dungeon exclusive) but it's also a bit befuddling. Technically the game isn't actually a roguelite—dying just restarts you at the beginning of the level with your character state rewound—but it feels like it should be. As is, going through the exact same rooms again with the exact same enemies, encounters and treasures is a bit dull, which is particularly bad for that Lovecraft atmosphere. Anyway, it might be fair to say I didn't give Lovecraft's Untold Stories enough of a chance—I'd suggest checking out other reviews if it seems like I'm unfairly writing the game off after an hour. There's some great ideas in the game—I liked the text based encounters with cursed objects, even if a lot of them were a bit "HEY REMEMBER CTHULHU?" It just feels like an odd genre mashup, and the structure and pacing are a little too loose to hook me into the madness.