Eldritch (PC)

Today on Super Adventures I'm taking a look at another request: indie first person... video game Eldritch.

The word 'eldritch' is closely associated with H.P. Lovecraft's horror stories and is defined as meaning "unearthly, alien, supernatural, weird, spooky or eerie". I'm just trying to pad out this introduction a bit to be honest, because I've haven't even got a clue what this game is about. That suits me just fine though really, as it's been weeks since I've been able to come at a game armed only with absolute ignorance and be able to share my true first impressions of it afterwards.

Like always I'll give it an hour or two to impress me, then document my findings in the form of screenshots with words underneath them.

Whoa, it's like I'm walking around inside a SNES RPG. I mean seriously those are 16x16 pixel sized textures, exactly the size of the tiles in a 16-bit era console game. I suspected from the start that this wasn't likely to be running on CryENGINE 3, but the style the developers have chosen here is very... oh hang on, they're just just trying to imitate Minecraft aren't they?

I walked up to the book on the left and found that I could activate it to bring up a list of people who have borrowed library books in the last four months. I have no idea if that's going to be an important clue later but there's not much I can do about it now either way. I'll hold off scribbling the info down onto my notepad for the time being.

Interacting with the desk lamp made the room a bit darker; not entirely happy with the results of that either.

Awesome, using the mirror brought up a character select menu! Definitely more interesting than turning a light off.

You're looking at the entire entire selection here, just four bodies and four heads for each gender, so if you want your skin tones and body parts to match up your choices are going to be very limited. I tried to put together the woman from the title screen, but there just isn't a safari helmet and goggles there to pick from.

Whatever, it's not like I'm likely to see my reflection again.

Ah, this book's way more useful than the last one, assuming it's non-fiction. I mean I am in a library.

It turns out that I'm stuck in an infinite library on Groundhog Day, but the good news is that I'm sharing this prison with obscene books of unspeakable horror. That sounds like set up for a Twilight joke, but I think it's actually 80 years too early for that.

The writer believes that ancient deities are contained within these books, possibly because they glow and look scary. I'm not sure that this explorer really got how books work though, seeing as they've written the title 'Explorer's Journal, Page 2' across two pages.

Seems that this room is the tutorial section of the library, with the books on display teaching the basics of jumping, sprinting and power sliding. Gotta say, I wasn't expecting there to be a rally mini-game in a Lovecraftian first person adventure, but... oh it's just a way to do a running slide move.

Over yonder is an adjacent room with a chest and sparkly books so I'll go over there next, arms held out like I'm pretending to be Superman. Wooosh!

Oh cool, there's bottles of Hop over here... plus a slab of meat just lying on the table. I'm starting to worry that this is going to turn out to be a roguelike. The fact I can bank my collected coins in the chest next to me isn't a reassuring sign.

Well picking up the bottle did nothing, so I guess I'll go investigate what the sparkly book behind me says.

Uh... okay then.

Well now I know that sparkling books are a portal to the Minecraft dimension. I'm a little concerned that unspeakable evil is waiting just behind that wall of blocks to flay my skin with a half-glance, but staying here won't make me any safer. At least I'm well equipped for this expedition into madness, with my mini-map and bottle of Hop.

OH SHIT! I think it saw me.

Nope, the cultist guy is losing interest and walking away now; crisis averted.

I guess that green icon to his right points the way to the exit, but right now it's floating in front of a pile of bricks and to get behind them it seems that'll I need to go down a few floors.

Nothing in this room next to me except another mysterious sparkling object. I'll just walk over and stick my hand on it then I suppose, seeing as that worked out so well last time.

I should mention that I swapped my bottle for a stone and a gun I found just lying on the ground. I can carry two weapons but only one of them can be equipped at a time, as I have to keep my other hand in a permanent outstretched fist to intimidate my opponents.

Turns out that touching mysterious sparkly statues gets me a single form of magic, so my foolish curiosity paid off this time. Though it does come with a TERRIBLE COST: 10 coins every time I cast a spell.

Oh so that's what the other hand's for! The right hand's for violence and the left hand is for sorcery, a bit like in the Bioshock games.

Hmm, there's a motionless grey coil over there next to a ledge. Somehow I doubt it's a spring, but it doesn't seem to be attacking me either. I'll go over and investigate.

HOLYFUCKASS!

Man, I can't believe that actually made me jump. It made me jump back in the game as well, which is why I'm so far away in this screenshot, but the damn thing waited until I was standing right next to it to snap at me! Fortunately my ninja instincts kicked in and I unloaded my pistol directly into its head. Then I threw my rock. Then I picked it up and threw it again.

The bloody rock then bounced off the wall and hit me. The monster didn't so much as scratch me, but I still limped away from that 'fight' with no weapons and 1 hit point.

Ah, but there's some dynamite in here I can use. I'm going to try throwing it at that guy in the cloak I saw roaming around earlier. I can hear his footsteps coming from the other side of the wall and it's undesirably unnerving, so I'd like to put an end to that.


A FEW SECONDS LATER.

Shit, all I did was piss him off! That smoke on the right is from the fireball I just narrowly dodged, and now he's getting ready to throw another one at me. Bloody pyrokinetic Jawas.

Oh wow, that worked? I threw a single stone at him and knocked him out in a cloud of pixel blood.

I'm definitely keeping hold of this thing. The game gives me a message saying that I can loot corpses, but at a terrible price: the monster might respawn somewhere. I searched him anyway and got a single coin for my trouble.

By the way that's not PlayStation 1 style texture warping that's making the tiles look like that, it's just a deliberately uneven 3D floor mesh. You can see a bit of the wall bending out on the left in fact.

Hmm, that fish man over there doesn't seem so quick to spit fireballs at me, so I'm thinking he might be friendly. That's the trouble with playing a game like this for the first time, I have no idea who down here wants to kill me or how they plan to do it.

Hang on, this is a shop isn't it! Man, I knew I was getting Spelunky vibes from this place.

25 artifact coins to reduce the artifact cost of using my special powers? Sorry, could you be a little more vague please. I'm not sure I want it and I'm absolutely certain I can't afford it, but I could always try stealing it anyway.

Nah, I don't think I want to see that fish guy leap over the counter at me with a shotgun right now. I did manage to heal myself back to full health earlier by eating meat so I might be able to take him, but... nah. Maybe later.

Hmm, do I want to spend one of my precious scavenged keys to open this cell? Well I'm not all that sure I want to fight those hardened criminal spiders with just a stone... so I'll switch to this knife I found and stab them up close instead!

Oh crap, well there goes the stone anyway. I'd have to go all the way down there to get it back out from the spike traps.

I guess I'll replace it with one of the pistols I found in the cell until I find a way to reclaim it. Revolvers are great, but three shots isn't much compared to an infinitely reusable rock.


LATER.

I'm a fuckin' idiot. Turns out that revolvers aren't just three shot disposable items, the ammo stacks every time I collect another one. You know, like in every first person shooter ever.

On the plus side I've finally found my way around this maze to the level exit! It was a few floors down like I expected, though I definitely didn't travel a straight line getting here. But my ordeal in this 3D maze is over now; I can finally relax again in my cosy library and bank the 55 artifact coins I've collected.

Hey, where's all the books? Why are the walls are covered in moss? What's with the eerie distorted guitar-like sounds in the background? Wait a minute, I don't think this is the library at all!

Speaking of sounds, the audio in this game really helps bring it to life. I might not be able to see all that many enemies nearby but I can sure hear them. Especially those spiders and their mechanical tapping sound.


LATER.

Floating eyeballs now, huh? I'm guessing that thing will be a threat, but the guy on the left looks a lot like the friendly fishy shopkeeper on the last level. I'm not sure I want to fight either of them though, as it'd be a waste of my precious bullets, so I'll keep my head down and try to get around without antagonising them. If I stay out of their line of sight and avoid making a sound they shouldn't even know I'm here.

Last one of those purple plants down there I saw turned out to be toxic, so I'll avoid that as well.

Aw crap, the eye saw me! Fireballs are a popular weapon down here in the caves of evil it seems, I should probably consider myself lucky the spiders don't throw them too.

Fine you monocular malcontent, have a few bullets right back at you! Right in the fuckin' bullseye.

Oh now the fish guy wants some too? You can have a couple between the eyes as well mate. Who'd have thought that shooting off a firearm in a small cave would give away my presence like this? Fortunately that seems to be all of them for now.

Hey is that the level exit over there on the left? You know I believe it is.

Okay now I'm on level three... I think. All these areas all look the same to me.

This water fountain just ahead is pretty rare sight though. They restore health and give me an extra heart permanently, which kind of makes this whole expedition worth it really. I should bottle some of this up and sell it to medical science.

Oh also my sparkly left hand magic was a pretty good find as well. Right now I've got a spell that can unlock anything at the cost of 4 coins, which is a bargain compared to the price of keys. It can also be used to knock on walls and distract enemies, which is something I hadn't even considered trying. I bet stones and that bottle of Hop would be good for that too.


SOON.

Okay these cultists have become a lot less of a concern now that I know I can headshot them from across the level with a single bullet. Through knowledge I have become mighty. Though I really hope he's carrying some ammo on him as I'm burning through my extremely limited supply by doing this all the time.

Oh cool, I've found a Soul of Dagon. I guess this that spirit of an ancient deity lying dormant in a book I read about at the start. Gotta catch 'em all.

I suppose that's it then, three floors and I'm out. Honestly I'm surprised it wasn't 10.

It's over now! I can finally relax again in my cosy library and bank the 90 artifact coins I've collected.

I never did get the chance to look around this place earlier before I was so rudely swept away by a book, so I think I'm going to go and explore the place. Maybe I'll find some other non-sparkly books to read upstairs.


BUT THEN...

Huh, were books not quite extreme enough on their own for the guy who used to sit here? I'm getting the feeling that these librarians might have been staring into madness too long.

Well it turns out that the library is pretty much just multiple floors of what you're seeing here, with the higher level just giving me further to fall. At least now I know how far I can safely drop down before I start taking damage.


LATER.

Dagon's soul opened up the next book, so I figured I should check that set of levels out as well and see if the challenge level ramps up at all (as I pretty much walked through the first set of stages). See the screenshot above for the short answer to that.

As far as I can tell, these stone lizard statues are immobile and invulnerable when you can see them, and if you can't see them then you're really in trouble. They're like those Weeping Angels from Doctor Who, except worse because they're after me this time. Still, I had a good run and increased my max hitpoints to 7 by the time they finally got me.

But when I resurrected back at the library I was given a clean slate! 3 hit points, 0 artifacts, 0 keys, 0 bullets. The second book is still unlocked, but if I can't survive it with 7 hit points I'm hardly going to try a second expedition with 3 hearts am I? I know you probably would, but then you're better at games than me.

Alright then, back to book #1 again to find myself some health increase fountains.


EVENTUALLY.

This might not be Minecraft, but it turns out that I do have some small way to leave my influence on the terrain, by using bundles of dynamite to create shortcuts through walls and floors.

I figured this out by accident when I tried to kill a snake and managed to blast down through the ceiling of a shop beneath me instead. It wasn't my fault, they'd moved the place since the last time I was on this level! A whole lot of things are different in fact, as it seems that the levels are procedurally regenerated every time my hero meets an untimely demise.

Fortunately the shopkeeper was much more chill about my property damage than the ones in Spelunky, so I was able to get away without being blasted with buckshot.

Well my second run through the first book got me absolutely zero health upgrades, so I decided to check out the free Mountains of Madness expansion book instead.

(Not pictured: giant scary penguins.)

Okay this really IS Minecraft right now.

This pick I just found is amazing at cutting paths through blocks, letting me dig right through to the exit and skip the entire level (and all the loot, sadly). At least it was amazing, until the bloody thing snapped on me halfway through a cutting another tunnel on the next level. It choose a good time to go however, as a few more bricks down and I would've been caught in a self-made pit, too deep to jump back out of.

As far as I can tell from skimming wikipedia this expansion is vaguely based on the Lovecraft story of the same name, beginning outside in snowy Antarctica before heading down into an ancient alien city built from stone.

It's also kicking my ass, as I'm already down to just a single hitpoint and a rock. Now I'm having to rely on more advanced strategies such as 'sneaking', 'running', and 'picking the stone back up and throwing it at the monster for a third time'. Fortunately crouching seems to dampen my footsteps and I can lean around corners to spy on the Lovercraftian abominations. With a bit of patience and careful observation I think I may still have a chance here.

Or I could try punching Lobster Cthulhu to death with my bare fists. How d'ya like that shit, Zoidberg?

(He ended up kicking my ass right back to square one).


CONCLUSION

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Personally I'm not a fan of 'lose everything when you die' roguelike-style systems, I find them really demoralising especially when there's max health upgrades involved. Okay fine you can bank your cash in this after a successful run, but I never had a chance to even spend the stuff... because by the time I had enough to spend on anything I'd want I was already back home again, and banking it all. Personally it puts me in a 'nope, never going to finish this, don't even try' frame of mind, which perhaps exaggerates the challenge level for me.

I mean I only died twice during my entire play time, which really doesn't make it seem like the most difficult game in the world. But it sure feels that way to me when I can go from 7 hit points to death a blink of an eye, then realise I have to replay it all from the beginning again, even if I'll actually be replaying a newly generated set of levels each time. Rogue Legacy and Super House of Dead Ninjas kept me interested with persistent upgrades I could accumulate, while Spelunky has its daily challenge. In this on the other hand... all I get to show for my trouble is a chest of artifact coins and only if I choose not to spend it.

That aside... this seems like a nice little game, I like it and I'll probably go back to it even if I'm not hopeful I'll ever finish the thing. I'm not sure that imitating PlayStation 1 graphics was really the best way to capture Lovecraftian horror, but it has its own consistent charm to it, and it sounds as cartoony and creepy as it looks.

Fortunately unlike a lot of PlayStation games it doesn't suffer from the 'horror games have to be a pain in the ass to control' philosophy, and it's actually a pleasure to get around the levels in it. One thing I didn't mention is that you can pull yourself up two-block high walls or slide through holes which gives you more mobility than a lot of the enemies. Even shanking shoggoths is surprisingly slick and I managed to punch out three of those fishmen at once one time. Not that it saved me in the end.

I'd say if what I've shown of it looks interesting to you, then you should give it a try some time as it really is pretty good. Just don't be shocked if you fly through the whole game in just a few hours.

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That's what I thought about Eldritch anyway. But as always you're welcome and encouraged to share your own thoughts on the game, my article, the site in general etc.

Next week: Another game beginning with E, huge shock.