Dealing with backlog: Lovecraftian themed games, part 1

So I noticed that I had a whole bunch of Lovecraftian themed games in my Steam library and decided to go through them all. These are all games I've bought over the years but never played because other games held my attention more. 

Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth. This is an old Bethesda game from 2006 and I probably got this game two PCs ago and it has since just sat in my library. All the negative reviews on Steam talked about this game not working unless you fiddled with ini files and downloaded mods and patches to make it work on modern systems. To nobody's surprise it didn't work. And I couldn't be bothered to do all the fiddling and trouble-shooting.

Conarium. This is a puzzle adventure game of the walking sim variety. It isn't exactly scary but it keeps an unsettling vibe throughout, which I really enjoy. There's a lot of things they've drawn from the Cthulhu Mythos and storywise this seems to be a fanfiction sequel to At the Mountains of Madness which has to be one of my favourite Lovecraft stories overall (tekeli-li?). I played through the whole thing in one sitting and the only annoying segment was the part where I was being chased by mummies. Both endings were really cool. 

Dagon: by H.P. Lovecraft. This is a visual novel audiobook of Lovecraft's short story Dagon, which was the first story in the Cthulhu Mythos. This whole game is a deep-dive into Lovecraft's life and career, with tidbits of information around the author himself and his Cthulhu Mythos in-between story segments. Dagon is a very good introduction to the Mythos and a really chilling short story overall. Having it read out loud as an audiobook with visual elements to help only made it so much better.

Darkness Within: In Pursuit of Loath Nolder. This is a point-and-click adventure puzzle game from 2007 and I half expected it wouldn't work, but it worked surprisingly well. With only the small caveat that I had to play it in a window instead of fullscreen because the text became too pixalated to read in fullscreen. The game is about a man slowly descending into madness after glimpsing the beyond, in true Lovecraft fashion, and I had a really good time with it. 

Darkness Within 2: The Dark Lineage. The continuation of the previous game, with the same protag. Same thing with having to play in windowed mode or everything would be too pixelated to read. This game had a lot more clear and obvious Lovecraftian references, rather than the "inspired by" that the previous game was. This sequel had more infuriating puzzles though and sometimes Howard refused to go through a door or open a cabinet because he couldn't see it (but I could) until he turned on the flashlight. Tiny annoyances that made the experience a bit lesser than the previous game. Still had a good time with it!

Forgive Me Father. This is an arena shooter with a Lovecraftian spin. I'm not very good at these types of game because they're so fast-paced and I can't aim quick enough. That said my first session lasted two hours and I managed to beat the first boss. There is a story element of course, but I'm generally too busy being stressed about the pace to pay attention. But while I did have some fun with the fast-paced gameplay, in the end I felt no incentive to come back to it. Ultimately not my kind of game, despite the Lovecraftian theme.

I technically have a bunch more Lovecraftian themed game in my library, but after months of only playing small games (either action or adventure puzzle) I really felt the need to deep dive into a huge expansive open world RPG again. So this will be part 1.