The Terrible Old Man is a free point and click horror adventure game developed by Cloak and Dagger Games who based it on the short story āThe Terrible Old Manā by H.P. Lovecraft. The developers had previously created titles like Sumatra: Fate of Yandi and Football Game, which while I have absolutely no clue what those were about. However after buying the Collectorās Edition DLC at some point, I was able to find more information about the title. The title had started development in early 2015 for a monthly game jam for The Adventure Game Studio website, and Shaun Aitcheson had decided to develop an adaptation of the short story after re-reading old Lovecraft tales. After having finished Sumatra: Fate of Yandi, they decided to re-work this title with a bit more extra additions before releasing it for free on Steam. As for me, Iām not even sure how I ran across this game; I probably just saw it included in some Lovecraft curator thing and gave it a shot. How is āThe Terrible Old Manā, is it solid? The plot is mostly a verbatim adaptation of H.P. Lovecraftās āThe Terrible Old Manā and as such, you could just as easily read the short story and go from there. In fact, Iād encourage it as itāll be way more interesting then a re-telling I could give here. If you donāt feel like reading the short story, Iāll put in a Wikipedia link for the article related to the short story and itāll basically be the same thing. How do I feel about the short story personally? I think itās solid, though it left me wanting to know MORE about who or what the old man actually was, or what his powers were. Regardless, not much to say except plot good. In fact, there isnāt really too much I can say about the game gameplay wise either, as itās a literal point and click game where you talk to people, and the matter of fact is that itās so small that there isnāt really much to say about it except give it a thumbs up. The most Iāll say is this: donāt forget to exhaust all the dialogue with the bartender, though Iāll include a guide down below. The most sound design there is for the game is the soundtrack, composed by John Inch, which mostly consists of ambient droning sounds and three extra tracks (included in the special edition) that has two more droning tracks and a track that includes droning, but with more creepiness to it (aka the song: āAnxiety Descendingā, the perfect descriptor). This game is about atmosphere, with not much more in the way of actual songs or varied instrumentals. Itās here for the horror and it stays for the horror; and that much is obvious if youāve seen the hand drawn artwork, programmed and animated to include animations such as eyebrow furrows and head movements which provide this creepy sort of movement to an already unsettling looking art style. While the truth is the game isnāt really āscaryā scary, it does have a bit of a shivering and distorted look that the developers intended to capture and they did an excellent job in that regard. John Inch had also drawn the backgrounds for the game, which while only consists of two areas (the bar and outside the old manās house), they still looked artistically fantastic and the cutscenes (the one or two they have) look well animated. The final shot I think is what I think really struck me the most, having all of those dead bodies land on shore. While some may think the art is āuglyā, it feels so uncanny that it fits Lovecraftās imagery pretty well. The Terrible Old Man was a rather short game to delve into, one whose sole purpose isnāt to expand upon the story in any way as much as have you play it in short form. As someone whose a bit of a Lovecraft fanboy (minus the racism), I enjoyed the very short time that I had with it personally, having played it once before for a friend before streaming it for another as a way to introduce a free Halloween game to play, which is what Iāll be trying to do for the rest of the month: play a bunch of free horror games (some paid as well) and throw out some potentially interesting suggestions. My feelings on this game content wise may be small, and it might not be scary; but itās an interesting take both into short form Lovecraft that isnāt shined upon much (due to a near obsession with Innsmouth and fish boning) as well as for the developers themselves with a nice horror atmosphere and a short run time (though I wish there was more content to add personally). Cloak and Dagger Games would stop making games for a couple of years in order to develop their next title: The Excavation at Hobās Barror, a sort of folk horror adventure that Iāve had interest in for a bit. While I will sit down and play it one day, I hope that they take another shot at Lovecraft in some way, shape or form. Links: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1885968981 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terrible_Old_Man https://store.steampowered.com/app/1147040/The_Terrible_Old_Man__Collectors_Edition/ (Support the devs please) https://archive.org/details/the-terrible-old-man-collectors-edition (For those who canāt pay, though please support the developers anyways) https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/tom.aspx (The original short story) https://store.steampowered.com/publisher/cloakanddaggergames https://cadgames.weebly.com/ https://x.com/cloakanddaggerg?lang=en https://www.backloggd.com/u/gamemast15r/review/1996740/ (Backlogg'd review for promo)
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