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C'thulhu Fhtagn's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Visuals | #9 | 2.400 | 2.400 |
| How well does the game fit the theme | #12 | 2.400 | 2.400 |
| Gameplay | #17 | 1.200 | 1.200 |
| Overall | #17 | 1.640 | 1.640 |
| Audio | #18 | 1.000 | 1.000 |
| How much do you enjoy the game overall? | #19 | 1.200 | 1.200 |
Ranked from 5 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
I liked the monochrome aesthetic. The headlines were neat, too. I had to mute the sound. I failed to summon Cthulhu.
We uploaded a new version that has slightly different sounds (as well as other changes, all listed in the dev log) and hopefully the chanting is less annoying now – while still being a bit maddening towards the end. We would be glad if you had another go and let us know what you think :)
The sound was much more immersive the second play-through!
I agree with the other reviews, having the time just tick down turns the gameplay into rating the success probability, hit a button quickly, rinse and repeat. I even did not wait for the newspaper animation to finish and tried to advance as quickly as possible and still had just 6 days left or so until I awoke C'thulhu. I don't know the mechanics, is there a required number of successful actions? Or must a certain amount of time have passed?
The game would be much more accessible if there was a terror meter and the days remaining would only reduce after each action you take. To increase the level of strategy add more mechanics to the game. I can think of for example having different ratings for each event:
Then for each event the player can chose how much time your cult should spend influencing the flow of events. The more power you already have the more effort you can spend per day, yielding in a greater success probability. But the more effort you spend, the fewer events can be influenced before time is over.
We uploaded a new version that has 2 difficulties - the normal difficulty doesn’t have that helper so you have to read the newspaper titles and take the location into account as well. There were some other changes (including audio) so we would be happy if you tried it again and let us know what you think.
Other changes (the ones already made and future plans as well) are listed in the dev log and if all goes well, we will continue to develop this game. Influencing larger events that take more cult power and longer time is the next (big) step.
I have awakened Cthulhu!!
I love love love the scratchy-looking visuals and the color palette you chose! Fits the Cthulhu theme perfectly!
I like the idea of using newspaper headlines to guide your cult, but after some time the gameplay got reduced to repeatedly clicking on the progress button and only acting on the 'likely' headlines. At least for me, since that seemed to be the way to win the game. I think it would be nice to see the actual content of the newspapers incorporated into the gameplay, so the player will actually have to read it and immerse themselves into the world.
The audio was a little annoying to listen to, but other than that, the mood is great!
We uploaded a new version that has 2 difficulties - the normal difficulty doesn’t have that helper so you have to read the newspaper titles and take the location into account as well. There were some other changes (including audio) so we would be happy if you tried it again and let us know what you think :)
I always love to see a Cthulhu game, and the visuals/color palette for this look excellent!
However the repetitive chanting audio is insanely annoying; I had to mute the game within like 10 seconds of opening it. I tried to just lower the volume but I could not handle it until it was muted. And unfortunately the game text kinda got smashed together, I couldn't read most of it, didn't understand the game. There were X amount of days until something or other, through process of trial and error I found that you could click the buckets that say Action and Patience. I could also click the one in the middle but it was almost always covered by the newspaper. The days remaining started just ticking down over time very quickly without me even doing anything, I don't know what caused anything, it didn't make sense, though I guess that's because I couldn't read the messages at the top due to the bug with the text. Sorry to see that.
Hey there, thanks for stopping by and trying our game :)
We now added some instructions below the game if that helps - if it is still unclear, it must be a bug, I'm afraid. Could you provide us with a screenshot of your problem? We've now also added bug-free screenshots of our own for comparison.
We agree the audio is maddening, which is sort of the point with C'thulhu... Then again the guy who does our audio is awfully fond of looping short songs for hours on end.
The smashed together text in newspaper is supposed to be the fine print without any relevant details, there is nothing to read. However, right above it is the event location in lighter text and the newspaper headline in darker, larger text. These two should be readable, as per our screenshots, as should be the newspaper header*. These three pieces of information is how you play the game - judging settlement size and event complexity versus your cult strength/progress.
If you pick the correct events to intervene, you will be successful, your cult will grow and eventually you will wake C'thulhu. :]
*if any of these are unreadable, please let us know
Yeah I wasn't talking about the newspaper, I was talking about the main game text at the top of the screen. In your screenshots it looks how I figured it was supposed to, but when I tried all that text overlapped and bugged out making it unreadable. Maybe it's a bug related to the HTML5 window size?
And yeah... I figured as much with the audio, but at a certain point it's just too obnoxious that I can't stand it and have to mute, overriding the experience of Cthulhu maddening.
Alright! Now the game is working correctly, I have no idea what changed, but in all respects it's being less buggy now and I was able to finish it and awaken Cthulhu :D
But as 7ko noted, the game pretty immediately just turns into reading the Success rating and hitting Patience when it's anything but Likely, or I hit Action when it was Likely or Possible (and I always succeeded even with only Possible ratings), not reading the newspapers at all. And I'm still not a fan of the fact that the days tick down automatically like seconds... I feel like it could work better if you actually had to read/analyze the newspapers to make an informed decision, and the days remaining didn't tick down until you chose an option. But then it would have to reduced from 180 days so the game wasn't too long/slow, or skip over longer chunks of time each action, etc.
The art and color palette still looks fantastic!
We uploaded a new version that has 2 difficulties - the normal difficulty doesn’t have that helper so you have to read the newspaper titles and take the location into account as well. There were some other changes (all are listed in the dev log) so we would be happy if you tried it again and let us know what you think :)