Cthulhu Cthursday: Night Of The Cephalopod
Posted by Ross Rosenberg
It would be easy to dismiss, on first glance, Miguel Sternberg’s Night of the Cephalopod. It relies on the outdated, yet still popular, sprite based graphics and its premise is a model of simplicity: you find yourself in a forest, shotgun in hand, surrounded by floating, milky-eyed cephalopods and are told that the sun rises in six hours time. On the face of it there is not much here, just the usual survival-horror trappings: run from enemy, find and conserve ammo, don’t die.
The real meat of NotC , however, is the narration. It begins immediately, the voice of Scott Moyle intoning “I had run from the cottage in a blind fear, having only time to grab my shotgun and a handful of shells. Hours, or minutes, later, when the madness finally fled from my heart, I found myself lost, but blessedly alone.” and from there on it proceeds to narrate your entire play through. It’s a brilliant feature, a running, Lovecraftian color commentary detailing almost every move and action the player makes. Its success is based on both the quality of the writing and the unexpected timing of the narrative tidbits. At one point I failed to reload and when I finally did so — after having “wandered about like an impotent fool” — the narrator thrilled “Oh, how I love reloading during battle!”
In those two lines I may have actually given away too much. Discovering these flourishes is a joy in and of itself. There is a demo available, small with a self contained executable, and you would be cheating yourself if you did not not take a quick look at it. If the breathless voice of the Lovecraftian scribe fills you with glee, then this is most certainly for you.
Apologies to ye Apple users as it appears to be Windows only, but there is a video if you would like a basic idea of the game.
Night of the Cephalopods [Main Site] : Thanks to cleveland and chip for this!
Categories: Cephalopods, Cthulhu Cthursday, Horror, Lovecraft, Tentacles, Videogames
Posted at 10:17 am on November 27, 2008
8 Comments -
Very rarely is quaintness a factor in deciding what appeals to me, however these old school graphics bring out joy in my heart. I honestly can’t see the game any other way. I get this “Zombie Ate My Neighbors” vibe and that’s just pure win.
Good entry.
Comment by Tark Wilkins — November 27, 2008 @ 3:24 pm
“Wesleyan Tetris” had a brilliant running commentarist, who would say accurate mean things (“Hope your friends are watching!”), accurate nice things (“Nice slide!”), and things wholly unrelated to how you were playing (“Oh my God that’s the best move I’ve ever seen!”). It had many other nice features, like lying to you about the upcoming piece, just rarely enough that you would nonetheless rely on it. Trust — but verify.
Comment by Allen K. — November 27, 2008 @ 4:39 pm
So this is for the next cthursday then?
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/11/081124-giant-squid-magnapinna.html
Comment by Teutates — November 27, 2008 @ 7:41 pm
Thank you Trutates, I was planning on sleeping tonight but you have changed those plans. Now I will be cowering in a corner, blanket covering me, holding a spoon for defense. The ocean scares me.
Comment by Rune 101 — November 28, 2008 @ 1:14 am
If you paid more attention to Ectochat I’d get credit for this :(
Comment by chesh — November 28, 2008 @ 2:27 am
@Tark Wilkins
Good to hear you enjoyed the game and my old school graphics worked their charm. I think that may be the first time I’ve ever heard pixel art called quaint :)
@Allen K
I’ll have to give Wesleyan Tetris a try, I love the idea of an untrustworthy commentator.
Comment by Miguel — November 28, 2008 @ 6:19 pm
“the sour taste of bile”…….saturday night: here I come.
Comment by Henchbot — November 29, 2008 @ 3:39 pm
Where have you guys been? Did you call up soemthing bigger then your head?
Comment by Potter Dee — November 30, 2008 @ 4:42 pm