Cyclopean - Announced @ Worthplaying

Iron Tower gets an informational announcement over at Worthplaying on their turn-based Lovecraftian work in progress, Cyclopean. Nothing new as far as I can see in a quick read, just getting the word out in a brief general overview:

Cyclopean is the working title for a turn-based RPG project currently in the design phase. The game is inspired by, and to a large extent based on, the stories and mythos of Howard Phillips Lovecraft, and takes place in 1923 Western Massachusetts.

The player starts out in Lovecraft’s most famous fictional town, Arkham. Over the course of the game the player will travel to several other locations in and under the State of Massachusetts, and come in contact with cultists, law enforcement, hapless citizens, shadowy organizations, criminals, otherworldly creatures, and if he’s lucky, horrors beyond imagining. The game will concentrate on dense, quality writing in Lovecraft’s style, thrilling dialogue, and stimulating turn-based combat versus people and other things. Emphasis will be placed on quests with many possible solutions and outcomes. Players will not be restricted to fighting evil, but may ally themselves with those who wish to bring back the Great Old Ones, as well as various other organizations. Details to follow. The player will be able to pick up autonomous NPC support, a la Fallout, during the game. Influence over ally’s basic AI will be available, but equipment changes will be limited.

Iron Tower, known for Age of Decadence, is currently in the early stages of development on Cyclopean, so no release date has been set yet.

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More information.

Simply marvellous.

I just brought Arkham Horror actually, so I'll be getting some Lovecraftian entertainment in shortly. I've always been bemused by the lack of Lovecraftian RPGs, and a Falloutish one sounds (dare I say it) awesome. Good setting for a wordy game.

WP just copy/pasted the original announcement, but anyone going to the official thread therein linked will discover multiple short-story length writing examples, the interactive character generator app, a couple of interactive dialogues, concept art, etc. etc.

Another game for me to hotly anticipate! Love Lovecraft's world, as it plays nicely in games ... and turn based is always welcome!

I'll definitely be getting this whenever it comes out.

If you love the Cthulhu Mythos & setting you might give Call of Cthulhu : Dark Corners of the Earth a try. There's a PC port that isn't perfect but is better than alot of ports are. It's not what *I'd* call a rpg, more of a first-person action adventure game. Very difficult in parts but still worth the trouble (especially since you can probably find it for $10 or so now).

Majnun said:

I'll definitely be getting this whenever it comes out.

If you love the Cthulhu Mythos & setting you might give Call of Cthulhu : Dark Corners of the Earth a try. There's a PC port that isn't perfect but is better than alot of ports are. It's not what *I'd* call a rpg, more of a first-person action adventure game. Very difficult in parts but still worth the trouble (especially since you can probably find it for $10 or so now).

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Yes - that was enjoyable, I did my review of it for GamerDad.

also looking foward to this! I've been reading some more Lovecraft - The Dunwich Horror, The case of Charles Dexter Ward - great stuff I think if Cyclopean can capturer "The (unspeakable!) Horror" to the same extent as CoC: DCoTE it will be an amazing game. I liek what I've seen on the forums so far. *lash* get on with it already

I never understood why one would like horror-themed games.
I just can't get it.

But on the other hand, I'm different, too ...

An old, old signature of mine....

"The sciences...have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing
together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of
reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go
mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and
safety of a new dark age. --- from Lovecraft's "Call of Cthulhu"

If they can capture that spirit, this game will be great! (Even if Lovecraft is a Vista hater. )

I'd like to find out whether the conceptual kind of writing and telling - not the theme ! - of Ctulhu could be transferred into other areas ...

I've received a PM saying that someone didn't understand what I mean.

I'll try it in short: I meant that I wonder whether the creation and ongoing supporting of this "artificial myth", as I call it, could be transferred into other areas as well, meaning: Creating other "artificial myths" in the same way as it happened with this Ctulhu thing.

If you look at the process of how this "artificial myth" was developed and expanded - contributed in one way or another by many people - then I wonder whether the same kind of developmend- and expanding- process could be used in other fields, too.

As an basic example, just as if someone was creating an "artificial myth" around Elves - not in the way Tolkien did, but using the same creation and expansion process / pattern(s) as with the Ctulhu "artificial myth".

A thing I realized meanwhile writing the reply to the PM was that the Ctulhu "artificial myth" is so wel-developed nowadays that I'm sure one mentally weak person could start believing in it. (I also believe this can happen with the Flying Spaghetti Monster thing.)

The Ctulhu thing is rather treated like an "secret religion" - with everybody knowing that it's just an artificial invention, but nobody saying it out loud so - that a weak-minded person could start treating it as such. Without believing it is artificial.

If I start to to into severe extremes, I'd say that this person could actually start defending this "myth" in saying that Mr. Lovecraft and his "followers" were "chosen" to write down an actual truth. Like what's known as "Channeling".

We all know that this would be insane. We all know that Ctulhu is just a "playing field" for horror-themed authors. At least nowadays.

But we can't be sure that someone mentally instable doesn't actually start believing in this.

Well, that's kind of a testament to the vivid world Lovecraft created, isn't it, that the iconography and myth could seem so real and make such an impression? There are always going to be those who need a tin foil hat for protection, whether it's Cthulu or crop circles.

Alrik Fassbauer said:

But we can't be sure that someone mentally instable doesn't actually start believing in this.

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And so what if they do? We'll have a few nutballs running around believing that Cthulhu lies sleeping beneath the sea. I'm trying to see your point here, I think youre saying that making up fictional lore is a bad idea?

Zloth said:

An old, old signature of mine....

"The sciences...have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing
together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of
reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go
mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and
safety of a new dark age. --- from Lovecraft's "Call of Cthulhu"

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bravo, my favorite HPL quote!