Why is it called "Call of Cthulhu"?

[THE VERY REVEREND MISTER BONK]

Loved the game and revisit it often - but it draws from pretty much every H.P book - mostly notably The Shadow over Innsmouth -and a few others, all EXCEPT Call of Cthulhu lol.

Just wondering. Thanks.

[KiKil_Jerry]

The cthulhu will show up in the end

[THE VERY REVEREND MISTER BONK]

Originally posted by KiKil_Jerry:

The cthulhu will show up in the end

I saw it once....I thinl. I got the suicide ending first and then the counterspell ending.

[MaikElPipas]

I guess you´re just trolling but in case you´re just a little bit shortsighted....

It´s called "call of cthuluh" because the game is based in the (now) intelectual property "call of cthuluh" owned by chaosium inc based in the h.p Lovecraft writings.

It´s meant to be a game inspired in that universe, not a game inspired in the short tale.

[THE VERY REVEREND MISTER BONK]

Originally posted by El_pipitas:

I guess you´re just trolling but in case you´re just a little bit shortsighted....

It´s called "call of cthuluh" because the game is based in the (now) intelectual property "call of cthuluh" owned by chaosium inc based in the h.p Lovecraft writings.

It´s meant to be a game inspired in that universe, not a game inspired in the short tale.

So it isn't anything to do with the actual publication. Cheers.

[MaikElPipas]

Originally posted by MISTER BONK:

Originally posted by El_pipitas:

I guess you´re just trolling but in case you´re just a little bit shortsighted....

It´s called "call of cthuluh" because the game is based in the (now) intelectual property "call of cthuluh" owned by chaosium inc based in the h.p Lovecraft writings.

It´s meant to be a game inspired in that universe, not a game inspired in the short tale.

So it isn't anything to do with the actual publication. Cheers.

Nope, more like a "trademark" thing. This game can use the original names, creatures, etc from the mythos while other games, i.e the sinking city can only use "inspired" flavour.

[THE VERY REVEREND MISTER BONK]

Originally posted by El_pipitas:

Originally posted by MISTER BONK:

So it isn't anything to do with the actual publication. Cheers.

Nope, more like a "trademark" thing. This game can use the original names, creatures, etc from the mythos while other games, i.e the sinking city can only use "inspired" flavour.

Oh boy - don't get me started on Sinking City.

[RageOfPerun]

Originally posted by MISTER BONK:

Originally posted by El_pipitas:

Nope, more like a "trademark" thing. This game can use the original names, creatures, etc from the mythos while other games, i.e the sinking city can only use "inspired" flavour.

Oh boy - don't get me started on Sinking City.

I was interested in "Sinking City" do you recommend it?

[THE VERY REVEREND MISTER BONK]

Originally posted by RageOfPerun:

Originally posted by MISTER BONK:

Oh boy - don't get me started on Sinking City.

I was interested in "Sinking City" do you recommend it?

If you are after a similar experience to this then no. If you played The Godfather on PS2 then it's a lot like that - completely different vibe to "Call"

If "Call" was The Addams Family then Sinking City would be The Munsters if that makes any sense? (or you could say "Call" is The Shining and Sinking City is Jason Takes Manhattan).

It has about the same amount of content as Call but they added about 80% padding over a large map with nothing to do or see.

The story is weaker, the tone is a lot more camp in City, the same face models and building interiors are copy-pasted over and over and over so you are never sure if you are in the right place or talking to the right person.

It's a passable proof of concept but why they made it open world with janky combat is bewildering, it was a bad move.

[steven1mac]

Sinking City is average, not great but ok. It goes on sale frequently but that might change once the rights are given back to the developers. The current version is a little glitchy, mostly in combat, the FPS drop can drop if there are to many monsters our you like explosives.

There is still some legal drama over the Sinking City, and no one can say whose entirely at fault, but the current version is an earlier one, and I don't see any patches coming anytime soon for it, but I was able to complete the game with only a couple crashes.

[THE VERY REVEREND MISTER BONK]

Originally posted by steven1mac:

Sinking City is average, not great but ok. It goes on sale frequently but that might change once the rights are given back to the developers. The current version is a little glitchy, mostly in combat, the FPS drop can drop if there are to many monsters our you like explosives.

There is still some legal drama over the Sinking City, and no one can say whose entirely at fault, but the current version is an earlier one, and I don't see any patches coming anytime soon for it, but I was able to complete the game with only a couple crashes.

That's still going on? I though it was another case of PC Port-itus.

This should have been called Re-Cycling City because everything is reused through the whole experience. Not just the assets the whole layout - even stashing a boat in the livingrooms lol - I couldnt tell if I was in the mobsters house, the fishermans house, the photographors house.....

There isn't even a soundtrack, just a bunch of effects looing over and over.

[THE VERY REVEREND MISTER BONK]

Originally posted by Lagg:

Originally posted by El_pipitas:

I guess you´re just trolling but in case you´re just a little bit shortsighted....

It´s called "call of cthuluh" because the game is based in the (now) intelectual property "call of cthuluh" owned by chaosium inc based in the h.p Lovecraft writings.

It´s meant to be a game inspired in that universe, not a game inspired in the short tale.

Are you outright illiterate or just don't understand the difference between trademark and copyright? Given the spelling, going to guess former.

Either way, wtf, and no. Lovecraft's stuff has been in the public domain for quite some time[www.hplovecraft.com]. You dense little corporate bootlicker.

Edit: Oh ya, to answer the OP's question: Likely for the same reason this game is frontloaded with "ooooh fish guts so gross & spooky" and other obvious references: It's marketable and works in trailers and screenshots. It's easier than making something that stands on its own. And of course Cthulhu has the most immediate name/scary-fish-guts recognition. i.e. dev is lazy

I apologize for necroing this thread btw but bratty probable-kids not understanding public domain is why their gen is going to be owned by Disney even harder than the last 2.

Lol I guess. Kinda reminds me how in the 1980's companies would market video games by attaching the word "Ninja" to it.....even though there were no actual Ninjas.

[THE VERY REVEREND MISTER BONK]

Originally posted by Lagg:

Originally posted by MISTER BONK:

Lol I guess. Kinda reminds me how in the 1980's companies would market video games by attaching the word "Ninja" to it.....even though there were no actual Ninjas.

Yeah... I was kinda optimistic for Sinking City hoping they weren't going to do this 80s-90s-mov-title method of advertising too.

I notice these devs that try to take on Lovecraft's text directly - especially the ones from literalist-romance-novel-type countries of which both are - have a lot of trouble doing the "eldritch horror manifesting as a product of an overwhelmed and slowly breaking down mind, thus the memories of a veteran in a coastal front would be affecting things around him. Hence stinky fish and related horror" method of storytelling / gameplay integration.

They prefer instead to treat Cthulhu / co. as literal gross stinky fish people from that fish town under the sea. Rather than their appearance being the result of broken/info-overloaded-brains-trying-to-perceive them and thus manifest them in physical reality.

I mean the literalist approach works and has been used by movies a bunch of times. But there was a lot they could have done with Leviathan in this role while using Cthulhu in an interesting way without using him for glorified screenies fodder. And made the fact that it was a Mythos game a revelation that happens in the game. But so it goes :(

The devs don't trust their customers to have intelligence enough to use their own minds and rather spoon-feed us everything. It kinda works for the Wilbur Whateley stand in but the whole point is that you are not supposed to see what Leviathan / Dagon etc actually look like and your mind does the rest (Leviathan quoting poetry in clear English.....Really?).

For instance in the first Amnesia all you know is that Alexander is an Alien, the technology on his planet is incomprehensible to the human mind and he stole something from "The Shadow" who wants it back. That's all you get and your imagination fills in the rest. Then we get Rebirth which spoon-feeds you everything and wrecks it - The Aliens become generic humanoid Aliens, their planet looks like Deep Space Nine and The Shadow is really a failed lab experiment and is really pissed off about it.

With Call of Cthulhu and Sinking city they think that video distortion effects are a substitute for our imagination, it doesn't work and it's cheap - just don't show us the Aliens but make them obscure and ever changing - exactly how they are supposed to be.

[THE VERY REVEREND MISTER BONK]

Originally posted by Lagg:

Originally posted by MISTER BONK:

The devs don't trust their customers to have intelligence enough to use their own minds and rather spoon-feed us everything. It kinda works for the Wilbur Whateley stand in but the whole point is that you are not supposed to see what Leviathan / Dagon etc actually look like and your mind does the rest (Leviathan quoting poetry in clear English.....Really?).

For instance in the first Amnesia all you know is that Alexander is an Alien, the technology on his planet is incomprehensible to the human mind and he stole something from "The Shadow" who wants it back. That's all you get and your imagination fills in the rest. Then we get Rebirth which spoon-feeds you everything and wrecks it - The Aliens become generic humanoid Aliens, their planet looks like Deep Space Nine and The Shadow is really a failed lab experiment and is really pissed off about it.

With Call of Cthulhu and Sinking city they think that video distortion effects are a substitute for our imagination, it doesn't work and it's cheap - just don't show us the Aliens but make them obscure and ever changing - exactly how they are supposed to be.

Hah I can tell you're an actual Lovecraft nerd because you remember WW and were deeply disappointed in Rebirth. Also I didn't pick up on The Shadow being a result of their nonsense. I thought it was still something akin to a cosmic immune system reaction. Well... Geez... If you're right that makes it even less interesting :'(

Honestly I didn't give the devs as much credit as you even tho I'm trying to be nice. My assumption was that they're just being creatively lazy because that's easier to do / market than the "that mandelbrot fractal whorl looks like a tentacle" method (using best top-of-head analogy I can to show I understand you re. mind doing the rest), But you could totally be right and it's more the kind of creative laziness where they're scared of losing player count. That's unfortunate

Yep lol. This title nods in the direction of those characters but nobody has picked upon it as far as I can see. Charles Hawkins is meant to be Wilbur, Sarah is meant to be Kesiah Mason, Algernon Drake is meant to be George Angel etc etc etc....

But.....give them a video game and suddenly everyone's an expert lol. That's why most "Lovecraftian" games are made because it makes them look good in an Emperors New Clothes type of way - but whatever they decide to call it most of the time you're getting Innsmouth.

"Deeply Disappointing" doesn't begin to describe my sentiments about Rebirth. The red "shadow" goop was made by the Alien Queen's scientists in an attempt to overthrow her by poisoning the food supply. Instead it escaped from the lab and blew up the planet - really boring. Rebirth was actually outsourced to a team of 20-somethings from Talespinners who write romantic fiction and have a history of 4 / 10 quality product.

[THE VERY REVEREND MISTER BONK]

Originally posted by Lagg:

Originally posted by MISTER BONK:

Yep lol. This title nods in the direction of those characters but nobody has picked upon it as far as I can see. Charles Hawkins is meant to be Wilbur, Sarah is meant to be Kesiah Mason, Algernon Drake is meant to be George Angel etc etc etc....

But.....give them a video game and suddenly everyone's an expert lol. That's why most "Lovecraftian" games are made because it makes them look good in an Emperors New Clothes type of way - but whatever they decide to call it most of the time you're getting Innsmouth.

"Deeply Disappointing" doesn't begin to describe my sentiments about Rebirth. The red "shadow" goop was made by the Alien Queen's scientists in an attempt to overthrow her by poisoning the food supply. Instead it escaped from the lab and blew up the planet - really boring. Rebirth was actually outsourced to a team of 20-somethings from Talespinners who write romantic fiction and have a history of 4 / 10 quality product.

To be 100% honest I didn't pick up on any besides WW/Charles and I thought Drake was a composite of the professor / Charles Dexter Ward types. But I definitely see it now.

Also, I didn't want to talk about Rebirth in this thread too much because it's technically OT, but I just realized I remembered you. And when coincidences like this happen it's our responsibility to entertain them rly. I also believe we're touching on a general creative integrity issue present right now in devs trying to capitalize on high strangeness / cosmic horror / eldritch horror nerds. And that's present in all 3 games.

That said, per my review and posts in that forum. I kind of knew about that bit of extra context around Rebirth even in pre-release. A few people posted on the forum about it waaay early on and were promptly banned too, but I didn't see the bans for what they were until after playing. In general I was naive and assumed good faith let's say that.

I have to admit too, I remember very little about Rebirth's story and had to read my own review to recap myself. While I remember the minutiae of SOMA. So maybe I forgot about the detail re. poisoning and why the planet is like it is. But given what you just said I uh... Huh. Well, you can see what I expected in my spoiler text in that review. And that was me being nice.

It's absolutely an integrity issue seeing as we're nerding out now. Conarium and Moons of Madness made a good attempt but they are small teams and you can clearly see where they ran out of budget. There are exceptions such as Darkness Within 2007 which capture the imagination much better (the follow up was dreadful) but these are few and far between. Another one is SCRATCHES but that's long since been pulled off the market. Rebirth is best forgotten anyway, I did the same as you and though the bans were for trolling - in fact they were being banned because they were right.

The "less is more" is a must for creating the vibe these titles deserve. In 1979 you didn't actually get to see the real Alien until Ripley kicks it out of the airlock at the very end. Graham Masterson got it right with his Brown Jenkyn spin-off story because for most of it Jenkyn was only described in silhouette until the reveal where he murdered the priest.

Back to this title though and developers are capable of doing it correctly but won't. The Shambler is animated as obscure and undefined in the distance but fully formed when close up....I mean...Why? They are meant to be indescribable so keep it that way.

If you want to experience it for real spend some time around Cape Cod, some of those communities are really.....weird. I'm not even joking.

[THE VERY REVEREND MISTER BONK]

Originally posted by Lagg:

Originally posted by MISTER BONK:

It's absolutely an integrity issue seeing as we're nerding out now. Conarium and Moons of Madness made a good attempt but they are small teams and you can clearly see where they ran out of budget. There are exceptions such as Darkness Within 2007 which capture the imagination much better (the follow up was dreadful) but these are few and far between. Another one is SCRATCHES but that's long since been pulled off the market. Rebirth is best forgotten anyway, I did the same as you and though the bans were for trolling - in fact they were being banned because they were right.

The "less is more" is a must for creating the vibe these titles deserve. In 1979 you didn't actually get to see the real Alien until Ripley kicks it out of the airlock at the very end. Graham Masterson got it right with his Brown Jenkyn spin-off story because for most of it Jenkyn was only described in silhouette until the reveal where he murdered the priest.

Back to this title though and developers are capable of doing it correctly but won't. The Shambler is animated as obscure and undefined in the distance but fully formed when close up....I mean...Why? They are meant to be indescribable so keep it that way.

If you want to experience it for real spend some time around Cape Cod, some of those communities are really.....weird. I'm not even joking.

Yeah I liked Conarium. Really neat ending and didn't get in the way about it. But there was some polish that could have been done and it's rather obvious, yeah :( - And I'm looking forward to Agustin & Co. finally finishing Asylum. I'm fully confident it'll be as well done as Scratches but they've made it clear they won't be rushed.

Re. Shambler. This is actually one of the few things I was okay with in concept. The whole quantum-observer shenanigans. Kind of like what Prince of Darkness was doing. Where the very act of studying, perceiving and analyzing it makes it become manifest and more clear like a camera focusing. And it overall was a neat idea to involve an esoteric painter personality with. But then when time came for implementation, well, we got that sequence. I think the idea is that as Pierce gets scared and his primordial instincts push out more, his brain creates what it does.

And heh, amusingly enough I've been told similar by people who I don't think are eldritch horror fans. Not too surprised. It's MA. And with that coastal shape and a lighthouse planted right there at the end :D

It's a cool monster, however, it appears exactly the same for whomever observes it which would be unlikely. By that time I had thrown in the towel in regard to having a mind-f..k experience and enjoyed it for what it was........until the format changed again - Oh it's a branching path mystery, ok good......now it's a puzzler......now it's stealth......now it's Outlast......now it's an escape room.....now it's a shooter. I'm getting dizzy with all of this lol.

The bottom line with any of these titles is that it cannot - and should not - be done entirely visually. The only way I've seen it vaguely work that way is with the DLC for Evil Within where it shows that each character has a different perception of their surroundings in STEM (Sebastian experiences a creepy village while Kidman perceives the same place as an office building). Pretty cool actually.

Absolute truth about some places on The Cape. We drove down there a few years ago out of season and parked up in a rest place near the Kennedy Mansion. Out of nowhere all these weird Steven King people started showing up and surrounded the car just gazing silently and murderously at us blocking our path on the trails. We got the hell out of there quick. The following week another guy was shot dead on the beach opposite the rest stop while walking his dog. Creepy place is Cape Cod.