Fascinating art and performance (esp. the Azathoth part)
Probably a bit too difficult for action roguelike beginners, and make good use of equipment from altars or it will suffer.

The fear of the unknown can destroy a man... but with the right knowledge (and armament) even a man can destroy a god... preferably dark huge ones that you can't quite make out in our limited dimension due to being enveloped in tesseracts and other quixotic shapes that got far too many edges and vertexes to be polite company at your typical bridge party.

While I love this game this is a very hesitant recommendation since it erased all of my progress a while ago, which made me very angry.

Here is my take on it. I'm hesitant to recommend this game to just anyone. This game is DIFFICULT! Very difficult. So much so, that I have stopped playing it for quite lengthy amounts of time twice. But I've came back to it three times now. The thing is, this is H.P. Lovecraft we are talking about here. Games that surround the Mythos and COSMIC FRIGGIN HORRORS are supposed to be anything but easy. Unless your ultimate goal is for your character (or yourself for that matter) to go completely mad. So a couple technicalities I want to mention. The game play is fun. But a bit sloppy. At first, it's hard to figure out the game loop and how it works. That info is readily available however. The mini events REALLY do good with providing proper lore and easter eggs galore for those who have read his works. For real. Best I've personally seen from a game closely tied into Lovecraft. So I do recommend. But really only to big fans of Lovecraft and/or people who either LOVE brutal games or can at least deal with it. TBH, the play through I'm on now I had to set to easy and I'm still stuck on the same lever getting destroyed for a week now. Then again.... Maybe I just suck real bad at this game.

Not a bad little game.

This game can be difficult and frustrating. And if you're not familiar with the Cthulhu Mythos, you're pretty lost. So it's not for everyone. But it has a lot of content and references to the mythos in the form of stories, characters, monsters, items, levels, etc., which I really enjoyed exploring.

Almost gave it up after an hour as the first impressions were terrible. But actually once you unlock the scientist the game gets more and more interesting, as it turns out there are secret rooms which you can only see in easy mode (recommended if you just want to soak up the atmosphere). Plus interestingly there is option to teleport between rooms if you press J when on the map. So that is a huge upgrade already.

There are no bugs, hopefully one day the second game will be as good as the first one. Hopefully. The developers seem to be working on it.

beautiful

I recommend this game, but with the pretense that it really is only for Lovecraft fans. The atmosphere and aesthetic is great, with lots of lovely nods to the Cthulhu mythos and it's themes, HOWEVER, as a game it has some major design issues. While I can commend a new take on the rogue-like genre, something more survival based than full action, the gameplay makes this aspect difficult to appreciate.
You are very limited in movement compared to other rogue-likes, with upgrades and items that are useful but very limited. This wouldn't be too much of an issue, but the fact combat is inevitable, not something that can be avoided like in most horror, means their is no resource management. You don't measure what fights are worth getting in, you have to do them. Which wouldn't be bad, but this game is brutally unforgiving (Even on easy).
It's not uncommon to enter a room and all twenty enemies instantly aggro and you die within seconds. Or if you do win, it will drain most of your resources as again you are very limited in movement compared to other rogue-likes and most enemies have statuses. Some characters do have ok defensive or movement options, but these are less engaging than a typical rogue-like's strafing and still unreliable, making combat often feel rather clunky.
Also there is little story or character to be found, which isn't a bad thing but with the gameplay as it is, and being based on Lovecraft, would have been nice. I think this game would have worked better as a character focused mystery-exploration, with gameplay that could remain unchanged if combat was a punishment/risk for your choices/mistakes, and also had like 50% less enemies in most encounters.
To be fair, I haven't exhausted everything this game has by a longshot, but when so much content is bottle-necked by unfair difficulty, it doesn't feel like it speaks to a game's extensive length or replay-ability. Nor make me eager to see the rest. I do like difficult games, but when it feels like you can get better, not just hope map generation favors you.
Overall I did enjoy the time I spent with the game, but having played better rogue-likes and story games it just leaves me yearning for something that could have been richer. It certainly can scratch the Lovecraft itch, but I wouldn't consider this to be the Lovecraftian masterpiece we are awaiting (Unless you count Bloodborne). Basically if you want fantastic horror rogue-likes play The Binding of Issac or Dead Estate.

Honestly found the first levels the best, because there is more exploring and reading notes than combat. The later levels turn into Doom tier mass demon slaughter.

There are some issues, like how my character blew his brains out after reading a newspaper about students being kidnapped. Like i get how the sanity works, but dude its not that bad is it?
Some of the things that make you lose sanity are just kinda silly. Like finding a statue of a frog on top of a whale. wow much horror.

Having low sanity means you can't read notes and examine objects you find in the levels lest you risk blowing your own head off, and I really found these to be the most interesting part of the game.

Sanity should be reserved for special enemies that twist your mind, or special attacks from enemies that you would have to watch out for.