So... What is this game?

[Satoshi]

I see it from time to time since it is (well, was, I already bought it) on my wishlist. I always thought it was some unique visual novel \ quest game with procedurally generated scares. Is it more or less accurate? Or there's some kind of a definitive story to the game? How would you even describe it in general?

[Schrödinger]

Imagine it as a tabletop RPG, where you undergo a set of semi-random events and use dice-rolls to determine various results.

[Potato]

Mechanically, it's almost a mirror image of the Arkham Horror board games where each game has you racing around to different places while a doom clock is constantly ticking while you try to find clues to seal the ultimate cosmic god of that run, but with a Junji Ito skin on top of it. You are put under constant skill checks that you dice roll against your own stats to maintain your 2 health bars, stamina (which is your physical wellbeing, or hp in most other games) and reason (which is your mental health, which is constantly being worn down from viewing cosmic horrors). If either of the 2 bars hit 0 or less, you lose.

Narratively, it's sort of like Junji Ito's Uzumaki, where a bunch of seemingly random stories come together to a final confrontation with an ultimate evil or cosmic god. It's a bit more random due to the randomized cosmic god overlooking each run and 5 mysteries you take on before getting to the final confrontation, but trying to unlock each ending and learning to deal with different encounters is pretty fascinating.

[mie001]

There's no main plot. Your character was describe as pursuer of the truth who came to the shiokawa city in order to stop the world's doom by stopping the old god return. Which needs to be done by investigating several mystery events and hope to recover what's behind them
However in the main game, most of playable characters are shiokawa local, and investigating mystery event have nothing to do with main plot. You finish the event, get keys from nowhere, then you open the gate to lighthouse, climb up the lighthouse, kick the old god's altar down, and that's it, you win, time to start over
The mystery events are very interesting and have a lot variant of it tho, so still recommend to play

[Saturmorn Carvilli]

World of Horror is basically the Fantasy Flight board game Arkham Horror, but more as a point-and-click adventure/turn based rpg-lite with a 1980s horror manga presentation.

The player goes through a number of mysteries by visiting locations, gathering items and allies. If you think of the World of Horror like a board game, every time you investigate a location is like pulling a card from that location deck. Most of time it's bad, like a stamina or reason drain or even a random combat encounter. Sometimes it's good, but you have to investigate to gather clues. Either to progress through the mystery of solve a puzzle of some sort. All the while there's a Doom Track filling up preventing you from dawdling.

It's very retro game design. So using the 1980s manage aesthetic is no accident. It also plays a lot like those adventure and rpg games as well. But I see the Arkham Horror board game as the biggest influence.