As the name of this site suggests, I might be a fan of Lovecraft-inspired media. I’ve certainly reviewed some games in the past that were based on his stories. Most of which were, unfortunately, failures or lacked polish. One that immediately comes to mind is The Shore, which had great presentation but terrible gameplay mechanics. It had its own story, gave you the ability to look around and interact with different objects for some simple puzzle-solving or lore-building, and brought you to a variety of places that would make any Lovecraft fan happy to see. Yet, there were a lot of frustrations I had with it that ultimately made me dislike the game. With all that said, Dagon: by H.P. Lovecraft is far less ambitious, doesn’t have the music or great presentation to match The Shore, and doesn’t let you explore. Yet, I like it better.

The Short of It

What I’ve Played

• The campaign to completion

• Less than 1 hour

• No VR

Pros

• Narration is well done

• Graphics are decent enough and seems like it would be effective in a VR scenario

• A simple game that doesn’t go beyond its capabilities

• Free

Cons

• Not much to do, which makes it not really a game, but more of a moving picture book; this might be a big negative of VR

The Rest of It

Ripped straight from the pages of the short story by H.P. Lovecraft, this game is not really a game. I wouldn’t even call it an “interactive experience.” What the experience mostly consists of is the narrator reads text from the story as you sit in place in a scene. You can look at the environment, note down the details in how it’s all presented, and occasionally find a small note that will give you some extraneous trivia about Lovecraft or the story. There’s nothing you can directly interact with that would have an impact on the story or the “gameplay.” All you can do is listen to the narrator read the story and wait until you can click somewhere on the screen to go to the next scene.

Now if this doesn’t appeal to you, that’s perfectly fair. I’m not always the biggest fan of “walking simulators” as they’re called, but I’m still willing to give them a shot if they can provide an interesting experience. Dagon: by H.P. Lovecraft is even less interactive than most of those. Usually, in those types of games you explore, open drawers or containers, or have some threat to your character’s life. Here, you are about as involved as a person reading a book. This then begs the question of whether you would prefer to just read the book or “play” this game. For those of us who enjoyed the story just fine on its own, the game doesn’t serve much purpose. However, for people who have not read the story, or have not had the interest to dive into Lovecraft stories in the past, this might be enough to make people interested in reading other things by experiencing this visual, audiobook.

When considering a “game” like this versus The Shore, which is more like the traditional walking simulator format, I prefer this. It may not be as engaging in terms of giving you the ability to interact with objects in the game. However, it becomes immediately apparent that your abilities are limited in this experience, which doesn’t lead to the frustration of bumping into invisible walls, getting stuck on the geometry, or wandering around lost trying to find the game’s path that was not clearly laid out. This is a primary example of when it’s important to recognize “how successful” something is at doing what was intended. Dagon: by H.P. Lovecraft is not overly ambitious in its design; it doesn’t really take any risks. The Shore, however, does take some by having its own story and allowing you to move around and explore the world itself. Unfortunately for The Shore, there were a lot of issues in the gameplay that prevented it from being very fun or interesting, so the risks didn’t pay off. So, by playing it safe, this game is more successful at doing what was intended, at the cost of being perhaps less interesting or unique. All that being said, I still think Dagon: by H.P. Lovecraft is a successful rendering of the short story in a way that makes it more accessible to a wider audience. It may lack the interactivity to make it interesting in either a standard mouse/keyboard or VR experience, but it doesn’t fail at core gameplay mechanics either.

TL;DR (Conclusion)

If you have never read any stories by H.P. Lovecraft—maybe due to the language complexity, or his slow pacing—but you always wanted to see what his stories were like and why people enjoyed them, this might be a good stepping stone on your path to enlightened madness. It doesn’t do much for those who have read the original story, nor does it do much in the sense of the term “video game.” I can’t speak to the VR experience, but I didn’t get the impression there was much to interact with. Nonetheless, I don’t think this visual storybook of the classic short story fails in what it’s trying to accomplish. It renders the world and images of the story with some decent visuals and gives you a glimpse into the Lovecraftian universe with some decent narration. It’s free on Steam and will only take an hour of your time or less. Why not give it a try?