Introduction

By 1934, the (now) acclaimed
Howard Philips Lovecraft had put together a collection of ideas in
a manuscript he referred to as “The Commonplace Book”.
Let him explain this project:

“This book consists
of ideas, images and quotations hastily jotted down for possible future
use in weird fiction. Very few are actually developed plots, for the
most part they are merely suggestions or random impressions designed
to set the memory or imagination working. Their sources are various:
dreams, things read, casual incidents, idle conceptions, and so on.”

The purpose of the HPL
Commonplace Book Project is simple, to recreate some of his ideas
in games. So far, game designers from Spain, France and America have
created some graphical and conversational (i.e., IF-like) games. As
of today, they are exhibited online at Illuminated
Lantern. I’ll be reviewing three of these games: Peter Nepstad’s
Ecdysis, Jon Ingold’s Dead Cities
and David Whyld’s The Cellar. A common
denominator between them is that they belong to the beloved sub-genre
of the text-adventure. They also share being relatively short in length
(i.e., no more than 1 hour of gameplay). These as well as the remaining
entries can be downloaded (free of charge) at the Illuminated
Lantern site.

Based on entry #67 from
the Common Place Book: an impression-city in peril-dead city- equestrian
statue-men in closed room-clattering of hooves heard from outside-marvel
disclosed on looking out-doubtful ending.

Excerpt from the game:
“The letter you received from Arkwright’s nephew Carter was clear
enough: when the old man dies the inheritance tax will be too great.
It’s certain ruin, much like the estate itself. To raise some capital
the nephew has set up buyers for Arkwright’s extensive collection
of rare and old books: the British Museum, the libraries at Cambridge
and Oxford and the Université de Paris. You have the inventory:
of course, you still need his signature”.

Dead Cities
was written by Jon Ingold, who has in his portfolio an award for “Best
Game”‘ IFComp (2001, for the blockbuster “All Roads”).
If first impressions really made a difference, the game would have
had a straight A+: neat typesetting, clear explanation of commands
and interesting drawings. The hand-drawn graphs are by no means jaw-dropping
but they do their job nicely and fit the general aesthetic of the
game. Your goals are clear, too. You are sent to the house of this
old man to make an inventory of his potential valuable books. It is
clear that the writer made an effort to recreate Lovecraft’s style
and it shows. There’s a sense of oppression and decadence everywhere
and the level of detail is remarkable. If asked, I would pick up Pickman’s
Model as the work of Lovecraft that more closely resembles the
game.

There are two NPCs, the
old man and his maid, both are well depicted and react reasonably
well to your inquiries. The story unfolds quickly and in no more than
15 min you’ll be in the climax of the story. Without giving away too
much (spoilers ahead): this climax comprises a one-room situation
with two puzzles: escaping the room and getting knowledge about the
core topic of the game. Completion of the first is a must to wind
up the game and will require a great deal of exploration. No completion
of the remaining puzzle won’t preclude finishing the game but I would
advise taking your time and look at everything. Otherwise, if you
rush too much, you’ll end up wondering what the heck was going on
(end of spoilers).

As should any good Lovecraft
game, Dead Cities exhibits a couple of mythical
books, and they play and important role in the story. The exhibit
a very good level of prose and I should admit that a line or two made
me feel the chills going down my spine.

The game was made in Glulxe.
For the purposes of this review was run in its Windows interpreter
(WinGlulxe) and also in Gargoyle (a very interesting piece of software
capable of loading almost any type of IF file out there, read more
about it here.
I would clearly suggest using WinGlulxe
since it keeps the original font/color combination. However, I noticed
an annoying glitch when using WinGlulxe. Basically, sometimes there
is a (short) delay between your command input and the reply. I am
assuming the main engine and not the game is to blame for this (I
also noticed it in other games, notably “City of Secrets”).

A downside is that the
game’s total length is no more than 35 min and there’s very little
room for changing the course of the events. Most important, the end
is sort of a disappointment. Basically, there’s no close to the story
and it is just… uninspiring. It seems that the author ran out of
ideas and looked for a quick way to wrap it up. On the plus side,
the interface exhibits an on-line system help. Basically, it is a
clickable suggestion (i.e., “You could…”‘) that helps
you move further into the game.

But even in the light of
the previous drawbacks, It is easy to recommend the game for a quick
snack of good-old typing. Dead Cities receives
a C+ from this reviewer.

Based on entry #221 from
the CommonPlace Book: “Insects or other entities from space attack
and penetrate a man’s head and cause him to remember alien and exotic
things–possible displacement of personality.”.

Excerpt from the game:
“You wake, a pounding headache loud in your inner ear, the back
of your head itching and tingling, your mouth full of cotton. The
pain drives away your dreams, weird visions of alien landscapes and
strange geometries that your awakening mind can no longer comprehend…
“.

This game is quick and
to the point. Level of description is minimal, which seems a conscious
game-design decision made to force the player’s attention focus in
the relevant details. In no more than 10 turns you will witness your
character undergoing a truly horrifying metamorphosis. The prose is
intense and dense, revolving in the more “cosmic horror”
style of the New England’s writer. The idea behind the story is not
novel but it is developed cleverly and succeeds in delivering a truly
sense of horror, particularly in its ending. Indeed, the final scene
is very intense and gory.

The man behind this game
is Peter Nepstad, better known for having penned the epic-sized and
incredibly complex “1893:A
Worlds Fair Mystery“ (also revised at JA by this mighty
reviewer). While “1893” was written using TADS 2, version
3 of the engine is employed now. The game features a multimedia element
exclusive of this last installation: clickable links for the most
obvious actions are attached to objects and locations. Hints are available
for part of the game, too. Interestingly, you can click your way for
most of the game. So, Ecdysis may be a good
transition for those not fully used to type to wind up the game. As
the author states, Ecdysis is more an experience than a game,
but the ride is worthy. A short review for a short game, Ecdysis
is graded C.

Based on entry #92: man’s
body dies—but corpse retains life. Stalks about—tries
to conceal odour of decay—detained somewhere—hideous climax.

Excerpt from the game:
“In a book under the bed, there’s where your father keeps the
key. You should grab it and quickly. He won’t return for many hours…”

The
Cellar, written by David Whyld,is the least interactive
of the three games. There are no real puzzzles, just “go-fetch”
tasks here and there. But on the bright side, the game packs a great
amount of text, and its quality ranks pretty high. By far exhibiting
the best prose and story of the games here reviewed, The Cellar puts
you in the shoes of a young child. Driven by his curiosity, he tries
to sneak into the cellar, although he has been explicitly warned by
his father against doing so. Pretty standard horror stuff, right?
Don’t be fooled. The game cleverly mixes original elements with common
lore from Lovecraft’s stories (notably, “At the Mountain of Madness”),
succeeding in creating a truly fascinating reading experience. Without
spoiling the whole thing, let’s just say that there is an expedition
and a quest and a curse and… well, play it by yourself, it is going
to take about 35 min. And make sure you play it to the end, as the
final twist deserves particular attention. On the technical side,
it ran fine in Gargoyle. Although it should be mentioned that, when
replying to my input, there were a couple of unnecessary lines repeating
my command before the actual reply. Not a big issue, for sure, but
certainly did not help to favor the immersion into the game.

As a short-horror story,
it should get nothing but a straight A. As a piece of interactive
fiction, The Cellar receives a C+.

Requirements: You can
play all games with Gargoyle.