Dagon

About

Dagon is a single player action game with horror and mystery themes. It was developed by Bit Golem and was released on September 24, 2021. It received overwhelmingly positive reviews from players.

Face unspeakable horrors. Succumb to madness. Welcome to a truly daemonic narrative experience inspired by H. P. Lovecraft.

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Single-Player

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96%

Audience ScoreBased on 4,925 reviews

story933 positive mentions

grinding5 negative mentions

Faithful and atmospheric adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's short story 'Dagon' capturing the cosmic horror tone.
Excellent narration and voice acting, complemented by immersive visuals and sound design.
Free and short experience with additional trivia enriching the story and providing background on Lovecraft and his era.

Very limited interactivity; essentially a visual novel or interactive audiobook with minimal gameplay.
Short length may leave some players wanting more content and deeper engagement.
Some visuals and animations, especially of creatures and the monolith, lack detail or feel inconsistent with the story's vague, indescribable horrors.

story
2,371 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
39%
60%
1%
The story is a highly faithful and immersive adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s classic short story "Dagon," effectively capturing its eerie atmosphere and cosmic horror themes through strong narration, visuals, and sound design. While minimal in gameplay, it serves as an engaging interactive visual novel or audiobook experience, enhanced by trivia about the author and story context, making it especially recommended for Lovecraft fans and those seeking atmospheric, narrative-driven horror. The concise length reflects the original story’s brevity, offering a compelling and accessible introduction or revisit to Lovecraftian lore.
- “A great interactive story for any fan of cosmic horror and Lovecraft's works, feeling truly like a love-letter to the genre.”
- “Such an incredible rendition of the classic short story, the atmosphere and sound design not to mention the incredible visuals leave you with a feeling of awe that doesn't let down the original story for even a second, the voice fits beautifully and overall gives me the same feelings I had when I first read the story some years ago, phenomenal.”
- “This is a wonderful love letter to Lovecraft and his first well-known short story; it's totally faithful to the source material, with atmospheric dark ambient soundscapes, polished and detailed visuals, and appropriate and well-voiced narration.”
- “The story, while classic Lovecraft, didn’t feel especially enhanced by the format — if anything, I think I’d rather have just read the original short story.”
- “The gameplay is extremely boring; you just look around, listen to some narration that you have to manually progress through, and click on whatever highlighted item progresses the story.”
- “The story itself is underwhelming (to say the least), though that is not the developer's fault of course, but it definitely did not help matters.”
graphics
721 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
60%
38%
2%
The game's graphics are widely praised for their atmospheric, haunting, and faithful interpretation of Lovecraft's world, with vivid, detailed, and stylistic visuals that greatly enhance immersion. While some note the simplicity and occasional technical glitches or lack of extensive animation, the visuals consistently complement the narration and sound design to create a chilling and effective experience. Overall, the graphics are considered a standout feature that successfully brings the story to life, especially impressive given the game's free and short nature.
- “The graphics are incredible, atmospheric music gives it the right creep factor, good sound design, and a decent narrator.”
- “From the graphics that capture the sheen and putrid mucus of the ocean's hideous depths, to the music, which is rife with dread and unending eeriness.”
- “Amazing narration, beautiful visuals, sound, and educational trivia make Lovecraft's story come to life.”
- “The visuals, while competently modeled and rendered, fall somewhat short of the nightmare-fuel that an imaginative brain, suitably steeped in Lovecraft lore, will conjure up.”
- “Lack of free will breaks the immersion instead of carrying it, and small graphical details ruin the believability, like the images on the monolith looking like stamps instead of carvings, the odd jumping out of water animation, the ending scenes.”
- “Narration is atmospheric enough, but the visuals are a detriment to the overall mood, especially artificially constrained view and nasty performance issues on older hardware (not justified by the graphics quality).”
atmosphere
511 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
70%
29%
1%
The game's atmosphere is widely praised for its immersive, eerie, and faithful recreation of Lovecraft's cosmic horror tone, effectively capturing dread, tension, and madness through a combination of atmospheric visuals, sound design, and narration. While its gameplay is minimal and the experience relatively short, the strong focus on mood and storytelling creates a compelling and chilling ambiance that resonates deeply with fans of Lovecraftian horror.
- “Sleek, atmospheric, and with complete mastery of audio and visual design, Dagon captures the essence of Lovecraft's otherworldly terrors with near-perfect accuracy and attention to detail.”
- “Such an incredible rendition of the classic short story, the atmosphere and sound design not to mention the incredible visuals leave you with a feeling of awe that doesn't let down the original story for even a second; the voice fits beautifully and overall gives me the same feelings I had when I first read the story some years ago, phenomenal.”
- “The atmosphere of damp, black depths and the gradually intensifying madness of the hero are almost physically palpable.”
- “I found myself zoning out halfway through, as the atmosphere alone wasn’t enough to sustain interest.”
- “Moving in the story was disorienting for me and detracted from the atmosphere of the story.”
- “Thinking about it as a movie or something like that, it also falls flat; the narration is superb, and the sound design is decent, but the visuals are cartoonish and fail to capture the atmosphere at all.”
gameplay
214 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
13%
80%
7%
Gameplay in this title is minimal, primarily consisting of simple point-and-click mechanics to progress the story with little to no puzzles, exploration, or interactivity. It functions more as an interactive narrative or visual novel, with an emphasis on atmosphere and storytelling rather than traditional gameplay complexity. While some appreciate its faithful Lovecraftian presentation, those seeking engaging or varied gameplay may find it lacking.
- “Alongside with incredibly simple but immersive gameplay we are reading the most compressed bits of external facts connected to Lovecraft’s in-life figure, his relationships with friends and colleagues, his artwork, religious, political and scientific beliefs and much more.”
- “Gameplay mechanics are minimal, but this doesn't prevent an immersive little tale with solid voice acting alongside pleasant visuals.”
- “While the actual gameplay is extremely minimal, it has a story to tell and does so well.”
- “There is no gameplay.”
- “My only complaint is that the lack of almost any kind of gameplay barely qualifies it as a game, or even a visual novel.”
- “The gameplay is extremely boring, you just look around, listen to some narration that you have to manually progress through, and click on whatever highlighted item progresses the story.”
music
144 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
44%
54%
2%
The music in this game is widely praised for its atmospheric, eerie, and immersive qualities, effectively enhancing the horror and cosmic dread themes. It complements the narration and sound design well, creating a chilling ambiance without being overwhelming, though some users note occasional volume imbalances between music and voice. Overall, the soundtrack and sound effects significantly contribute to the game's unsettling mood and storytelling experience.
- “The various sound effects and music are used to great effect to help enhance the dark and mysterious moods of the story.”
- “The narration and quality of the voice-acting alone makes this worth it, coupled with the soundtrack it makes for a chilling experience.”
- “The music, the visuals, the voice acting — everything here is on a stellar level and really immerse you into the story.”
- “My only criticisms are that I would appreciate a music slider separate from a sound slider in the options menu, as while the music and sound design is engaging and well done, I would have appreciated the sounds and narration along with the ability to experience this without the musical element.”
- “The music got quite loud near the end and made it hard to hear the actors' voice.”
- “Audio on the whole is questionable; the mixing of the music occasionally fights with the volume of the narration, and some of the sound effects are pretty rough.”
optimization
22 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
18%
64%
18%
The game suffers from poor optimization, particularly in VR, with frequent stuttering, high GPU demands, and limited graphics settings reducing performance flexibility. Despite these technical shortcomings and inconsistent frame pacing, the immersive visuals, faithful Lovecraft adaptation, and strong narration largely compensate, providing an overall playable and atmospheric experience.
- “While this indie title exhibits minor technical flaws and performance issues, the developers' evident devotion to the source material more than compensates for these shortcomings.”
- “If you enjoy Lovecraft, this performance is good and the visuals really add to it.”
- “A very beautiful story, but quite short, the performance of the game is at the highest level for games of this type, I am waiting for DLC or other parts of the story.”
- “Performance is really bad, even when the scenes are really simple.”
- “Since many of the scenes are simple barren landscapes that nevertheless thrash my GPU, I'd characterize the game as having poor optimization.”
- “There's no excuse for the lack of graphics customization options, especially if the game isn't well-optimized.”
emotional
15 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game delivers a deeply emotional experience through its faithful narrative and atmospheric tension, effectively evoking feelings of unease, smallness, and dread that surpass the original source material. While the short runtime and occasional narration issues slightly detract, the stellar voice work and haunting ambiance immerse players in a heartfelt, unsettling journey that resonates long after play.
- “Yes, the game is short—around 30 minutes—but it's packed with atmospheric tension and emotional weight.”
- “This made me feel, visually this time, exactly what I felt when reading the source material and even gave me some additional shudders caused by things I didn't even consider when reading.”
- “The narration just sucked me right into the story and made me feel the maddening horror of the environments.”
humor
12 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
50%
50%
The game's humor is appreciated for revealing quirky, lesser-known aspects of Lovecraft's life, including amusing historical anecdotes and clever references tied to his works. While the humor is seen as clever and insightful by some, others found it less engaging or missed a deeper comedic exploration of Lovecraftian controversies. Overall, humor adds an enjoyable and informative layer, though it may diverge from traditional comedic expectations.
- “The trivia info present in the game helps in knowing the book and author a lot better, and includes one particularly funny ad the author wrote for a furniture company that is overly descriptive and treats simple furniture as masterpieces.”
- “I found that both very funny and rather clever: if you want to try and get out of the fishing game, why not use that all the fishing building around works all about fish monsters?”
- “For us, people of the 21st century, Lovecraft isn’t really perceived as an actual human being anymore, who lived, worked, had some pretty damn funny stories from his real life to tell and just was quite a nice fella.”
grinding
11 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
55%
45%
Grinding in the game is generally seen as tedious and repetitive, often pulling players out of the experience. While some find the process time-consuming, collecting achievements and hidden bonuses can still be enjoyable for those willing to invest the effort.
- “You'll need a second life for grinding.”
- “Extremely tedious and a bit boring.”
- “Hunting for trivia is tedious and pulls you out of the experience, though the trivia itself adds nice context to the story.”
replayability
9 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
33%
34%
33%
The game's replayability is generally low to moderate, with some players finding little incentive to replay beyond collecting missed achievements or uncovering hidden clues. While the short, story-driven, corridor-style gameplay limits replay value, fans of the narrative may find some motivation for additional playthroughs.
- “All achievements are easily achievable and replayability of the game is high!”
- “Finding all the hidden clues will likely take multiple run-throughs for most people. I only found about 60% on my one run.”
- “I feel it has a good amount of replayability for fans of the story.”
- “Very little replayability.”
- “It's very short and the only replay value is to achieve any missed achievements.”
- “Not much replay value, since it's very much a corridor style, story-driven game.”
stability
5 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game's stability is somewhat inconsistent, with users reporting graphical glitches, texture issues, and occasional bugs such as mouse drifting. While these problems can be distracting, they generally do not severely impact the overall experience. However, using Oculus Air Link specifically may cause significant instability.
- “Do not use Oculus Air Link with it, or it gets really buggy.”
- “I had a lot of graphic glitches and problems.”
- “I did have a few graphical glitches and an issue where halfway through my mouse started continuously drifting to the bottom right, but I just carried on; it didn't impact the experience too badly.”
monetization
4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
50%
50%
The game is praised for being completely free with no microtransactions or ads, offering a pure experience without exploitative monetization tactics. This approach is appreciated, especially compared to many paid games with questionable value.
- “Anyway, it is free and there are no microtransactions.”
- “Despite being free, there are no ads or in-game purchases for the main story, so there is no reason not to experience this version of Dagon for any horror or Lovecraft fan.”
- “I don't like playing games just to have advertisements for other games and DLCs thrown in my face; it exploits completionists and collectors.”
character development
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Users appreciate the strong story and well-developed characters, highlighting that the character development effectively enhances the overall narrative experience.
- “Story and character development”