Lovecraft's Untold Stories

About

"Lovecraft's Untold Stories" is a rogue-lite action game based on the horror stories of H.P. Lovecraft. Players explore randomly generated levels filled with cultists and monsters from the Mythos, improving weapons and gear, solving puzzles, and uncovering clues to defeat the Great Old Ones. The game features multiple characters, each with their own investigations and unique levels.

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Single-Player Play through the game's story or campaign solo

+29

74%

Audience ScoreBased on 594 reviews

gameplay38 positive mentions

grinding28 negative mentions

The game features well-crafted pixel art and a captivating atmosphere that immerses players in the Lovecraftian theme.
The gameplay offers a mix of exploration, combat, and lore, with various characters that have unique abilities and playstyles.
The inclusion of mini-events and choices adds depth to the narrative, allowing players to engage with the story and its elements.

The game can be excessively difficult, with some encounters feeling unfair due to overwhelming enemy numbers and status effects.
There are issues with controls and hit detection, making combat feel clunky and frustrating at times.
The lack of a save feature and the need to restart levels upon death can lead to a tedious experience, especially for players with limited time.

gameplay
202 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
19%
66%
15%
The gameplay of the game has received mixed reviews, with some praising its fun and challenging mechanics, diverse character abilities, and engaging Lovecraftian themes, while others criticize it for being overly punishing, repetitive, and clunky. Players noted issues with the aiming mechanics, the frustrating sanity system, and the lack of meaningful progression, leading to a tedious experience. Overall, while the game has solid core mechanics and artistic appeal, many feel it falls short in execution and balance, detracting from the overall enjoyment.
- “Top-notch pixel art, fun and challenging gameplay, exquisite Lovecraftian lore, and tons of content!”
- “The gameplay is great, as it provides several different characters with different traits and abilities, different weapons, and unique items to be used for different scenarios, ultimately creating a great, dumb-fun run-and-gun experience.”
- “The core gameplay mechanics are solid, and the content is definitely not lacking.”
- “Enemies get way too spongy (played on normal difficulty), some items are almost required, else you die way too quick, levels are way too big and gameplay becomes really repetitive.”
- “Very punishing gameplay where everything that can kill you, will, and everything that can't, will still find a way to.”
- “This game is designed with that annoying mindset of trying to create something 'difficult' that they veer into the territory of doing things to annoy the player and make them not want to interact with any of the game's mechanics or systems.”
story
172 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
22%
73%
5%
The game's story is a mixed bag, praised for its Lovecraftian themes and atmosphere, but criticized for its convoluted mechanics that hinder exploration and lore engagement. While some players appreciate the depth and references to Lovecraft's works, others find the narrative weak and difficult to follow, often feeling overwhelmed by the gameplay's grind and lack of clear objectives. Overall, it appeals primarily to fans of the genre, but many feel it could benefit from clearer storytelling and improved gameplay balance.
- “The story and atmosphere are excellent.”
- “Amazing lovecraftian story-rich game, it has a lot of lore and the pixel art is beautiful.”
- “What surprises me more is how all of these fragments manage to connect with each other, intertwining to create a whole new story with five different characters in the same timeline.”
- “Play until you beat the detective's story, then uninstall and never play again. It saves you from experiencing more madness and insanity than Lovecraft could ever imagine.”
- “This mechanic makes you not want to look up items and lore at all, because each piece of lore kills you, making you run through the game without actually checking the story.”
- “The plot and narrative presume you know an incredible amount of H.P. Lovecraft's work.”
atmosphere
104 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
56%
41%
3%
The game's atmosphere is widely praised for its captivating graphics, immersive sound design, and strong Lovecraftian themes, creating a sense of dread and tension that enhances the overall experience. While some players note that the gameplay can detract from the atmospheric elements, the combination of eerie visuals, haunting music, and well-crafted lore effectively draws players into a chilling world filled with cosmic horrors. Overall, the atmosphere stands out as a significant strength, making it a compelling experience for fans of horror and Lovecraftian storytelling.
- “But the music, atmosphere, writing, imagery and pending sense of certain doom approaching after playing for 2 hours knowing suddenly you could possibly and probably will at any moment be ripped to pieces by hordes of horrific monstrosities or be exposed to cosmic horrors beyond your comprehension causing you to lose your mind and go completely insane ending it all almost instantly with no warning or real understanding of why and losing everything is very Lovecraftian.”
- “The world and atmosphere are top notch and scratch the Lovecraft itch in me.”
- “The combined music and sound effects really complement the foreboding atmospheric vibe of this game.”
- “All story and atmosphere is tossed aside for a stupid button smash kill everything top down shooter.”
- “This game is 100% art and atmosphere, and 0% content or gameplay.”
- “Please add more things to read, and more detailed puzzles to solve to make the story and the atmosphere stronger.”
graphics
86 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
42%
55%
3%
The graphics of the game are widely praised for their captivating pixel art style, which effectively conveys a Lovecraftian atmosphere and enhances the overall experience. Many reviewers highlight the attention to detail in the visuals and the successful integration of the aesthetic with the gameplay, although some note that the pixelation can obscure important elements. Overall, the graphics are considered a strong point, contributing significantly to the game's charm and immersion.
- “Wonderfully graphically realized in glorious grotesque pixel art, captures the essence of Lovecraft fiction whilst being a challenging frantic arcade experience and with each character offering a different set of skills and story with different levels, it's essentially 5 games in one.”
- “The graphics are very well drawn, and the background music adds to the dark atmosphere.”
- “The pixel graphics somehow work just perfectly with the subject matter, and the music only immerses you even further into the atmosphere.”
- “Muddled graphics.”
- “The graphics and controls combined to give me a headache in mere moments.”
- “No graphical clues on multiple elements that would need them.”
music
56 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
21%
73%
5%
The music in the game is generally praised for its atmospheric qualities, effectively enhancing the eerie and Lovecraftian themes. However, many reviewers noted that the soundtrack can be repetitive and lacks variety during gameplay, which detracts from the overall experience. Despite these criticisms, the combination of music and visual design successfully creates a haunting atmosphere that immerses players in the game's world.
- “The art and music are all evocative of the deep dread that should be present in any mythos-inspired game.”
- “The settings are eerie and wonderful, and combined with the music, it creates a haunting atmosphere.”
- “The combined music and sound effects really complement the foreboding atmospheric vibe of this game.”
- “My only real complaint is the soundtrack isn't fleshed out.”
- “The bad: controls are janky even with mouse and keyboard, the hazards areas and enemies are difficult to read due to cluttered screens and fast pace, the music is forgettable, the map design nonsensical, the difficulty spikes quickly after the first chapter, and even on easy mode I only got to chapter 3.”
- “- the music is atmospheric yes but doesn't change at all during fights and can be pretty monotonous.”
grinding
30 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
7%
93%
Players consistently describe the grinding aspect of the game as tedious and frustrating, particularly due to poor RNG and a lack of meaningful progression. Many feel that the repetitive gameplay loop becomes increasingly burdensome after the initial levels, with limited save points and scarce opportunities for recovery compounding the grind. Overall, the grinding detracts from the enjoyment of an otherwise well-crafted game, leading to negative reviews.
- “The game gets tedious after the second level, and the tedium only grows as you realize that this is just what the whole game is going to be, the developers stripping you of being allowed to enjoy their otherwise beautiful, carefully crafted, and lovingly made game, all for the sake of it being 'hard'.”
- “Eventually, I got sick of grinding through levels in hopes of finding the third one.”
- “Not having fast travel will mean you spend quite a bit of time tediously backtracking through rooms you've already visited.”
replayability
28 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
43%
46%
11%
Overall, the game boasts high replayability due to its procedurally generated world and multiple playable characters, which encourage varied gameplay experiences. Many players appreciate the randomization and the inclusion of easter eggs, enhancing the game's longevity. However, some users feel that certain aspects may artificially inflate replay value, leading to mixed opinions on its overall replayability.
- “I'm having so much fun with this, great replayability, lots of cool easter eggs, all the things to love in a rogue-like with a well-crafted Lovecraftian world.”
- “Each game instance seems to change randomly, which makes it very replayable.”
- “Other people may can, but I find that it is an artificial way to increase replayability.”
- “If you can get past the initial challenge, the game is procedurally generated, which by itself adds a lot of replay value to the game.”
- “It is important to note that the world is entirely randomly generated, which gives the game a high level of replay value.”
stability
10 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game suffers from significant stability issues, including numerous glitches, buggy hitboxes, and problematic inventory management, which detract from the overall experience. Players have reported frustrating control changes and a lack of clear information, indicating that substantial improvements are needed before the game can reach its full potential.
- “After just a few hours, I have encountered all kinds of glitches and issues. There is a lot of work to be done, even if the game is promising.”
- “The UI needs work, with inventory management being buggy right now (equipping items seems bugged). Also, the controls are kind of annoying and the main reason I've died so far.”
- “It is like a souls-like game in the aspect of difficulty, even if some of that is from your controls changing without you changing them yourself, buggy hitboxes/hurtboxes, incredibly high item use requirement for different status effects, and lack of available information on the game.”
optimization
8 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
63%
38%
The optimization aspect of the game has received mixed reviews, with players noting that certain encounters, particularly the shoggoth boss fight, require specific damage-per-second (DPS) optimizations to succeed, which can feel frustrating and arbitrary after several hours of gameplay. This focus on optimization detracts from character development and narrative engagement, as players are forced to prioritize mechanical efficiency over exploring the game's story and character dynamics.
- “In the shoggoth boss fight and some of the regular encounters, the shoggoths spawn at such a rate that their reproduction can outpace your DPS unless you specifically optimized for this exact situation.”
- “Here, you're four hours deep and you get a pointless DPS optimization gate.”
- “We could have gotten to know the characters' strengths, their weaknesses, their core values, and then depending on our actions and performance, we could have seen those characters triumph or fall by them.”
humor
4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The humor in the game is well-received, with players finding it genuinely funny and comparable to the comedic elements found in Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu tabletop games. Overall, the game's humor contributes positively to the player experience.
- “Funny game, I like it ^^”
- “Funny enough, the closest comparison I can think of is Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu tabletop games.”
character development
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
50%
50%
Many users feel that the game lacks sufficient character development, suggesting that deeper exploration of the characters could have enhanced the overall experience.
- “However, I feel this game could have benefited from more character development.”
emotional
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Users express that the emotional aspect of the game evokes a strong sense of nostalgia and excitement, reminiscent of starting a new campaign in traditional pen-and-paper role-playing games. This connection enhances the overall experience, making players feel deeply engaged and invested in the narrative.
- “Without spoiling too much, it is a telegram, one that made me feel I was starting another campaign in the pen-and-paper version.”