Cyclopean: The Great Abyss seems to have great dungeon graphics, but I can’t say for sure because I can’t get the torch to work. I think your character should automatically airy them up when you venture into a dungeon – at which point the view changes, in classic Ultima style, from top-down to first-person. However, my character never bothers to airy the torch. Perhaps this is because no matter how many torches I loot or buy from the few underworld merchants, my character page always tells me I don’t have any. Does my character eat them? Are they too afraid to airy them and expose the contents of these dungeons? Do I need to read the instructions carefully? Or maybe it’s just a mistake?
For now, I have to wander the catacombs in complete darkness, navigating using the minimap and the sound of my character climbing the walls. Sometimes I run into a ghost, a Dark Guardian, or some other Lovecraftian hooligan. I’m sure the monsters are terrible, but again I can’t see them, and the turn-based combat sound effects are strangely cartoonish – it basically sounds like I’m hitting a snowman. I realize that “never show a monster” is a basic rule of horror, but I guess you can peek while the creature is chewing on your face.
Oh how I’d love to see the monsters from Cyclopean: The Great Abyss, because it seems like a promising space horror game, especially because it’s also a minimalist, slightly sandbox exercise in retro RPG mechanics – not “Cyclopean” at all, but certainly tempting.
The player takes on the role of a kind of English aristocrat who has dreamed of going to the Great Abyss and must look for a way back to the World of Awakening. You start by throwing out your stats and equipment – in my experience this is a really crappy dagger and some protective rags. Then trot away to have your soul sucked into the Moon Beast. The world appears to be repaired, but as I revisited the site of my previous character’s death, I encountered different dungeon layouts. In addition to the beasts, there are doors with opening locks, treasure chests and, most importantly, spike traps. While working with the demo, I triggered many pitfalls. Fortunately, they cannot be triggered multiple times.
Cyclopean launched in Early Access this month. The current version supports basic combat, stealth and dialogue elements. It can be played from start to finish, with three potential endings. All as planned, version 1.0 will be released in six months and will feature more extensive quests, more sophisticated interactions with NPCs and a more extensive sanity system. I haven’t had a chance to see what happens when you go crazy because I can’t see anything and I keep walking on thorns and dying. It’s strenuous to go crazy when you have basic mosquito survival in a microwave.
Developers Schmidt Workshops is actually one person from Chicago, Illinois. Their previous works include Islands Of The Caliph, “an old-school inspired action RPG based on Middle Eastern folklore and Islamic spiritual traditions.” Given this precedent, I’m curious to see how they’ll handle the usual problem of Lovecraft being a huge stinking racist. In the meantime, you can find the demo on steam.