One of the first lessons you learn in the Lovecraftian Mythos is stay the hell away from magic, even more so from the Necronomicon. No one told this to Buzz and his acquaintance, who’s now in the hands of some crazy cultists. To make things worse, or funnier, Buzz’s cat got hit with a random spell and started talking, or as he puts it “became a horrible abomination.”
Gibbous: A Cthulhu Adventure, a point & click adventure game in development and currently on Kickstarter has one thing going for it that I found even funnier than the rest of the demo: the game’s studio, Stuck in Attic, is from Transylvania. With how much we tie Transylvania to horror thanks to Bram Stoker’s novel—my favourite by the way—the fact these guys are making a comedy-horror just cracks me up. Just me that finds it funny? Let’s move along then.
In terms of the game itself, don’t worry, it’s good, very good. It’s the type of self-referential adventure game I like, where they make fun of themselves and the usual tropes of the genre. Best of all, it has a ton of references to popular culture, but it’s the more subtle kind of reference, where they just make a single comment that some will pick up but not everyone. Perhaps the most direct reference in the game is the Voodoo Gentleman, but even he’s very different from his female Caribbean counterpart. Meeting the Voodoo Gentleman has a wonderfully funny comment about the Necronomicon, about how everybody incorrectly assumed that the book is bound in human flesh.
When the Kickstarter demo opens you find yourself out in the Darkham streets, right in front of the Fishmouth Fishery, with its fishman sign. To the side you see a small yet very creepy girl holding a doll that looks very much like a gingerbread man. On the next screen is an ominous taxi, a blonde woman seeking Voodoo help against her husband and a locked door where you need a password to go in. These are your puzzles of the evening, hoping to leave the Darkham streets to make your way to Fishmouth and its rather creepy inhabitants.
One of my favourite moments in the demo was looking at Darkham Asylum and Buzz’s comments on how the warden was a real Joker and them having Bat problems. Some of you will pick up the reference immediately and I had a nice chuckle with it.
The puzzles weren’t really difficult but they include some inventory management—though no item combinations, as the demo hilariously reminds you every time you try to do it, insisting they didn’t have the budget for that much voice acting—and most importantly, talking to people. The little girl is snarky and witty and makes our hero look like a bumbling fool and is the one character you can’t really crack until the very end when you have something she needs and some quid-pro-quo can happen.
When you finally finish the demo and presumably make your way to Fishmouth to continue your investigation into your missing “friend,” the game cuts to another cutscene with Buzz and Kitteh, this time the kitty interrupting Buzz’s Kickstarter pitch to demand we give them all the money! I couldn’t stop laughing at this.
If you like what you see, then please head off to the Kickstarter campaign page and support Gibbous: A Cthulhu adventure. It’s a really fun game that deserves all the support we can give it!
