HPL: Nyarlathotep Rising

Not really worth the price. Spuns a lot of references, but the plot is just so generic CoC. No meaningful decisions except standard: defy / sacrifice / save the damsel. A lot of smokescreen references to mythos tomes, creatures etc., but none of it gets into the gameplay. Stats play no role. Relations play no role. Everything boil down just to final choices, but nothing interesting on the chapters 1-5, but the fluff-filling, meaningless flashbacks. It is a shame, because I really wanted to like this one.

I like this game but December update made it unplayable. There are multiple pages with missing text and some character names are also just lines of code, which makes it impossible to follow the story. I will update my review if game is fixed, but now I can't recommend it to anyone.

Beautifully written and interesting. Definitely captures the Lovecraft atmosphere and possibility of breaking down along the way. Decisions feel meaningful but also not always predictable. Fascinating.

I purchased the game as it was on my wishlist for a while. The first 5 or so minutes of the game were really good. Good storyline, nice "choice matters" selections, etc. Then suddenly the text disappeared and was replaced by the string or file name, which is bad for a text based game. I tried to move ahead a bit to just see if it was just one section of the game, but sadly it looked like it was a good chunk of at least the beginning as I couldn't progress further without knowing what was going on in the story. I checked the community comments and noticed that months ago others had mentioned the same issue, but it doesn't seem to have since then been patched or fixed. Sadly, rather disappointing as it looked like a pretty good game.

I bought in discount and had to refund. I posted on a related Discussions post about this so I will paste here as it’s relevant to potential customers and the devs. Do not buy until this is fixed! You will be missing a lot of the game bc of an update! “ I thought that coded text was a way to get replayability. Like once you discover something or make a choice when you come around to it again it would display the text. I went from thinking it was an error to convincing myself it was game design. You are all saying this is a bug?? Ugh??!!! Edit: I just watched clips of three YouTube videos of others playing it from 1 yr ago and did not see any of those weird code-like text pages. Answered my own question, but leaving what I said there for anyone else who stumbles into it to know they're not alone. Game Dev: I really want to play and enjoy your game. I was actually really enjoying my short time with it when I didn’t know the errors in text were in fact errors. I’m playing only on Steam Deck bc I only have a work PC, not a personal one. Please fix bc I will have to refund as it’s not in a playable state currently.”

If you like H.P Lovecraft and are into visual novels, this is going to be a treat. It is MORE than a visual novel though. There are game elements, stats to keep track of, unlockables, and a ton of replayability here. The writing is good, not Shakespeare, but good. You can play as 3 different characters. Well worth the money.