Another week, another Lovecraft game. Chronicle of Innsmouth: Mountains of Madness (Psychodev, March 2021) was successfully crowdfunded just before Christmas 2018, and is now complete and published for all on Steam. It follows Lovecraftian games such as the recent The Shore and Call of the Sea. Both hard acts to follow, each in their own way. Chronicle doesn’t try to rival either title in slickness and instead purposely evokes the style and mechanics of the classic old-school Lucasarts point-and-click games. The art style is accordingly pleasingly home-spun. All plus-points, in my book.

Loosely based on “Shadow over Innsmouth” and “At the Mountains of Madness”, and apparently “written by a Lovecraft expert” in Italy. We’re promised “many Easter eggs that only the geekiest of Lovecraft geeks will get”. More plus-points.

It’s more than a bit detective-y and has some Lucasarts-style puzzles, though. The player lands in the well-worn gumshoes of Lone Carter, trying not to totter into madness while investigating a series of murders to the beat of an original soundtrack. Sounds fun, as long as fiendish puzzles don’t bring the narrative to a grinding halt, which is always the problem with such games.

Apparently it runs about six hours, or two evenings, for experienced gamers. Maybe three evenings for occasional gamers, or for those not used to detective-puzzlers.

* “a solid point-and-click adventure game … deserves investigation” — TechRaptor.

* “The game is completely voice-acted and that is done excellently … [the art] is looking quite stellar, especially the cut scenes … [game mechanics are] a very smooth experience … a fascinating narrative and characters to go along with it” — Gaming Outsider.

* “… a love letter to Lovecraft [but] the narrative feels cohesive despite shoehorning such disparate [Lovecraft themes and references] … the voice-acting ranges from ‘quite good’ on one end to ‘serviceable if a bit corny’ … it gives a sense of agency beyond discovering otherworldly secrets and being driven mad … strongly suggest giving this one a try” — Indie Gamer Review.