Call of Cthulhu: Shadow of the Comet

Напевно найцікавіший, і найважчий з огляду на вік гри квест у який я грав.Фанатам творчості Лавкрафта повинно сподобатись! Probably the most interesting, and the most difficult quest in view of the age of the game that I have played. Lovecraft fans should like it!

┌──────────────────────── ∘°❉°∘ ────────────────────────┐ from the depths of oceanside the curios lapped through festering sanguine marbled layers upon reactions to visual expedience from adventuresome signs and similar visages written for the thrilling enjoyment of ambiguous genus from unfamiliar taxonomy a galore of trepid novel classics that cosmically pulls asunder from looming stars └──────────────────────── °∘❉∘° ────────────────────────┘ truely a classic of its era. mostly fully voice acted with inventory menu point and click adventure brilliant pixel art efforts deeply hindered by its visual timing programming audio offsets and long pauses break the immersion enough to want a fix, which there are none. perhaps alternates to dosbox may offer more "exact" style gameplay without it, we're left with the simplest efforts to playthrough accordingly, the floppy disk came first and the voice over additions really dont sync no matter what you attempt its either slow as beans or too fast, you can live with slow or ignore the long pauses not to say the game is without faults. infact there are some glaring issues, softlocks, moonlogic, even figuring out just what youre supposed to do. there are no hints in the game like many better adventure games which nudge you ex: "maybe you could do this" saving often is often a requirement for older games because you can die, softlock, or do progress out of order such said, to save my insanity, i use a walkthrough which may lack some more hilarious (save and die) trial and error bonus editions with a lore gallery museum and paper documents floppy disk & demos have differences from the full cd version pc98 japanese computer fully playable in dosbox-x or np2kai a vast library of mythos to pull ideas from, lovecraft still continues to proliferate ┏━━━ •◦இ•◦ ━━━┓ steamplay for 🐧 gnu/linux 🐧 boxtron -> 💾 dosbox-staging 💾 ┗━━━ •◦இ•◦ ━━━┛

Хороший, короткий и старый квестик с корявым управлением, корявым расположением субтитров, но все равно его стоит пройти [spoiler]*Poor Parker... So young... And already in the next world...*[/spoiler]

Loved it. Completed it 100% without looking anything up. It's hard though, there are no easy puzzles and the most difficult ones will give you as little clues as humanly possible and no rule applies, so every puzzle requires a different logical approach. Some require different degrees of brute forcing, a common situation is being given incomplete instructions on how to perform something, so you have to figure out the obscure parts. The art, characters and soundtrack are all great. It's the best possible game for any seasoned old school adventurer that craves real challenge and likes Lovecraft. Avoid if you usually have to look at walkthrough to finish a point and click. This isn't technically a point and click though, as it can and should be played entirely with keyboard. Some minor bugs here and there, nothing game breaking but you could be forced to reload at times. Oh and save as frequently as possible, it's that kind of game. There are many ways to die and none to properly see it coming 10/10 chtulu old school adventure

Call of Cthulhu: Shadow of the Comet, developed by Infogrames and later published under the Atari label, is a classic 1990s adventure game that sought to capture the eerie dread of H. P. Lovecraft’s stories and translate it into interactive form. Released in 1993, the game blends investigative exploration, puzzle solving, and bursts of danger into a three-day narrative set in the isolated New England town of Illsmouth. Players take on the role of John Parker, a photographer intent on documenting Halley’s Comet, only to find himself entangled in an occult conspiracy that threatens not just the town, but his own sanity and survival. The game’s most enduring strength lies in its atmosphere. Even with pixelated graphics by modern standards, Shadow of the Comet creates a thick sense of unease. The town feels lived-in but unsettling, with crooked houses, secretive residents, and an ever-present tension that grows as Parker digs deeper. The slow pacing of the first day, where you spend much of your time speaking to villagers and picking up hints of something sinister beneath the surface, works in its favor. By the second and third days, the narrative escalates into open threats, rituals, and otherworldly encounters that pull the player fully into a world of cosmic horror. The minimal use of music and reliance on ambient noise and sudden sound cues amplify the dread without overwhelming it. At the core of the gameplay is a traditional adventure structure built around inventory puzzles and exploration. You navigate the town and surrounding areas, collecting items and piecing together clues, all while avoiding cultists and unnatural horrors. While this design lends itself to methodical detective work, it also highlights some of the game’s more frustrating aspects. Inventory management is notoriously rigid—items often need to be used in very specific locations or at exact times, and the game offers little feedback if you’re on the wrong track. Some puzzles are notoriously opaque, forcing players to rely on trial and error or external guides. The navigation, too, can be confusing due to the unusual map layout, which occasionally makes the town feel like a maze rather than a coherent place. Despite these flaws, Shadow of the Comet stands out because of how it tries to balance traditional adventure gameplay with moments of tension and danger. Certain sequences place Parker in immediate peril, pushing you to act quickly rather than calmly cycling through inventory items. These moments sometimes clash with the slower investigative flow, but they do reinforce the sense that the character is truly vulnerable. Combined with the escalating story, which ties together themes of cosmic indifference and cultish devotion, these sequences give the narrative a sense of urgency and mounting dread. From a modern perspective, the game undeniably shows its age. The interface can feel clunky, and the lack of mouse support in early versions made navigation and interaction more cumbersome than necessary. Even the CD-ROM version’s voice acting, while ambitious for its time, varies widely in quality. Yet for those willing to adjust to its dated systems, Shadow of the Comet offers a glimpse of how developers in the early ’90s approached the challenge of bringing Lovecraft’s themes to video games. The atmosphere, the gradual build of horror, and the willingness to immerse players in a narrative where knowledge is as dangerous as ignorance all resonate with the source material. Ultimately, Call of Cthulhu: Shadow of the Comet is a flawed but fascinating piece of adventure game history. Its uneven puzzles and dated mechanics may frustrate modern audiences, but its dedication to creating an oppressive mood and its faithful evocation of Lovecraftian horror make it memorable. It is less about slick gameplay or modern conveniences and more about immersing players in a world where every conversation and shadow hints at something beyond human comprehension. For those with patience and a taste for classic horror adventures, it remains a compelling journey into darkness. Rating: 7/10

If you like to take a nostalgic trip with hardcore point and click game with lots of ways to die and difficult puzzles, you might like it

A classic adventure game with a horror tale based heavily on the Cthulhu mythos, as evident from its title. Fans of the mythos will find some good fun in this title. However, in my opinion, the game is best played with a guide at hand for when you get stuck - because you will get stuck. There are a lot of puzzles that requires leaps of logic, and just as many that require trial and error. On top of that there are many times there is just no pointers to what you're supposed to do next to move the story along, so you just have to stumble upon it. This is not helped by the player's character, Mr. Parker, not giving his thoughts about almost anything, and when he finally does decide to comment on something it's usually not with any practical value for the sake of progression of the game or the story. Speaking of story, some of its elements feel a bit shoehorned in, or rushed, with certain dialogue options not even making any sense in their context. And the ending is surprisingly happy for cosmic horror. But all in all it's good fun. The graphics are quite nice, and for the most part I really like them. There are some things that are just hard to make out what is, though. Also, did they just digitize the faces of famous actors for the various characters? Though one or two of the animation sequences had more of a CDi Zelda feel to them, there's a lot of fun, rotoscoped animation used, which reminded me of The Last Express. There were some minor graphical glitches, where things that ought to have been transparent in image assets became dark red instead, but these things were few and far between, and didn't cause any actual problems. I assume these were probably related to the DOSBox emulation of the game. The audio of this game is one of its greatest strengths, in my opinion. The ambience and music pieces all work really, really well. The voice acting is also pretty good, with a couple exceptions - though the VA directing is sometimes lacking, as if the voice actors had to guess the context of each line, and getting it right only 80% of the time. And everyone that had to act out the various chants in unknown languages really gave it their all, absolutely hamming it up! All in all, there's a lot of fun to be had for fans of the Cthulhu mythos, or people into old school adventure games in general. The game plays a bit differently than you might be used to, not using the classic point & click system, but also not using a parser system. Instead you use either keyboard or mouse to choose a direction to walk in, and you equip items that Mr. Parker will automatically use when he's at the right spot. It's an interesting system, and you do get used to it quite quickly. But definitely have a guide at the ready. This is a game made for a time when you'd play a single adventure game for weeks or even months, slowly inching your way further through the game. And this might be the most cryptic of all old school adventure games I've played. Don't let that stop you from playing the game, just have that walkthrough at hand for whenever you get stuck. Took me about 9 hours to get through, though you can absolutely get through it much, much faster if you want to.