Cthulhu's Reach: Devil Reef

A simple yet fun and engaging game. The love that went into crafting the small things in the universe are evident in lore. Can't wait for the future of this game/franchise. Rogue fans might be left wanting, Cthulhu fans will be entertained. Cthulhu/Rogue fans will smile, play, repeat, and be happy.

Love the vibes this game gives off. It's a keeper for me. I understand this game is still in early Alpha so here's a bit constructive criticism: I had quite a bit of difficulty going up or down stairs as I either fell off or had trouble telling whether I was on the stairs or on the ground beside it.

Cthulhu's Reach: Devil Reef is refreshingly upfront about what it is: it’s got retro-style pixel art, monsters and architecture inspired by Lovecraft’s iconic mythology, and relentless roguelike gameplay with all the basics you’d expect from the genre. And it works. Kind of. The game offers simple, Lovecraft-themed fun that can actually be rather challenging at times (especially when the monsters begin to gang up on you in large hordes), with fast-paced action, solid controls and a fairly addictive core gameplay loop that will keep you coming back for more. Granted, it could really use some better enemy variety and more interesting upgrades, but even then, I had a decent enough time with it. For the full-length version of this review (along with many other honest indie game reviews), check out our Curator page: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/6481290-GTOGG/

it honestly feels like play CyberDogs on DOS again, ♥♥♥♥ yeah dude

I wish I could get a refund for this game. When I bought it, I had a lot of fun with it. It was tough, but it was a balanced experience that was fun and chill to explore. Every update they have made since its launch has made this game worse and worse. The writing was on the wall as soon as they implemented Stamina aka the lousy game's crutch mechanic. I stepped away for a while and just came back to it to see a bunch of updates. Oh boy, lets see how bad they trashed this game now. Lo and behold, I can no longer unlock shotguns or the tommy gun. I'm stuck with the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ pistol, and all the unlocks for it do a minimal and I mean MINIMAL amount of improvements. There's only so much you can improve the pistol before you reach the first boss, the Watcher, so buckle up for that. The Watcher battle is INCREDIBLY annoying; his life bar is massive, fine. He's a boss. BUT he spawns the worm enemies who are immune to guns, so guess what? You're going to have to hack away at them with the axe which is going to drain your stamina. Oh there's that crutch mechanic again... Once your stamina is 0, you can't do anything, can't shoot these things, can't roll out of the bullet hell projectiles the Watcher spews, you're doomed. Well, I managed to break the Watcher's health down to the last quadrant, but then he goes ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ with the bullet hell spam. You have NO recourse when this happens; he still spawns worms that you have to kill with the axe, but now you HAVE to roll out of the way from the projectiles too. You simply cannot get close enough to the watcher to shoot him and the second a moment of opportunity arises, the worms spawn and you have to axe them again lest they GRAB you and keep you in place for the unrelenting bullet hell. Again, this things health bar was massive, and all the money I could scrounge only let me upgrade the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ pistol so much, once I finally got him down to his last boss cycle, I had already spent nearly 20 minutes on the ONE fight. I have zero desire to attempt again, there isn't anything else I can do, you won't be able to get past the crippling stamina mechanic in that fight. If he spawned slimes then maybe it would be more managable since you could at least use the guns on them (and they only slow you instead of freezing you entirely) but honestly I'm not sticking around for another ♥♥♥♥♥♥ update. I REALLY wish I could get my money back. Imagine buying Super Mario 3 on the NES and every time you play it, it changes into a worse and worse experience. Would it still be revered as a masterpiece? I just wanted to chill in this game a bit before work and now I'm angry at the state of modern game development where my hard earned money is taken from me on a literal bait and switch and I have no recourse. Maybe the current iteration of this game speaks to you, fine. Just don't hold out hope that it's going to remain that way on the next update. ***UPDATE*** Okay I have to admit... while I back every word of my review, I wrote it in a time of high hostility. I have since read the developer's thoughtful response to my irate ramblings and I appreciated the thought an effort. So after having stepped away for a while, I decided to give the latest update (0.8.30 Alpha) a shot. I have to say a lot of the changes seem to address a lot of my frustrations. The biggest of which: removing stamina from the ax THANK GOD. Playing this build felt a lot more like the iteration of the game I had played that got me interested in it. I stream it on Twitch and my chatters like the chill vibe of dungeon diving in the atmospheric environment. It proves a challenge still, but being able to experiment with weapons (YAY the tommy gun is back, and a flame thrower!) is half the fun. Its obviously still very much so in development, I feel that the balance of the first boss went too far in the other direction (from being impossible to me smoking him in seconds with the tommy gun) but that might be fine, the difficulty of the second area made up for it. I realize that I'm not one of those players that wants a Soulslike that's going to crush my balls into paste just for clicking the launch button. I like a challenge, but I like a chill challenge, too. That's a hard balance to master, so I'll have to keep that in mind the next time an update sends me into a berserker rage.

A rogue-like set in the Lovecraftian universe of the Cthulhu mythos? Where can I sign up with my blood? Cthulhu's Reach: Devil Reef, in early access for over a year and a half, has laid the promising foundations for a fun and fast-paced title. Let's see how tempting tentacles can be... This preview started with version 0.8.36 and we're publishing it with version 0.9.3: in three months, things have changed a lot, and for the better. The difficulty is now better balanced: while it used to be extremely rare to find a health potion, you can now find them deep within the dungeons. Similarly, the spells that improve your character, which you activate with runes on each floor, seem more balanced and inflict more damage. And since then, a third chapter has been added to prolong the fun. This presents a real challenge: successfully reaching the depths of the reef and coming out alive. Where a few months ago we saw some potential in a slightly unbalanced game, Cthulhu's Reach: Devil Reef is now a good companion game that will easily keep you entertained in the evenings: a little dive off the coast of Innsmouth—who would be crazy enough to turn that down? [url=https://www.gamatomic.com/previews/13489/cthulhus-reach-devil-reef]Preview for Gamatomic[/url]

Really good concept and really good vibe of lovecraftian style. Horror on cutscenes and pulp cthulhu on the gameplay. Game has really decent base. I like that devs added more items / rituals and new sanity concept as well as new floors recently. Game is a bit buggy (I've played almost exclusively coop so can't really speak on solo) but nothing super game breaking. Devs fix stuff and I hope it will slowly grow to a great game. Decent game allready and I hope it's gonna get only better.

There is a reason why I avoid buying game in the early access. This one is a perfect example of it. My mistake.

A great H P Lovecraft roguelike, a bit rough but looking forward to the full release. https://youtu.be/k4D6LPvqskk

Hella fun!