![]() ![]() Like Dan, I also had to do some backtracking due to missing an item. However, I do have some problems with Conarium. Some may find the voice acting to be comically over-the-top, but I was hooked from start to finish. The developer’s appreciation for the source material is clear - its tale is told in a tell-but-don’t-show kind of way, the dialogue echoes the author’s wordy, overstylized dialect, and even telling the story through documents matches the epistolary structure that Lovecraft’s stories often take. In short, I share Dan’s enthusiasm for Conarium. Conarium focuses on this isolation and effectively creates a sense of dread as one reads accounts of what has transpired while reinforced by frequent hallucinations and strange environments. This genre fits Lovecraft well since the isolation easily created in these types of experiences means that horror can be gradually built without the need for action or frequent appearance of monsters. It becomes clear that he is on an Antarctic base, and through exploration, reading documents and solving puzzles, the player will begin to understand the situation Frank is in.Ĭonarium could be described as a ‘walking simulator’ - essentially, it’s a narrative-driven first-person adventure that offers fairly passive gameplay overall. The player takes control of Frank Gillam, a man who wakes up with no memory and a mysterious glowing device in the middle of his room. In fact, this game serves as an unofficial sequel to that novella. Having read Dan’s effusive review of Conarium, I sought out the Switch port.Ĭonarium is developed by Stormling Studios and inspired by the Lovecraft story At the Mountains of Madness. However, there are works that successfully draw from Lovecraft with strong art direction - Bloodborne comes to mind - but I wanted to try something that adhered closer to his work. This works perfectly with literature, as it forces the reader to imagine these horrors, but that same fright is dulled if overexposed visually, and particularly if poorly designed. WTF The protagonist sounds like Paddington Bear at times.Īs a HP Lovefraft enthusiast, I’ve always thought his work would translate poorly to visual medium as his stories tend to be about indescribable cosmic horrors that incite madness when viewed. Pros: - Ran very well, framerate was usually 80+ - Manual save system - Didn't crash once - Decent amount of graphics options - Great atmosphere - Good story Cons: - The odd graphical glitch such as an area not being lit properly by the flashlight - A couple annoying puzzles - Some Steam achievments didn't seem to work for me - Only seemed to use 1 core of my CPU (1 was at 60% while the rest at less than 20%) My system used to play this game: AMD FX-9590 | 16GB DDR3-2133 | MSI RX 580 8GB Gaming X | Mesa 17.3.6 | Samsung 850 Evo 250GB | Solus 3 | Kernel 4.15.7-60.LOW An annoying chase sequence sucks the atmosphere out. My total system RAM usage was 2.5-3GB while they list 6GB foir the minimums. ![]() A couple of other things I will mention are that while it doesn't list supporting AMD graphics cards for Linux I had no issues using mine and also it uses a lot less RAM than it has for the requirements. Overall I would recommend this to fans of HP Lovecraft and fans of puzzle/adventure games. The puzzles for the most part are well done with the exception of two that annoyed me. It had great atmosphere and a good story. I kind of expected a run and hide horror game for some reason, which isn't my cup of tea, where what I got was a nice HP Lovecraft puzzle/adventure game. Overall I would recommend this to fans of HP Lovecraft and fans of I was pleasently surprised by Conarium. ![]()
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