You know that when a game wants you to go to Innsmouth you’re in Lovecraft country, not a place where anyone wants to find themselves.

There are a lot of hand drawn pop art influences

Desolatium is a first person, point and click game, heavily influenced by the Cthulhu mythos. At heart, it’s a murder mystery which takes the player on a ride into madness.

You’ll play a few different characters, which at times can be a little confusing. It would have been nice to have the current character’s name appear on the screen as sometimes this can lead to a little confusion. It would have also been nice to be able to change the size of the writing on the screen.

You start the game as Carter Scott, who wakes up in a hospital bed with amnesia. You can’t get out of the room because of a particularly aggressive guard, so it’s time to see if there is another way to escape.

The room introduces you to the mechanics where you can pick up objects and have them interact with other elements in the room. The game helps you along as the various characters have a weird way of continuously talking to themselves, dropping clues as to what the player is supposed to do next.

Desolatium is a first person, point and click game

The play style comes in two flavours. There are a lot of hand drawn pop art influences in the vocal interactions between characters juxtaposed with the main gaming locations. These consist of photo realistic areas. Here you can look around, examine items and interact with others.

You can’t move as such, so the idea of being close enough or far away from an object is immaterial, a lot like a VR experience. If you don’t examine everything in each given area then you’ll find yourself having to backtrack.

Moving between areas is completed with a transition as you can’t really move. There is the occasional animation thrown into the mix, but at heart it’s an older style of game, the sort you used to have to draw a map on paper to know where you have been.

Moving between areas is completed with a transition

The driving force for the game is its narrative and dialogue, which is engaging and the vocal acting which was likewise reasonably solid.

No game is perfect, pacing can sometimes feel a little slow, especially if you’re having to back track, repeating lines of dialogue, the overall creepy experience is satisfying.

7

Charles Packer