Reviews

• gamedeal user

  Jul 15, 2016

  Edit: It's far enough in development now for me to post update, but I'll keep the original review for archival purpose. After just two or three months in early access, the game is much better now. Got actual tutorial, much accessible User Interface, more unique events, etc. It's a weird and rare type of procedurally generated story/adventure game about being editor of newspaper and sending your reporters to insanity and bodily harm to investigate tentacled beasts and phantom clowns. The gameplay is basically about sending your reporters to various locations, and trying to solve encounters there by equipping your characters with what you thought would be proper items for the investigations. Some items are useful for some specific things and useless for others. For example, pistols and shotguns would be useful against human enemies encounter like gangsters or cultists. Bringing holy water and holy cross in encounter against undead is common sense. Using levitation spell against wall of fire. Also some items have uses that are less obvious. For example, holy cross also give you moral support. Whiskey calm your mind and protect you from various flavor of mental disturbances. You have to guess what items might be useful, and it might not be obvious. So sometimes in your investigation it'd be trial and error, but other time it's either narrative/common sense or guessable from the adjective provided (for example, shotgun should be more useful against things with 'swarm' adjective compared to pistols. Gasoline would be useful against enemies with 'freezing' adjective). You have multiple investigators, and the thing that define them is their personal items. In this game, all items are one use, though that doesn't mean they all disposable items, it's more their use cost (bullets for guns, dog food for dogs). But each investigators have different personal items and abilities that they don't use up. There are other parts of the gameplay, but in my opinion those are the main meat of the game. Honestly, the gameplay is quite thin or 'floaty,' and despite the improvements, the gameplay is still pretty obtuse, but the atmosphere and the uniqueness of the game is a irreplaceable. The mood and atmosphere is basically my catnip, and I'm very charmed by this game. Consider it more mood/randomly-generated-story game rather than say, puzzle or action game. And the dev is a really nice guy with cute cats. And it's cheap! ... Old review: Played the free demo version before this, and not much change yet for now. Early access because the user interface and tutorial is still completely obtuse, but got really great potential. For now, get this if you like to meddle with basically a game with unfinished UI where you're left to yourself to understand what you're supposed to do, or wait a while if you just want to be an editor of newspaper and send your reporter to certain death investigating death cultists. But once again, a really rare type of game with great potential for the future.
• gamedeal user

  Jul 28, 2016

  Dang, there is a fun, even great game buried in this horrible interface. First of all: everyone should know that there is a free version of this game. I only dabbled with it before buying the steam version, in the hopes that the interface would be improved. So far, I haven't seen much evidence of that, but I'm hoping for improvements over time. In any case, it's so cheap that I'm happy enough to be supporting the developer. This game requires some dedication to get to the better parts. First of all, prepare to be annoyed, frustrated, and confused for a while. I highly recommend reading all available material on game play, and even watching the let's plays by people who know what they're doing. It is definitely similar to the classic Covert Action, but unfortunately the stories are even less accessible. What I want from this game is the sense that I'm actually solving mysteries that ultimately lead me to the showdowns against monsters. Maybe that eventually happens at the higher difficulty levels, but right now I feel like I just have to blunder around until and stick with it until eventually I'll face a baddie. Nonetheless, in spite of all this harsh criticism, the game excites my imagination in a way that games rarely do. I'm a fan of Lovecraft, and this pushes all the right buttons. Your reporters must prepare carefully before trying to face the serious foes, and regardless, you will have casualties along the way. Anyway, I definitely recommend this game to anyone who's ready to slog through learning the interface to get to the good stuff. I wish I could rewrite it myself, to bring out the undeniable gem hidden inside.
• gamedeal user

  Sep 21, 2016

  (Edit: It appears the game is now out of early access, and no particular changes have adjusted my opinions expressed here.) I feel strange giving a "not recommended" to a game I actually quite like. But as far as whether I'd recommend it to the public, Daily Chthonicle is on a VERY precarious balance point that could very easily wobble onto the recommended side by the time it comes out of early access. However, some considerable problems hold it back from something I'd assume the average random passerby would enjoy. However, Call of Cthulhu aficionados might stand a much stronger chance of getting more out of it. The basic, very clever gist of the game is that you run a bizarre little newspaper of occult phenomena and mysteries, commanding a roster of (fixed, pre-generated) reporters who go to conduct interviews, as well as a few less-than-reporterly things like breaking and entering, fighting monsters, taking samples from scenes of mysterious glowing goo, etc. It's got a great occult-noir feel, very pulpy, with a crinkly, low-res, mostly black-and-white aesthetic that serves it pretty well. Lists and menus take a neat in-world appearance of actual, hand-scribbled notes and the like. It's kind of a pain to switch to the arrow keys from the mouse to scroll through them, though. (Edit: Either I've newly noticed it or it's been added since early access, but the mouse wheel can scroll through these notes.) The interface has been greatly improved since the free version, but is still pretty obtuse. The addition of an in-game manual is a huge help, but I'm STILL fumbling all over how to do laboratory research and will probably need to go back and consult it. My efforts to figure it out by intuition alone have been totally fruitless. There are other interface annoyances as well, like how easy it is to accidentally click past the solution that pops up when you successfully decode an audio sample. The game is in many ways reminiscent of the old Sid Meier DOS strategy game "Covert Action," both for better and for worse. Both of them present webs of intrigue to unravel, and both of them ran into exactly the same major pitfall. In both games, said webs of intrigue quickly spiral into total incomprehensibility. Daily Chthonicle does a slightly better job of reminding you who is who and what is what, with the ability to click to cross-reference people and clues. But it's ultimately extremely easy to totally lose the thread of a given plot a mere two or three clues/witnesses deep. I found myself routinely confronted with strange sites, clues, and people to interview with little to no understanding whatsoever of why they'd come up or to which case they pertained. Cases seem to resolve themselves at random. There's rarely any big moment of revelation or "aha!" when you've dug to the bottom of a mysterious conspiracy. The game just decides you've learned enough to consider the case closed and marks it off your list without any real clear indicator of what you learned, what happened, or why exactly it's over (or even whether you've succeeded or failed). I found the result was mostly me stumbling through a series of seemingly disconnected encounters making what felt like very ill-informed decisions to either follow or ignore people, and occasionally picking items in blind hope they might help me surmount a random, contextless obstacle. I do like the core idea of the game. It feels, at times, a little like a solo "Arkham Horror" game. I'm a sucker for Lovecraftiana and the like, and for me, this game provides a good bit. But despite my fondness for it, I can't honestly predict many people finding it very enjoyable. There are two things, which could well end up changing by the time it leaves Early Access, that could "save" the game, in my eyes: * More conscious choices in investigations. Choosing what clues to follow up on, having more reliable information on who to tail and who to leave alone, what locations to check out, etc. would go a long way. As-is, investigations seem to run themselves on rails, with you mostly along for the ride just giving your reporters the nod to continue, and occasionally picking out equipment. * More coherent storylines. Clues need clearer context. The game needs to do a much better job of clarifying exactly why this sudden encounter it's waving in your face came about, what case it's connected to, etc. There are some steps taken towards this, but even at best, they tend to require doing a lot of cross-referencing. Person A is the friend of person B and witnessed person C doing something? That's well and good, but why does it matter? What connects it to the random location I've gone to? In my opinion, these two things alone, if fixed, could flip this to an excellent game. It already has the skeleton of a great paranormal sleuthing game, and the whole webwork of suspects/clues/encounters is a good underlying structure. Sid Meier was forever dissatisfied with how Covert Action, in practice, tended to devolve into just brute-forcing one's way through and how easy it was to lose track of the mystery. With Daily Chthonicle still amorphous and unfinished, it could very well dodge meeting the same fate. It hasn't yet though, and until then, while I'll be playing it, I wouldn't necessarily put my money on most people enjoying it the same way. I'll definitely be watching this spot to see if any future changes necessitate redoing this review.
• gamedeal user

  Sep 23, 2016

  This game is awesome. Someone on a message board I frequent suggested it and I bought it since the price was quite low. It is not perfect by today's standards. The interface is rudimentary. The mechanics are incredibly simple. The feedback and instruction are minimal, although there is a lengthy manual in the game. However, none of these detracts from what is an excellent game. If anything, I'd like to have a larger developing house take the core idea and expand on it. Not change a damned thing about how it works, just spruce it up. It perfectly captures the Lovecraftian feel. I will start following the developer and if his future offerings are anything like this gem, I'll start buying them sight unseen. Clunky, primitive, and simple, but great fun!
• gamedeal user

  Sep 28, 2016

  Very unique gameplay. Would love to see more of these types of games. I could see this working really well with a noirish private investigator agency setup. I think I would probably add some more ambient noises, though. Maybe a ceiling fan? Otherwise, great job. Looking forward to your next game.
• gamedeal user

  Oct 16, 2016

  There's the potential for a really good game here, one that far surpasses "The Westport Independent" and other games of this type. That potential hasn't been fulfilled, however. Forget the Old Ones, the user interface is the most mysterious unknowable filled with malice in this game. It's too hard to read, too obfuscated, and renders most of what should be meaningful choices as shrugging and guess work. If this game were tightened, polished and neatened, it would probably be one of my favourite games this year. As it stands, it's virtually unplayable.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 29, 2016

  I cannot say in good faith I'd recommend this, although I really would like to. At first it was incredibly hard to come to grips with, but after a while I managed to finally grab a hold of it. The graphics are pretty shoddy and the menus are incredibly confusing (which the tutorial helps nothing), but once you get a hang of it, it manages to be fun and engaging. If you don't have the patience or intellect to follow mystery novels then stay very far away from this game, but if you prefer murder mystery dinners then you should find this enjoyable. In short it feels like Zafehouse Diaries got into a drunken car crash with the board game clue, and this is the mangled remains of the accident.
• gamedeal user

  Feb 19, 2017

  I wanted to like this one far more than I actually could manage. With a little more polish, this game could be great. The setting is neat, with you running a newspaper that investigates supernatural events around town. Gods, how I wanted to love this one. But the mechanics are more than a little bit clunky, and the instructions are kind of obtuse. You're going to want to play through the tutorial as well as at least one game on easy, to make sure that you have a solid handle on how things play out. The biggest issue, however, is the nonsensical plots that get spat out by procedural generation. It's not uncommon to see a case proceed like this: "Bob, Tom, and Dave recently returned from abroad." After further investigations, you'll eventually find a location with "zombie scientist"...who upon killing, you discover is Bob. Bob died of knife wounds. You'll investigate awhile longer, and you'll find that Tom killed Bob for revenge, because Bob was blackmailing Dave, and Tom and Dave are friends. How Bob got turned into a zombie is never explained. Literally any monster causes dead people to become zombies, for whatever reason, in almost every game I've played. Demonic maggots cause zombies, spiders cause zombies, people cause zombies, and even werewolves cause zombies. The deeper you get into cases, the more nonsensical the procedural stuff becomes, just like most games that use procedural generation without limiting it or focusing it with sharper programming. Reading recaps of the cases becomes almost headache-inducing, because of all the Mad Libs-style procedural stuff you encounter. It's really a shame, because this game has so much potential to be an outstanding one. I really would like to see what this group of developers can do with a bit more time and polish, because everything is there to make an outstanding game. I'm giving it a thumbs-up recommendation, ON THE CAVEAT that you should buy this game on sale, and understand that it's flawed. Your mileage may vary on this one, compared to mine.
• gamedeal user

  Jul 6, 2017

  This game is in dire need for a tutorial video. That said it is a good game, interesting setting and theme, and is highly addictive.
• gamedeal user

  Oct 17, 2017

  Despite some flaws, Daily Cthonicle is a good game. The interface is a bit awkward, and it took me quite awhile to understand all the information I was getting as I worked these cases. But eventually I came to understand the information and learned to put all the names and details into context. Once you master the interface, and are able to put all the names and details into context, you will be working several conplex, proceeedural generated cases, many of which overlap and intertwine. It actaully rather fantastic. I recommend playing it on Hard -- Here is where the game has the most depth and challenge. I played two games on hard yesterday for the purpose of doing this review. The first game, I worked several cases, many of them related to a cult that had formed, but what really stood out, was the hideous fly/human experiment gone wrong. As the case went along, I uncovered details about some scientists INTENTIONALLY turning one of thier number into a fly/human abomination. It murdered it's wife and the person who witnessed that murder. I found it hiding in the basement and destroyed it. My second game had a number of interesting cases and sub-plots going on, but at the center of it was a cult leader who got bitten by a werewolf on a trip to scottland. As I uncovered this guy's series of nefaious deeds, I finally encountered him in Werewolf form, and he injured one of my reporters. After that the Werewold would periodically stalk one of my reporters and attack them during an investigation. It was an ungoing series of pitched battles with this werewolf guy, and it turned into a real grudgematch for me. I finally exterminated that a-hole. So, the proceedurally generated cases are excellent. The investigation game where you are served random "cards" such as crime scenes, encounters, interviews, etc is really cool. I don't love the inventory management game you play as you work the cases -- Its a little wonky and unclear -- but overall it's passable and makes for a decent way to interact with these proceedurally generated mysteries. It comes down to this -- I've been on the lookout for games that proceedurally generate investigations, mysteries, and dynamic plots. Im also always on the look out for Horror investigation games. If you want those two things -- this game is currently about the only thing on the market that delivers a remotely worthwhile effort. At $4 buchs its a no-brainer. Buy this game, then take the time to understand it.