''Eldritch'' is a 2013

first-person shooter First-person shooter (FPS) is a sub-genre of shooter video games centered on gun and other weapon-based combat in a first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action through the eyes of the protagonist and controlling the pl ...

video game developed by David Pittman and published by American indie studio Minor Key Games. It was inspired by the writings of H. P. Lovecraft and gameplay elements of

roguelike Roguelike (or rogue-like) is a subgenre of role-playing game, role-playing computer games traditionally characterized by a dungeon crawl through procedural generation, procedurally generated level (video gaming), levels, Turns, rounds and time- ...

games. The expansion ''Eldritch: Mountains of Madness'' was released in December 2013. The game's

source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comment (computer programming), comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a Computer program, p ...

was released in 2014, though the content itself remains proprietary.

Gameplay

Players take the role of a 1920s-era investigator in a

Cthulhu Mythos The Cthulhu Mythos is a mythopoeia and a shared fictional universe, originating in the works of American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. The term was coined by August Derleth, a contemporary correspondent and protégé of Lovecraft, to identify ...

-inspired storyline. Players can wield both pistols and spells. The world is

procedurally generated In computing, procedural generation is a method of creating data algorithmically as opposed to manually, typically through a combination of human-generated assets and algorithms coupled with computer-generated randomness and processing power. In ...

, which means that it is different every time the game is played. The game features a form of

permanent death Permadeath or permanent death is a game mechanic in both tabletop games and video games in which player characters who lose all of their health are considered dead and cannot be used anymore. Depending on the situation, this could require the ...

in which all items are lost upon death. Money that has been stored in the bank is retained. After the player wins the game, a new difficulty mode is unlocked, "

New Game Plus A New Game Plus, also New Game+ (NG+), is an unlockable video game mode available in some video games that allows the player to start a new game after they finish it at least once, where certain features in NG+ not normally available in a first ...

". Enemies become stronger, helpful items become rarer, and gameplay shifts to a more

stealth game A stealth game is a type of video game in which the player primarily uses ''stealth'' to avoid or overcome opponents. Games in the genre typically allow the player to remain undetected by hiding, sneaking, or using disguises. Some games allow th ...

-inspired mechanic.

History

Development

David Pittman wrote and published the game independently after he quit

2K Marin K, or k, is the eleventh letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''kay'' (pronounced ), plural ''kays''. The letter K ...

. After his wife, Kim Pittman, helped to finance the game's development, he budgeted for a December 2013 release. He began publicizing the game in September, and unforeseen circumstances pushed the release date forward to October.

Release

''Eldritch'' was released October 21, 2013. When there were complaints about the shortness of the game, Pittman created a free expansion based on ''

At the Mountains of Madness ''At the Mountains of Madness'' is a science fiction-horror novella by American author H. P. Lovecraft, written in February/March 1931 and rejected that year by ''Weird Tales'' editor Farnsworth Wright on the grounds of its length. It was ori ...

'', a story he had wanted to include more of. ''Eldritch: Mountains of Madness'' was released in December 2013.

Source code release

In April 2014, the game's

was released to the public under a

permissive {{about, , the 1970 British film, Permissive (film), the grammatical mode, Permissive mood, the flavor of software license, permissive free software licence A permissive cell or host is one that allows a virus to circumvent its defenses and replica ...

zlib license The zlib license is a permissive free software license which defines the terms under which the zlib software library can be distributed. It is also used by many other free software packages. The libpng library uses a similar license sometimes r ...

, though the content remains proprietary. While still being sold, the game became

open-source software Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. Ope ...

, and was ported to alternative platforms like the

Pandora In Greek mythology, Pandora (Greek: , derived from , ''pān'', i.e. "all" and , ''dōron'', i.e. "gift", thus "the all-endowed", "all-gifted" or "all-giving") was the first human woman created by Hephaestus on the instructions of Zeus. As Hes ...

Reception

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, a

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, rated it 77/100 based on 14 reviews. Chris Thursten of ''

PC Gamer ''PC Gamer'' is a magazine and website founded in the United Kingdom in 1993 devoted to PC gaming and published monthly by Future plc. The magazine has several regional editions, with the UK and US editions becoming the best selling PC games m ...

'' rated it 72/100. He wrote that the game's initial run-through is fun but too short and easy. Thursten concludes that the unlocked difficulty, "New Game Plus", solves the difficulty issue but leaves nothing new to explore. Rowan Kaiser of ''

IGN ''IGN'' (formerly ''Imagine Games Network'') is an American video game and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa dist ...

'' rated it 7.7/10 and wrote, "''Eldritch'' is cruel and unpredictable, but this first-person Roguelike is cleverly designed." Alec Meer of ''

Rock, Paper, Shotgun ''Rock Paper Shotgun'' (also rendered ''Rock, Paper, Shotgun''; short ''RPS'') is a UK-based website for reporting on video games, primarily for PC. Originally launched on 13 July 2007 as an independent site, ''Rock Paper Shotgun'' was acquir ...

'' called it a combination of ''

Minecraft ''Minecraft'' is a sandbox game developed by Mojang Studios. The game was created by Markus "Notch" Persson in the Java programming language. Following several early private testing versions, it was first made public in May 2009 before bein ...

'' and ''

Spelunky ''Spelunky'' is a 2008 source-available 2D platform game created by independent developer Derek Yu and released as freeware for Microsoft Windows. It was remade for the Xbox 360 in 2012, with ports of the new version following for various plat ...

'' that has too little content. Christian Donlan of ''

Eurogamer ''Eurogamer'' is a British video game journalism website launched in 1999 and owned by alongside formed company Gamer Network. Its editor-in-chief is Martin Robinson. Since 2008, it is known for the formerly eponymous games trade fair EGX ...

'' rated it 8/10 and wrote that it has a "creeping dread" that Lovecraft would enjoy.

References

External links

* * {{Metacritic video game 2013 video games Cthulhu Mythos video games First-person shooters Roguelike video games Single-player video games Video games featuring female protagonists Commercial video games with freely available source code Video games using procedural generation Video games developed in the United States Indie video games North America-exclusive video games Linux games MacOS games Windows games