Mysterious, disturbing and funny – review of the game “Gibbous – A Cthulhu Adventure”

Original actions and interesting mechanics

Gibbous – A Cthulhu Adventure from the Romanian developer Stuck In Attic takes us on a journey full of humor and dark events inspired by the works of HP Lovecraft. The story has been artfully divided into chapters like a book. It is decorated with hand-painted Disney-style illustrations, as well as numerous animated cut-scenes and atmospheric music.

In the game, we take turns in two characters: librarian Buzz Kerwan and detective Don Ketype. In addition to the standard actions, they both have one special action. Buzz is accompanied by a talking cat Kitteh, who sometimes (if she is willing to do so and / or is prone to show off) can help in reaching things that are beyond our reach. On the other hand, during the “visit” to the cultists, the Don accidentally acquired the ability to use the Magic Sign, which allows him to discover the past of the studied objects, recreating the voices they remember and other (sometimes dark or funny) sounds.

In addition, the detective keeps a notebook with notes of the most important traces and tasks to be performed, which is very useful as an aid when we “get stuck” and the librarian carries a Necronomicon with him, which, although it looks gimmicky, is mysterious and looks menacingly from the cover, is rather useless most of the game. He seemed very important at first, because Don was determined to find him, and with it Buzz inadvertently made Kitteh speak, which the librarian is trying to undo; it even becomes the main motive of his actions. This seems a bit far-fetched at first. Is it really worth dropping everything and going on a trip to please your pet, as he would rather remain an ordinary domestic pet and not talk?

Apart from the gentlemen, the kitten, who would personally prefer to remain only a “home decoration”, will at some point have her own five minutes. Her cynicism was also appreciated by adventuregamers.com, where she received the award for the best hero.

Simple and fun game

Although we are very heroic and throw ourselves into a whirlwind of terrifying adventures, nothing bad is going to happen here. The game seems to be immune to the player’s mistakes and the death of the main characters (perhaps for a while?) Is impossible. For example, we cannot, for example, mindlessly release monsters that would like to devour us. In such a situation, the hero will calmly inform us: “I’d rather not do this.”

With additional simplifications, in addition to the previously mentioned detective’s notebook, in solving puzzles, we will be helped by information extracted from hilarious dialogues, as well as the ability to highlight all active points on the board by pressing the spacebar.

However, I was a bit disappointed that we use most of the items we find at the earliest opportunity. The exception was a hallucinogenic cookie that was carried in a pocket for a longer time (giving rise to a lot of crazy ideas) and the aforementioned Lovecraft Necronomicon, which we will pull from behind the coat at the end of the game. I lacked a bit of multithreading when solving problems.

In this respect, the story opens slightly on the streets of the city in Romania, where, although all activities lead to the achievement of one goal, we also have more locations available, and thus – also the possibility of polling. The use of items is also less biased, e.g. (attention, spoiler!) A slingshot is absolutely not for shooting.

Another facilitation in other parts of the game is to block some visible places (like the fish shop) or items (a dusty book in the Darkham library) before they become “story-driven”. Unfortunately, this makes it less fun to play with your arsenal of possessions.

When it comes to ingenious combinations, there are also plenty of them! We can observe the creators’ nod (or even a mockery) towards classic point and click adventure games , for example when Don Ketype, like MacGyver, tries to get out of his cell at the cultists, he creates a bizarre structure out of completely random junk.

Fun and imaginative puzzles

Despite many simplifications, I have to admit that the puzzles are on a decent level and I even got stuck twice. Which for me proves that the adventure game is really good and here I was not disappointed.

In addition to finding the necessary items and using them in a crazy and unconventional way, we also find word puzzles, e.g. one with a mysterious alphabet in Butcher’s headquarters (by the way, this role was played by Doug Cockle, who is well known to us from the “game” Witcher) or matching Latin words with appropriate places on the pentagram in a Parisian attic, as well as the classic “talking” of the opponent.

One of the most surprising and funniest nuisances of the latter type is the rap duel with Vlad and fueling the aggression of the cultist crowd by suggesting funny questions to a street bard.

Finally, I would like to add that the whole story is so strange (and disturbing) that after finishing the game I was not sure for a moment if I won or lost. A big surprise awaits at the finish.