Haven’t started it yet, but I have high hopes! I got all of your references in the description and like the premise, lets see how it goes.
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I’d say ‘Shadow over Innsmouth’ is one of the works from HP Lovecraft that inspired us for creating the concepts behind this story, yes. The scenario and the plot will also derive many features that could be linked to ‘The Horror at Red Hook’, which is probably my personal favourite. As we work on the ‘investigator arrives at small town where a cult operates in the shadows’ trope, The Horror at Red Hook is invariably a strong influence.
There will be also references from contemporary works that could fit into the ‘Lovecraftian Horror’ genre, such as ‘The Courtyard’ and ‘Neonomicon’ by Alan Moore and the first season of True Detective.
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Oooh, I’ve been waiting forever to play a Lovecraftian game!
Can’t wait to see more of this
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Even better than I expected. I’m practically in love with the tone, especially as I’m playing this at 11:40 pm, next I’ll see what an P.I. can do
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Haha. Thank you for that. While I agree that it can be perceived as strange to have an ex-cop doing drugs, I must say that one was intentional.
(I personally know more than one cop in active duty who does the one we mention at that part of the game.)
I think it’s our job to empower the player to make it possible for him to live with their choices. I agree that those have to make sense in the context they are presented, but we have to let go of their hands and let them deal with the consequences.
So, you can be an ex-cop who does drugs, but how will that affect your gameplay? What kind of urges and memories do you have about it? How well do you hide your addictions, and how does it affect the people who perceive it?
Those are the kinds of questions we want to answer in the game.
We wouldn’t be making this game in the first place if that wasn’t going to be an option at some point. 
EDIT: Damn I don’t know how to use the spoilers tag.
It’s certainly one of the main influences.
Thank you so much for the feedback and the bug reports.
Let me try to tackle them one by one.
The place where the man(Gordon) was found is outside, and you got the message about the lock before entering the house, right?
If I remember correctly, you can’t actually go inside the house without noticing that there’s something strange with the lock. Must be some kind of bug while checking if you went inside the house or not
I’m looking it right now and I think I found the problem you mentioned, along with some other stuff that weren’t working correctly on that specific scene. It should be fixed by the time I post this.
.[quote=“SeventhJackel, post:18, topic:20808”]
Later when I called the man who hired me I had the option to tell him the address of the final house, despite not yet finding that clue.
[/quote]
Whoa, that’s big. Glad you found it. It was checking the wrong variable. Should be working right now.
Found it. I was actually using the wrong *goto there. Think I fixed it now.
I figured that was intentional, but I thought it wouldn’t hurt to ask.
To use spoiler tags, type [ spoiler ] before the text you want blurred and [ / spoiler ] after it, without the spaces. There’s also the Blur Spoiler option in the Options menu (the button on the top bar of the comment box to the far right, shaped like a gear.
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ah ok, havent read that one i think, ill check it out
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I’m a really big fan of Fallen London and Sunless Sea, but I must confess I haven’t played FL in years and didn’t notice the similarity on the concepts until you pointed it. Some of those things even came from the mind of my partner, who never played anything from FailBetter Studios. I think the tropes just come with the genre, in the end, but I could probably have been biased by my own experience from the past when I thought some of them or gave my “approval”.
We’re surely taking them to a different direction, though… While I loved Fallen London and Sunless Sea, I much prefer more “grimdark” and low fantasy - usually, to me, more believable - settings, and I think that shows on what we’re trying to do here.
Thanks, I’ll edit it!
Please feel free to ask any other think that you notice as weird too. We really value this kind of feedback. It’s good to know how some of the things we did are perceived, so we can send the right message.
I really recommend The Courtyard, Neonomicon and Providence. They’re written by Alan Moore, one of the greatest comic book authors of all time(the guy behind Watchmen and V for Vendetta, among many other masterpieces).
He gives quite an unique view on the works of H.P. Lovecraft.
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I’ll check them out when I have the time
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I’m still able to talk to him, and I’m a female.
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What’s your archetype? All male and female characters with he Archetype Lawbreaker/Criminal(or any of the variances from it) can talk to him and have him as the “buddy” contact.
The problem we had before was the P.I./Detective(etc) Archetype jumping from a conversation with Sgt. Olivia(its proper “buddy”) to a conversation with him on the middle of it. Is that what’s happening to you?
Thanks for the feedback either way, really appreciate it.
I’m a Detective and it jumps from Olivia to him.
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Oh, I think I found the bug. There was an outdated variable in that conversation that I forgot to change.
Since it wasn’t finding the right parameters on the *ifs, it was probably jumping to the next label.
But it should be working properly now. I’m updating the files on the link.
Sorry you had to experience that, and thanks for the help.
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Very happy to see a lovecraftian game.
The dialogue said she married an Englishman called MacLeod, but that’s a very Scottish name. Should he have been a Scotsman?
When I searched the murder scene there were a lot of repeatable options, like being able to open the curtains over an over again. I feel that section could have been streamlined.
I went straight to the murder house and once I closed the door I was unable to open it again and couldn’t leave the house.
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Thanks for the feedback! I’ll let Nerull answer you on that one, since he’s the specialist on all things Scottish. 
Yeah, this should be fixed by putting some *hide_reuses there. The whole prologue is like that for the most part, actually, and I’ll be fixing this with time.
That one was intentional. Since the place is so important to the investigation and the prologue’s story, you’re stuck inside the house until you find the evidence necessary. On the future, we might reconsider it, since we value the idea of free roaming so much, but for now it fits the purpose.
You can find the evidence inside one of the rooms on the second floor and the fridge, if I remember correctly. You have to find the two notes, but only the one about Melissa is relevant to the case, the other one just triggers some questions that help you understand it and give hints about their lives.
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It’s no problem, it’s still in progress 
I wouldn’t expect it to be perfect.
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I have a question, is it possible to be able to talk to Gordon Macleod’s boss? It says where he worked and so I was just curious.
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I love it so far, can’t wait for the update.
I found two bugs. While in pub with Alexander, after the choice ‘I need you sober to tell me the story correctly’, i picked ‘Easy on that booze, mate.’, then the game crashed.(something like startup line 988)
Second one is while talking to Robert the drug dealer about MacLeod case, i chose ‘You think it is related?’ , then it stopped.( i was playing as female, dunno if it helps)
Btw, in description you wrote that the main story of the game unfolds in 2016, so will the next chapters be in 2016, ten years later, since the murder happened in 2006?
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That’s a good question. We were originally going to have that be on the Prologue, but since we changed some of the possible paths you can take, we ended up skipping it. He’s definitely an important character, and he’ll be appearing on Chapter 1 probably, or maybe we’ll go back to make him available on the Prologue too.
Damn, this bug actually came when I fixed another one. I hadn’t done the proper indentation. 
It should be fixed now!
It does helps when you say the gender because most of the conversations with the buddies are gender-specific.
I found the bug. This option wasn’t going nowhere, it should be working properly now!
Yes! Chapter 1 is in 2016.
HEAVY SPOILERS about the ending of the Prologue and the start of Chapter 1:
[spoiler]There are about 5 endings on the prologue, but they all lead to similar paths. Basically what can happen with your character is one among those:
1 - You die.
2 - You are captured.
3 - You become insane.
4 - You join the cult.
5 - ???
(some of that is only hinted/happens off screen, after the ending, but you’ll always have some insight about happened to your character, since it is a direct consequence of your Sanity levels and what you did on Mayberry Walk 4/Lone Manse)
The subsequent chapters are about a new character being hired to investigate, among other things, what happened to the first one. So, most of your decisions on the Prologue actually become evidences on the next investigation! (of course, the MacLeod case is still one of the primary hooks, and it is all connected.)
There are evident reasons why it took 10 years to a new investigator, and we present those information right at the beginning. Invernock also changed a lot - there is a private University there, bringing an influx of people and new infrastructure. The dynamic of the town changes a lot, and you might visit some places you have already been through on the prologue, but they all have changed somehow.
So, yes, from C1 forward you control another character, but nothing you did on the Prologue is forgotten. It becomes part of the story that is being tailored, and it has significant impact on the outcome of things. There are some pretty shocking surprises about that from there on.
This protagonist change was one of the first things we thought about when planning the game.
We hopefully did this without being repetitive, but we’ll have this settled once Chapter 1 becomes available for testing.
(This is actually hinted at the dream sequence at the beginning, where you are being replaced by someone else.)[/spoiler]
@valentine_v_daygirl
Weird bug on the screenshot. I think it should be working now, but I’m not so sure about this one. I’ll have to manually test that.
Was it your second time selecting that option?
Thank you both for the reports!
EDIT: I had forgot to upload the last fixes on Dropbox, but they are there now. Sorry about the delay.
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