The Rise of Cthulhu (WIP) (65.8k words, Prologue+Chapters 1-4, Updated 5/8/2026)

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Hi, everyone! I’ve been writing interactive fiction since 1979, but this is my first ChoiceScript game. I currently have the prologue done, but I plan to update as I finish each chapter.

Here’s the introductory text:

Welcome to The Rise of Cthulhu, a work of interactive fiction inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft. This tale of investigative cosmic horror will take you from the town of Arkham, Massachusetts in 1925, to nearby locations, and ultimately to the ends of the Earth. You place at risk not only life and limb, but your very sanity. For once you understand the truth, how will your mind be able to cope? Choose from ten professions with a wide range of skills, collect various objects and clues, and try to unravel the mystery—if you dare!

Feedback would be welcome and appreciated!

Link to demo: https://cogdemos.ink/play/jonathan-bagelman/the-rise-of-cthulhu/mygame

AI Disclosure:

No — This project does not contain the output of Generative AI
Yes — This project contains the output of Generative AI

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February 2026 Writer Support Thread
May 2026 Writer Support Thread
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This Demo Seems Okay To Me so Far Not Much To Say Considering It’s only the prologue, Did You Get Some Inspiration From The TTRPG Call of Cthulhu For The Stats? I never Have seen Some of them Before, BTW Are We Going to Play Solo The Entire Game Or Are We going To Be able to have Relationships With Other Characters? Cause I didn’t see Any Relationship screen so far, Can’t Wait To Know Were This Will Go It’s Good To Have Another Cthulhu Mythos Wip In the Forum After having Played 1966.

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I did not know Cuthulu was public domain, I’ll definitely give your story a shot.

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Thank you both!

Yes, the Call of Cthulhu RPG was definitely an inspiration, though I changed the skill list and shortened it drastically. I also left out basic stats such as Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, etc. Twenty skills is plenty as it is. Ten of those skills are “unique,” with each profession having one at a very high level (though a few professions have one of the others at a moderate level). The other ten are common, with multiple professions having them at various levels. I’m a long-time CoC player/Keeper (and have published two scenarios), so this is designed to appeal to those from a similar background, and the percentile stats are very intuitive.

So far I’m not planning to have companions or other characters that are around long-term, though that may change as the story develops. This is a solitary investigation, as in many of Lovecraft’s stories, though there are other stories of Lovecraft’s where there is a party of investigators (The Dunwich Horror and At the Mountains of Madness, for example).

I’ve heard of 1966, and I’d like to give that one a try. I noticed there was a lack of Cthulhu Mythos games here, and I figured it was a niche that I could fill.

H.P. Lovecraft died in 1937, and all his works entered the public domain in (I believe) 2012, 75 years after the author’s death, with the exception of his collaborations with other authors. I’m careful only to use elements of his stories and those of my own imagination, and not things that are purely products of the Call of Cthulhu RPG, to avoid copyright issues.

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I’m really enjoying this IF so far! I like your writing style a lot – it snared me from the beginning. Thank you for sharing, I look forward to reading more!

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You’re welcome, and thank you! It may be a little while before I get Chapter 1 done, but I plan to update the WIP once I do. Your own IF, The Brightest Stars, looks intriguing too, and I’d like to check it out when I have time.

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It won’t affect your game, but I have long been fascinated by the modern desire to merge the Lovecraft mythos into (of all things) children’s literature (!). Some examples I’ve seen or heard of:

Cthulhu 4 Kids

Littlest Lovecraft

Along Came Cthulhu

Wee Weird

Mr. Elder Thing’s Big Adventure

Lovecraft For Kids

Young Cthulhu

The Adventures Of Chibi Cthulhu

C Is For Cthulhu

Cthulhu Comes: For Children

The Outsider (Cthulhu Young Readers Level 2)

Tales From Lovecraft Middle School

The Children Of Eldrich Lane

A Picnic At The Mountains Of Madness

Necronomicon For Children

…etc. etc. etc. I would LOVE to see a ChoiceScript game where a kid goes up against those nasty guys…

For inspiration, here’s a pic that ChatGPT made for me… :hushed_face:

Kid Summons Cthulhu! (Foolish Boy…)

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I’ve heard of C is For Cthulhu and a few others. There are Call of Cthulhu RPG scenarios where the investigators are children, such as the excellent The Dare (which I’ve played). There’s even a new Choose Your Own Adventure book based on At the Mountains of Madness where you play a child. In my game, you play an adult investigator, but I’d be very interested in seeing one where you play a child.

I’ve started working on Chapter 1. I haven’t gotten that far yet, as I’ve been busy the last few days, but I’m getting some stuff done. Chapter 1 will be a lot more open-ended and branchier than the prologue. I have a time system that keeps track of how much time you spend. There are a lot of things you can do, and not enough time to do everything, so you have to prioritize.

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What did you think of the picture??? (Nasty shock for the kid, huh?)

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It sure was! Neat picture, though I would have expected Cthulhu to be much bigger than the child. Do not call up that which you cannot put down…

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Ah, but the Great and Mighty Cthulhu may take on whatsoever size he deems fit…

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I’ve added Chapter 1, plus made some minor changes to the prologue. I’m not sure how COGDemos handles save files, so if you have a saved game from before, you may need to start over. Feel free to try it out if you like, and please provide feedback.

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I got this error when I tried to show stats:

IMG_1884
IMG_1884750×960 80.2 KB

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I changed the variable from psychotherapy to psychoanalysis since the last update. I tried it myself at COGDemos, and everything is working for me. It looks like you were still given the old version of the prologue somehow. I noticed because I also added Richard as a male name, and that’s not showing on the screenshot as a choice. I’m not sure if you’re using an old save, or if the old version is cached somehow, but that might be causing problems. I’m certain the prologue and stats screen were updated on COGDemos.

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I wasn’t using a save at all (it wouldn’t have worked anyway, COGDemos enforces that), and I had just cleared my cache earlier today, but it’s possible I had visited the demo page after that and it got cached… I looked at the code and it’s working now. Sorry about that!

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No problem! Thanks for letting me know, and I’m glad it’s working for you now!

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Chapter 2 of The Rise of Cthulhu is now live, along with some changes to earlier parts of the game! It’s even longer than Chapter 1, and I finished it in less time, so I’m ahead of schedule. Things are starting to get very interesting…

Chapter 3 may take me a while, as I’m leaving for a convention in a couple of days and won’t have time to work on it then, but I’m hoping for a mid-March release.

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Offerering unofficial Free Beta Testing Help for First-Time Authors I have 6 years of experience
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Definitely enjoying the journey so far. A few random suggestions and thoughts which you can take with a grain of salt.

I’d like an additional reason for not approaching Reverend Thomas Wilkes: disinterest in his input and probably underestimating him.

Would it make sense for a professor to succeed at convincing the police man that he’s been sent there by an employer? The persuasion boost I’m getting for failing the check is more useful in the long run though.

I was able to increase Research to 63 by wasting a lot of time on the dream translation in the library. Not sure if that was intentional since the only other things I had time for were healing and admin talk.

I’d like a choice on how I feel about the witch shooting. My main runs are overly curious professors and doctors, but I’m also experimenting as a villainous dilettante.

Thanks for writing!

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You’re welcome, and thank you for your feedback! I’m glad you’re enjoying it.

I can easily add another option where you refuse to speak to Reverend Wilkes because you’re not interested, which would also slightly raise Ignorance. In addition, it makes sense to add an option where you want to approach because you really are interested in learning what he thinks, which would slightly increase Curiosity (while also modifying the standard option for approaching him to describe you not being afraid to discuss your nightmare with him).

A professor’s Persuasion starts at 55, and that check requires 60 or more to succeed. Whenever you fail at an active check (as opposed to a passive one where you perceive or recall something if your level is high enough, but you don’t even know what you’re missing if you fail), you do get a small increase, so failing here does help you improve it. I could start it at 60, though I’d have to lower History to 55% to maintain a balance, which would cause professors to fail the one History check so far, plus future ones, and they really should know history. Alternatively, I could simply lower the difficulty of the check to 55. The way a professor can get past the policeman by using social clout , which works for a couple of other professions as well, seems good to me. Dropping the Dean’s name doesn’t work in this case, until he realizes who you actually are . I’ll probably leave this one unchanged.

It is intentional that you can boost Research to 63% simply by investing the time to have enough failed attempts to raise it. I’ve done this on several tests to quickly speed through the day and get to the next one. It’s a legitimate strategy, but it may or may not be the best use of your time. Also note that some topics can still be researched in Chapter 2 if you didn’t get to them in Chapter 1, though that takes away from your available time to do things in Chapter 2. There are many things you can do during the day, but there won’t be enough time to do everything, so you have to decide what’s most important to you. Having a car helps, especially as a dilettante, as then you have a faster car and can quickly move from place to place.

Adding a choice for how you feel after the shooting is a good idea. Regardless of how you feel, you still lose 5 Sanity, as killing a human being will affect you, especially as this is presumed to be the first time you’ve done it . Feeling hardened would raise Audacity, while feeling remorse would raise Caution.

I haven’t started Chapter 3 yet, as I’ve been away at a convention for a few days and just outraced a blizzard to get home tonight, but I’m still hoping to have it done by mid-March.

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I just finished playing through the prologue and chapter 1, and gathered some notes from the experience.

As far as the technical side of writing goes, my immediate impression was that you’ve already got it mastered on a professional level.
It read super smooth. The premise was interesting, and the way characters were described made it very easy to visualize them.

Here are some thoughts on the choice mechanics and narrative I’ve had while playing through.

The customization option ‘ I don’t work for a living. I’m independently wealthy.’ made me laugh, and I went for it immediately.

(After choosing a background, you could consider including a tag telling the player to check the stat screen. I looked at the code, and was surprised at how many variables it changed. But with no description, players can easily assume it’s just flavor text.)

The narrative reasoning for why a rich bum would be called in to investigate a break-in felt like it could have been justified better. It makes sense from the player’s perspective because the character just had a dream about it, but in-world, it feels less so than a detective MC, or a doctor.

For every event that follows, with the way reporters and the police meet and share information with the MC so easily, I again thought a well-known detective would be most fitting.

After finishing the chapter, the main impression I had was that I would have enjoyed the story even if the narrative decided for me where I should go next.

It’s common for choicescript titles to have linear progression, and I admit I was a bit lost on the free-roam section. (likely because I lost the skill checks and had no clues to go on.)
The scene in chapter 2 started with Alyssa’s news article, and my first thought was that I could have probably helped her write a better one, if I managed to find more clues other than a single button.

Again, the foundation here was very strong, and I think just a little more guidance could help make it better.

I hope the feedback is useful. Good luck with the development!

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