So I decided to make a game set at Osthachai University about being either a student or a professor for a full term there. Seeing as there isn’t many games set at an actual university! I hope you all enjoy what I wrote so far and I will continue to update it over the next few months!
Fun fact: I wanted to call it Voyage of the Eldritch Mind, but I decided it sounded better as Voyage of the Eldritch! Hence why the title slightly changed over time…
Voyage of the Eldritch officially has its own page now!
Potentially interesting, though right now we don’t have much to chew on. That being said, I’d be curious to see how a Lovecraft-inspired game would fare.
Well… Seeing that we can only customise our MC, as it is, I’d say that this looks like it belongs more in the interest check thread than here. I understand the excitement to share what you have, but you’d get much more feedback and interest if there’s something substantial, at least, for readers.
That said - what ideas for the plot do you have in mind? If we’re in an eldritch university, are we human? What are we studying? What’s the MC’s goal?
And one important question!!
Are you planning to publish this game? I’m unfamiliar with Lovecraft but a quick Google search reveals that Miskatonic University is a ‘real’ name in this fictional verse. This may infringe on copyright issues.
The new name of the university is Osthachai. Future classes will involve: Stargazing, Anatomy for Beginners, Extracirrular Biology and… Tea-reading classes led by Professor Ennui.
Basically the main goal is to master the arts and to expand your knowledge of the forbidden lore in Ostachai University, and also befriending strange beasties from beyond the Void. Currently the MC is human, but future classes will involve changing your being to something weird and not of this world… at a high cost!
You soon arrive at the Osthachai university after some time. There are students milling around everywhere and you bump into various professors and some strange slithering tentacles that spawn from the depths of the earth. Sometimes you hear a weird breathing sound as if a gush of wind blew out of nowhere. You shudder and continue onwards on your current quest to find yourself staring at a slate-clean noticeboard that states the following query: Current Schedule for (day):
8 pm- “Xenocryptology (Histories/mysteries)”. by Professor L. Therus
11 pm- “Anatomy for Beginners (Biology).” by Professor R. Van-Dyke
1 pm- Lunch break
2 pm- “Mapping the Cosmos (Stargazing).” by Professor C. Cyrano
5 pm- “Studying the Small (Microbiology).” by Professor Mycro Scorpio
As you mull over the class schedules, you hear someone clear their throat. A highly strung Professor glares at you through pointed glasses. “A-ah, Professor, I didn’t see you-” “There, yes I know.” replied the new Professor, preening his snow-white hair while fingering his golden badge proclaiming his name in bright shiny letters. You see a glimpse of an L there and decided to question what the ‘L’ stands for.
“The L stands for Leonidas,” snorts Prof. Therus, “Plus I decided to expand my knowledge of the parallel worlds that encircle our current dimension as it is,” You could only stand there with a stunned expression as the Professor smiles conspiratorally while holding a few books in the palm of his hand. You can definitely see the smile on his smug face widen as if he was pondering torturing you with another question or two…
“In fact, I’ll give you a pop-quiz while I’m at it, how many dimensions consist of our reality as it is?”
A quick web search indicates that all Lovecraft’s pre-1923 works are known to be public domain now. That is to say, not copyrighted anymore. There seem to be a few claims that his later works could have had their copyrights renewed, but no known evidence such renewals actually occurred.
That said, it seems Miskatonic University was introduced in a 1922 work.
I should point out, of course, that while books can be copyrighted, names of characters or places within those books can only be trademarked, not copyrighted… and from there, I need to point out there’s a game titled The Miskatonic, released in July of this year, set in Miskatonic University. You might run into their trademarks, even if you won’t run into Lovecraft’s own.
