Cthulhu Ftagn! Or something. If you know what that’s all about then Gibbous might be for you, if not, well, let’s dive in and see anyway shall we.
Gibbous: A Cthulhu Adventure from developer Stuck in Attic based in Romania is a story revolving around myths and legends created by HP Lovecraft. We start our Lovecraftian adventure as investigator Don R Keytype on the hunt for a mysterious ancient book, with his leads taking him to the village of Darkham, and specifically the library. It’s in the library where we meet young Buzz Kerwan. These two are our guys, our rays of hope.
The book in question is the Necronomicon, ie the worlds most volatile, dangerous tome. And it just so happens to be hidden in this library. With such a notorious book being sought after, it’s no wonder then that it’s not just Don on the hunt, but also a few cultists. The second the Necronomicon has been discovered, the library is sent sky rocketing into oblivion thanks to a huge bomb. Don and Buzz survive, but Don is kidnapped by these mysterious fanatics. So the worlds most dangerous book is left in the care of Buzz, who does what everyone who has the worlds most dangerous book in their possession would do, and he reads from it. The words that spew forth, evilly, from his lips do the most disastrous thing imaginable. They make his cat, talk.
Buzz’s cat, delightfully named Kitteh, is a nonchalant, yet aggressive feline who oozes self confidence, but has her world turned upside down with the ability to speak. She Hates it, with a capital H. And so our true adventure starts here. We need to make Kitteh stop talking, without I hasten to add, the use of the Necronomicon, as that’s done too much damage already. Oh and as a side quest we have to save Don, uncover a secret society of megalomaniacs and save the world. But mainly, it’s the cat thing.
First off Don. He’s a throwback to the thirties and forties detective, with the weighty gravelly voice, a sense of noir and loneliness, and an inner dialogue. For me he’s the standout character of the game. He’s not afraid to get his hands dirty and go it alone, but also he’s open to being a team player too. Buzz is a sincere spirit, thrown into the action when all he want’s really is to continue his life in peace, yet now has a colossal task to attend to. He’s the everyday man, who comes across fairly bland. Kitteh though is anything but bland. I’d say she wisecracks often but that’d be a disservice to her character as rather her feline thoughts are being vocalised for the first time and at points, it's frankly hilarious. She’s a cat and as a rule they’re very private and live in solitude, but she’s now being forced to work through this disaster with Buzz. We get to play as all three throughout the game, but only for one short puzzle do we play as Kitteh. For the most part, it’s Buzz and Don.
We interact with items using the left mouse button which brings up our verb wheel with normally 2 or 3 options. Clicking the eye makes us look at something and we can look at something several times over to discover more about it, and when all our dialogue becomes exhausted, the eye icon closes. Using the gear icon is the use opetion, and the hand icon picks something up. We also have the option of using Kitteh if we’re Buzz. Her reactions range from her flat out refusing to do what she’s asked, grudgingly offer her services, or as our hint system. We can chat to her and she’ll tell us what our options might be. It’s a novel way to add some hints, although, the hints offered were fairly vague. If we’re Don we can also use something called the Haunters Mark where we can feel and hear an objects past. We’re accidently given this power early on due to an altercation with a weird glowing rock, but it turns out to be very handy. To access the inventory we can scroll the mouse wheel, or hit I.
In terms of puzzles, it feels like the spirit of the so called classic era of adventure games, but with the added twist that is needed to draw in a newer audience. It does suffer though with trying to pick up something with no logical reason to. For example, when we hit the town of Fishmouth, there’s a girl with some milk (dolphin milk to be precise), and we really try our hardest to get it off her. At this point there was no logical reason I would be doing it. It’s obvious I needed it for a future puzzle, but right there and then, I was hassling a young child for her drink, with no rational explanation. Harsh dude. On the same theme, you can combine inventory items together and at one point I managed to make a helmet. I had no idea why I’d just put together two or three items to make this little thing, but there it was anyway, sitting in my inventory waiting to be used for a future puzzle. I can’t move on from mentioning the puzzles though without mentioning one specific book puzzle. The one time I used a walkthrough was to understand this, and I still don’t, even now after rewatching my playthough, and even reading about it. I'm stumped.
Ok so there’s a bit of shade thrown onto the puzzles, but it was only really a few of them, in a grander picture. It didn’t stop me enjoying what was on the screen.
And what IS on the screen is delightful. There’s a distinct colour pallet used, full of reds, oranges and purples. The backgrounds and locations are well designed and illustrated, and there are always little details tucked away in corners. The right mouse button has one sole purpose and that’s to zoom in. It doesn’t act in anyway as a help to complete puzzles, it’s merely a way to examine the landscape in closer detail, which was an excellent choice. The entire game has nailed the aesthetic and from scene one, through to the final scene, there must be dozens of intricately conceived locations and it all feels connected. So a big 5 stars for the art and animation. There are several cutscenes and all are, again, deliciously animated. To go along with the fabulous look of the game, the voice acting is also top draw. Both Don and Kitteh are faultless, and Buzz is mostly great too. Voices for the entire cast in fact is strong. There are loads of speaking parts, dozens of people to chat to, and not once can I remember thinking there was a weak point in the acting or design.
I can’t really say much for the music really though. Not that it was bad, it just never jumped out at me. It does what any soundtrack should do and that’s add a further layer to the scene we’re involved with.
Where I feel Gibbous: A Cthulhu Adventure starts to slip though, is the story. I’m holding my hands up here and saying I know next to nothing about Cthulhu or HP Lovecraft for that matter, and maybe that left me a little underwhelmed. As the strands of the story start to open up to introduce more strange cults, secret lairs and add important main characters, it all appeared like it was melting away from me. I became a little less interested in what was actually going on, and just liked to move along to get to more puzzles. I was hoping the ending would tie up some ends and answer some questions I had about Cthulhu, the Necronomicon, a strange symbol, some voodoo and, well, a lot of things. But it didn’t. It became extremely peculiar and I started to think “what the hell am I doing here?”. The final scenes had so much emotion, but I felt it didn’t warrant it. It hadn’t quite set all it’s ducks in a row so to speak. It’s a shame as for the most part, the story had me intrigued. Maybe I’m missing a huge part of the Lovecraft lore, and maybe big questions will be answered in a sequel, or maybe it’s meant to be ambiguous. But when the credits rolled, I wasn’t wholly convinced, and was left bewildered.
Gibbous: A Cthulhu adventure is an amusing journey with some spectacular illustration and a cast of colourful, imaginative characters, but is bogged down in a story that starts promising then ends up in a self-important confusing muddle.
Get a copy of Gibbous: A Cthulu Adventure for PC. It's also available for Linix, Mac, and Nintendo Switch.
I received a free copy of the game direct from developers Stuck in Attic for an honest review
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Michael
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