Weird Fiction discussion

There is a cute short online video game here based on the story The Rats in the Walls by H.P. Lovecraft. In this game, you play as the (possibly imaginary) rats, and your goal is to drive the main character insane.

The music in the game drives me insane, but the text is a fun pastiche or parody of HPL's style.

I am surprised there are so many video games that Wikipedia classifies as Weird video games. In alphabetical order I found the following nine:

BioShock
https://www.bioshockgame.com/site/age...

BioShock Infinite
https://bioshockinfinite.ghoststoryga...

Californium
https://californium.arte.tv/en/#/

Control
https://controlgame.com/

Cultist Simulator
http://weatherfactory.biz/cultist-sim...

D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die
http://d4-game.com/

Noctropolis
https://www.mobygames.com/game/noctro...

Until Dawn
https://www.supermassivegames.com/gam...

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
http://ethancartergame.com/

Are any of these anyone's favorites? The last one (Ethan Carter) looks particularly intriguing to me.

Ed wrote: "There is a cute short online video game here based on the story The Rats in the Walls by H.P. Lovecraft. In this game, you play as the (possibly imaginary) rats, and yo..."

The Rats in the Walls link you provided does not work, Ed.

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Art by magicdweedoo

I found a boardgame version of it that looks cool though: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1...

I loved the Bioshock games! But I don't know that they'd fall in the category of weird in our sense.

Noctropolis was a superhero adventure.

One game that comes to mind for me is Clive Barker's Undying:

https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/cliv...

And of course there are numerous games directly inspired by Lovecraft, going all the way back to the classic Infocom text adventure, The Lurking Horror:

http://infocom.elsewhere.org/gallery/...

Dan wrote: "The Rats in the Walls link you provided does not work, Ed. ..."

Oops. I left out a quotation mark. I've fixed the link in the post above. Also, here is the URL: https://alexblechman.itch.io/theratsi...

For that "rats" boardgame, I love this description "Once one player has lost all of his brains, the game ends, and the player with the most brains wins."

Yay! I want ALL the brains!

Dan wrote: "Are any of these anyone's favorites? The last one (Ethan Carter) looks particularly intriguing to me. ..."

Ethan Carter is in the category of "walking simulator". Basically, there is no challenge. You just walk around and look at things and gradually piece together a story of things that took place. I was too bored to finish it, so I don't know what the story actually is. The website for the game mentions several authors of Weird, including Stefan Grabiński who is a new name to me.

I love BioShock, but don't consider it weird. It is more an exploration of the ways that Ayn Rand style Libertarian philosophy naturally leads to a zombie apocalypse. (It's true!)

I've played Californium. Not exciting, but it does perfectly capture the paranoid feeling of Philip Dick novels. Mixes together a bunch of his themes in an interesting way.

If you aren't a games player yourself, you can watch other people play games on youtube or other places. Sounds crazy, but in some cases it is as entertaining as watching a movie. Certainly better than watching some popular TV shows.

I looked at a video of someone playing the Ethan Carter game. All he did was go around opening doors and walk slowly across a bridge with so many missing planks I'd never step foot on it. Seemed rather silly to me.

I ordered The Rats in the Walls boardgame. I hope someone will play it with me at the local gaming spot. My chess club meets there and to play in chess tournaments is the only reason I've gone there before, but the other 90% of the huge building has people playing all sorts of games. I wonder if it's possible to get people to try my boardgame and how I'd extend the invitation.

I agree Ethan Carter and similar games aren't very interesting. They are a bit more interesting when it is you yourself running the controls, but not very much more.

There is a local gaming cafe in my neighborhood. Supposedly you can just set out one of the games at a table and hope someone will join you. But for that to work, you need to look like a normal person, so that leaves me out!

There is also a "meetup.com" group that meets there weekly. I joined them once, but it turns out that I don't like the kinds of games they play. I prefer the card games my parents generation play, where the rules aren't complicated and it is mostly about socializing rather than playing a game.

Ed wrote: "There is a local gaming cafe in my neighborhood. Supposedly you can just set out one of the games at a table and hope someone will join you. But for that to work, you need to look like a normal person, so that leaves me out!"

I would totally play chess with a horse!

The only card game I play is bridge. Only duplicate, and only tournament. We don't talk much when we play that, but use bidding boxes instead.

I'd be willing to play games with a person who looked like a horse because I've never met a talking horse. Since I don't much like it when people speak I prefer games where chitchat is minimized. I have the impression The Rats in the Walls is one of those games. It seems six-sided dice oriented.

I look fairly normal, except for being older than most of the other patrons, and can even act that way for a while. So I'll take your advice and set the board out and try to verbally draw in anyone who shows an interest. I can also ask the store owners' advice on how to get a new game going. The game is being shipped, so it has yet to arrive to me. I'll let you know how it goes after I get it and give it a go. Thanks for bringing the game to my attention in the first place.

I find the most important thing is to wear pants.

Stop talking about board games! This is a discussion for videogames! Pants are not required!

Do we need a separate topic for board games or can we share? Pants are over rated.