A visual novel in the purest sense. You're essentially just hearing someone read the short story of the same name to you, only accompanied by imaginative portrayals of what Lovecraft described on the page(s). You can pan the camera around and zoom in on each scene to look for hidden "elder signs" that will unlock trivia facts about the author and subject matter, but for the most part your interaction doesn't extend much beyond simply clicking the next onscreen prompt to continue the tale.
Given how the source material consists of little more than a couple thousand words, this is something that can be completed in literally minutes. As a result, the devs have rightfully released it for free. Actually, in a really cool move all the proceeds from the two paid DLC packs, which offer up some legitimately neat goodies like an adaptation of a 7 year old Lovecraft's The Little Glass Bottle in the same style, that were originally intended for them to potentially make a little money off the project after launch are instead being donated to help the war victims in Ukraine. A nice bit of humanity I thought was worth sharing.
Absent a pricetag or not however, with such a limited amount of engagement required on the player's part and an incredibly short lifespan to boot, one might be asking why they should bother with it at all. Yet, I'd say if you have even a passing interest in the Cthulhu mythos this is worth your time. To put it bluntly, I enjoyed experiencing Dagon more this way than I did actually reading it in its purely written form as it's far from one of its author's most exciting works. It makes a classic piece of literature more entertaining and without asking for a single penny from you. There's even VR support. That's a win in my book. Just turn off that darn motion blur.
7/10
Given how the source material consists of little more than a couple thousand words, this is something that can be completed in literally minutes. As a result, the devs have rightfully released it for free. Actually, in a really cool move all the proceeds from the two paid DLC packs, which offer up some legitimately neat goodies like an adaptation of a 7 year old Lovecraft's The Little Glass Bottle in the same style, that were originally intended for them to potentially make a little money off the project after launch are instead being donated to help the war victims in Ukraine. A nice bit of humanity I thought was worth sharing.
Absent a pricetag or not however, with such a limited amount of engagement required on the player's part and an incredibly short lifespan to boot, one might be asking why they should bother with it at all. Yet, I'd say if you have even a passing interest in the Cthulhu mythos this is worth your time. To put it bluntly, I enjoyed experiencing Dagon more this way than I did actually reading it in its purely written form as it's far from one of its author's most exciting works. It makes a classic piece of literature more entertaining and without asking for a single penny from you. There's even VR support. That's a win in my book. Just turn off that darn motion blur.
7/10