Announcing H. P. Lovecraft’s The Case of Charles Dexter Ward

SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS — October 1, 2014.

Brothers and Sisters in Almousin-Metraton:—

I this day heard that Senscape got the license for H. P. L. This is a firste in that accurs’d video game industrie; for Players shall be able to delve into Spheres beyond of the sort that Abdool Al-Hazred describ’d in his VII. Booke of ye Necronomicon. I am fearfull, as these Things are Dangerous. I also hear there’s one of those newfangl’d Kickstart’rs involv’d, and Senscape is promis’g the most faithful H. P. L. game ever — crucially a Third-Person Adventure (whatever that meanes) that will throwe Players back to a Golden Age of gaming. You can read about it here:

Check out the Kickstarter here.

They say renowned scholar and H. P. L. authority S. T. Joshi is assist’g the project, and a rigorous documentary about the making of the game and H. P. L.’s life in Prouidence shall be produced too. It is welle knowne that The Case of Charles Dexter Ward is the only novel H. P. L. wrote, and one of His more popular. The booke tells of ye Adventures of the foolish and naïve Charles as he becomes obsess’d with Witchcrafte and Occult Arts across vintage Prouidence and Salem to calle up Flesh from dead Saltes. Senscape says it is a perfect storie for an Adventure Game adaptation. They are even hint’g at more H. P. L. games if the Kickstart’r Endeavour proves successful enough!

Check out the reveal trailer here.

This can not be. I shall arrange for my returne to Prouidence — this news demands my attention, and I must continue in Gett’g at Olde Matters in my Way. In one monthe it shall be Hallow’s Eue and ye Thing is breed’g in ye Outside Spheres. I was tolde many times that One shou’d not call up Any that One can not put downe; but under these circumstances we have no option but to call up Him; the Beyond-One that commandes in Yuggoth; and which ye vaporous brains know by ye untranslatable Sign… and bringe back ye Crawling Shadows to human-kinde. Do keep the Guards in Shape and Talk often with Those Outside; and waite for my com’g Backe as an Other.

Yogg-Sothoth Neblod Zin
Josephus Curwen

About Senscape

Founded by Agustín Cordes — designer of the cult adventure game Scratches — Senscape has positioned itself as one of the leading independent game companies from Argentina, with international recognition. The team is currently working on Asylum, a highly anticipated and ambitious horror adventure that was successfully Kickstarted in 2013. In early 2014 Senscape released Serena, a short free mystery game that was praised both by critics and fans, and achieved over 160,000 downloads on Steam.

Asylum builds upon the success of Scratches, which has sold over 250,000 units to date, across a dozen different countries, and is widely considered a modern adventure game classic.

About Yog-Sothoth

Yog-Sothoth (archaic spelling Yogge-Sothothe) is a fabulous congeries of iridescent globes, stupendous in its malign suggestiveness, who knows all and sees all. He was first mentioned in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, written by H. P. Lovecraft in 1927 but only published posthumously in 1941.

Son of the Nameless Mist and grandchild of Azathoth, Yog-Sothoth was romantically involved with Shub-Niggurath aeons ago, a relationship that ended badly following His affair with Lavinia Whateley. He was last called up by a certain Robert Blake in 1935 — apparently unsuccessfully — and His whereabouts remain unknown at present.

And now, in modern English
There's not much else to add to the words of the nefarious Joseph Curwen. This really is a dream come true — I believe that I first read The Case of Charles Dexter Ward when I was around ten years old. It's one of the stories by H. P. Lovecraft that impacted me the most, in particular the shocking moments beneath Pawtuxet farm. Lovecraft was already my favorite writer by then, and Charles Dexter Ward cemented my relationship with the master of the supernatural horror.
If you're fans of Scratches, Serena or Asylum, surely you're already dancing spasmodically and screaming guttural sounds. Hardcore fans of Lovecraft will notice loads of neat details all over this Kickstarter campaign, as I went to great lengths to try and capture the mood of this writing. I want to say special thanks to Simo Sakari Aaltonen — one of the writers in Serena — for double checking my shpelling and even introducing rewrites whenever necessary. This process of re-reading Lovecraft and paying extra attention to his prose and choice of words for the past months has been of tremendous help for the writing in Asylum as well.
And speaking of Asylum, you may notice new footage of the game in our new Kickstarter video. I know this feels like we're throwing a few crumbs to you, but we're preparing a long video full of new vistas of dread and decay in Asylum for later this month. We're all super-grateful for your patience and support!
I've said this plenty of times before, but I'm not expecting that any of you will jump right in to support the new campaign. I'll absolutely understand if you have mixed feelings about it and would rather wait until Asylum is finished. However, if you want to participate in the insanity of the comments section and receive exclusive updates from us, I have created a bare-minimum $1 tier to join the fun.
I'd appreciate if you could share this news (and horror) in your social network of choice. We couldn't be more excited about the games that we're creating at Senscape — whether you support or not the new campaign: thank you so very much! There's a whole world of nightmarish terrors and adventure game goodness ahead of us!
All the best,
—Agustín

We think 8-10 hours is a reasonable length for an adventure game these days. Asylum, which will last about 15 hours or more, is taking us a huge deal of time to complete, so I'm afraid that we must keep our ambitions lower with our future projects. The situation in the industry is quite adverse for lengthy adventure games with rich quality and content.

I was going to pledge but they said that the Email has already been taken. How can that be. I don't remember pledging.
Richard

The time has come to bid farewell. It’s been a memorable month, to say the least, and this final update will be a recap and analysis of a campaign that has many still wondering why in Azathoth’s name it wasn’t funded. As we’re going to see, there’s no easy answer, but first things first:

THANK YOU. Those of you who are here have been extremely kind and supportive. You were as passionate about the project as we were, as can be attested by the sheer amount of shares, likes, and comments. This level of involvement isn’t seen even with campaigns with well over 6,000 backers, and as of this writing you number 1,800. The game has been extremely well received, with overwhelmingly positive comments on its look and feel, character design, and music. The average pledge per backer is an astounding (by today’s standards) $50. In this regard, the campaign has been a resounding success.

Unfortunately, we have to move on. We’re disbanding part of our team as we focus solely on completing Asylum, which is coming along great. Let me clarify that in spite of this disastrous and shameful conclusion, Senscape is in no way at risk, and we have money to deliver an amazing horror game that will stay in your memory for aeons to come. It would have been great to work on two projects at the same time, especially as they share the same roots, but there’s nothing left to do; this was our best shot. As I will explain next, this project required a monumental effort and the launch of the campaign was carefully orchestrated. We can’t easily reproduce that, not without taking more time away from Asylum, which isn’t an option. The same goes for talking to investors and publishers: these things demand time and effort. The whole idea was to produce an amazing game based on Lovecraft’s novel, with a generous budget and no constraints. I don’t want to develop this game under other conditions, and risk not doing justice to the source material. Thus, I’m afraid The Case of Charles Dexter Ward is being put on hold for the time being.