The Consuming Shadow is a procedural survival horror adventure in which you must explore the land, fight your way through randomly-generated dungeons and try to stay sane in your quest to save the world from the invading Ancients.
Very Positive
419 Steam reviews
| LANGUAGE | AUDIO | SUBTITLES | INTERFACE |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | — | Y | Y |
What a fun game. It still gets my back hairs standing on end when the Tall Man shows up at the end of a dungeon.
Admitedly I found this game extremely difficult, but it's cheap.
Very cheap.
And well written.
And mechanically quite dense.
Definitely recommend.
My play time is short, but I'd still recommend this if it was 5x more expensive.
If you like survival horror, there's no better use for 99 cents.
Ахуй!
True to Yahtzee's M.O., Consuming Shadow is thoughtfully designed, providing a range of characters, perks and challenges that greatly affects your playstyle between each procedurally-generated run. The learning curve is a bit steep (at least without the help of a guide), but gaining mastery over its mechanics can be very fulfilling. For the low price of about $1, it provides an astonishing amount of entertainment value.
The Consuming Shadow es un roguelike en el que tienes que recorrer Inglaterra de punta a punta, con el objetivo de llegar a Stonehenge para llevar a cabo un ritual que detenga el fin del mundo. El problema es que no sabes el ritual. Por eso, por el camino debes ir haciendo paradas por diferentes ciudades de la geografía británica, para intentar aprender información y detalles sobre el primigenio al que estás intentando detener y cómo hacerlo. Y todo ello, por supuesto, se genera de forma procedimental. En cada run tendrás que detener a un primigenio distinto, con un ritual distinto, que tendrás que aprender a base de investigar zonas distintas. Es un juego perfecto, sobre el papel. Luego, claro, está el tema de la ejecución, que podría ser mejorable. Pero pese a sus controles toscos y pobres gráficos, The Consuming Shadow me parece uno de los juegos más originales, divertidos y especiales del catálogo de Steam. La fusión impía de FTL, Eternal Darkness y La Llamada de Cthulhu.
Do you remember or know how in the tabletop games, Arkham Horror 3e or Arkham Horror: The Card Game, "Clues" are just a token that you spend to make progress or improve rolls? What if clues were actually clues?
Welcome to The Consuming Shadow, where Clues are no longer abstraction. The combat sucks, its low budget, but the premise is brilliant and addictive. You literally have a digital spreadsheet like the board game Clue. You explore dungeons, fight monster (poorly) and gather real clues, trying to figure out which abomination is the correct one you must vanish.
There are always three gods: the Invader, their ally, and their enemy. As you collect notes, you can fill your spreadsheet. Explicit clues are found in notes that are automatically recorded in your Notebook, but you can also find implicit notes via Runes on the walls, or the state of dead bodies that you find.
There are [strike]six[/strike] possible gods, but on each run, only three are active. Yshug, Gnix, Blyara, [strike]Tim Curry [/strike], etc. Sorry, Clue lovers: the final location is always Stonehenge and you can't use a Candlestick. You must instead assemble the correct final banishing spell to end them (and hopefully survive the last boss.)
There is simply nothing like this premise. Phasmophobia comes close, as does the upcoming tabletop game The Netherwatch. Difficulty is high, but so is replay value. It is worth more than a buck.
baught it because Yahtzee and because it's really cheep. it's just not for me though.
Probably my favorite roguelite ever. What looks like a crappy flash game from the late 2000s is actually a fantastically crafted 2D survival horror game with addicting dungeon crawling mechanics and cosmic horror storytelling. Your runs are always a little tense as resources are limited, money is tight, and the threat of annihilation is plentiful (as a good survival horror game should have). There's a ton to unlock in this game as well, whether that be filling out the bestiary, leveling up your unlocked characters, or trying out the multiple challenge modes with said characters. Wonderful game with great mechanics, great writing, and great tension. A fine case of "don't judge a book by its cover".
对于打折只要三块钱的游戏来说，质量相当高，虽然画面十分简陋，但内容量很大，足够玩几十个小时，唯一的小小不足是感觉整体难度还是低了一些，策略深度也有限，玩多了会觉得没有挑战感。
Damn good game 👍
1. Уровни и сценарии создаются сами собой.
2. Если умрешь, то уже навсегда (никаких возрождений).
3. Можно сойти с ума, и тогда интерфейс и геймплей меняются.
4. Можно выбрать одного из четырех героев с разными стартовыми скиллами.
5. Играет в шести разных подземельях, куча заданий и двадцать монстров.
6. Есть восемь крутых магических заклинаний.
7. В Steam можно получать достижения и коллекционные карточки.
Пацаны. Это
ДЕТЕКТИВНЫЙ. ХОРРОР. РОГАЛИК.
Где из-за низкого рассудка почти ЛЮБАЯ КНОПКА может превратиться в "роскомнадзор" и может привести к гейм-оверу.
Одна из самых атмосферных, мрачных и жанрово интересных игр которых я когда либо пробовал и очень печально что о ней совсем мало знают.
The game is broadly faithful to its source material, so luck is definitely not on your side. I like how it portrays situations and environments. It’s highly atmospheric, and the mechanics fit in seamlessly.
Call me crazy, but I'm feeling like its a grandfather to the great gameplay loop horror games we have gotten in recent history. It really wouldn't surprise me if it were an inspiration for games like buckshot roulette or white knuckle or nubby's number factory.
Fun game to play. Really haven't had an aesthetic like this game has in a long while. Like old great newgrounds games way back in the day. It's short and easy to play rounds, there's a strong pull to keep playing, even after getting good at the game. I bet there are good mods out there for this that can expand on it.
The Consuming Shadow, developed and published by Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw, is a moody and eccentric indie title that fuses roguelike structure, survival horror tension, and investigative deduction into a grim road trip across a doomed Britain. Set in a modern world teetering on the edge of annihilation, it places players in the role of a lone investigator racing against time to stop an ancient god from entering reality. The premise is simple but immediately engrossing: you have sixty in-game hours to discover which of four Elder Gods is attempting to invade and gather the correct ritual components to banish it before humanity is consumed. This ticking clock becomes the central mechanic, transforming every decision—whether to explore a dungeon, stop at a town, or rest—into a calculated gamble between survival and knowledge. From its opening moments, the game establishes a sense of creeping dread that’s both psychological and existential, setting the tone for a desperate journey toward an uncertain end.
The presentation is stark and effective, perfectly suited to its Lovecraftian themes. The game’s 2D art style and limited color palette evoke a bleak atmosphere reminiscent of old horror illustrations and text adventure screens. The minimal visuals allow the writing and sound design to dominate the mood. Every drive between towns is underscored by oppressive silence or distant, unsettling noises that make the player feel isolated within a dying world. Yahtzee’s trademark writing style—dry, darkly humorous, and introspective—emerges through the protagonist’s journal entries and monologues. These bits of narration provide not only context for the journey but also a window into the psychological deterioration of the character, whose sanity steadily erodes as the hours pass. The world of The Consuming Shadow feels lonely and haunted, but its strength lies in how it conveys that horror through suggestion rather than spectacle.
Gameplay in The Consuming Shadow is divided between two primary phases: overworld travel and dungeon exploration. The player drives from city to city on a map of the UK, searching for clues about the invading deity’s identity. Each town holds potential danger or opportunity—some contain dungeons infested with monsters, others offer shops, hospitals, or random encounters that can influence sanity and resources. Time management becomes crucial because every action eats into the limited countdown to apocalypse. The dungeons themselves are simple but tense: procedurally generated corridors crawling with grotesque enemies, where combat requires careful aim and scarce ammunition. While combat mechanics are clunky and intentionally awkward, they reinforce the protagonist’s vulnerability. Fighting in The Consuming Shadow is rarely empowering; it’s a desperate attempt to survive long enough to uncover one more scrap of information before the clock runs out. This constant tension between risk and reward drives the game’s pacing, ensuring that even the smallest victory feels hard-earned.
Layered on top of its exploration and survival systems is a surprisingly engaging deduction mechanic. To succeed, the player must collect clues that identify which of the four gods is invading, which ritual elements are needed, and in what order they must be used. These clues are scattered across the map, hidden within dungeons or revealed through random events, forcing players to piece together logic puzzles from fragments of information. The system feels like a mix between classic adventure game reasoning and procedural mystery-solving. This intellectual element sets The Consuming Shadow apart from other horror roguelikes; victory depends as much on reasoning and note-taking as on combat skill or resource conservation. The tension between the cerebral and the physical—the need to think clearly while under pressure and losing sanity—becomes the game’s defining experience.
Sanity management is another crucial aspect, shaping both the gameplay and the narrative. Witnessing horrific events, suffering injuries, or spending too long in dark, oppressive environments will chip away at the protagonist’s mental state. As sanity declines, hallucinations blur reality: false messages appear on the screen, friendly NPCs might seem threatening, and even the interface itself becomes unreliable. This blurring of perception creates one of the most effective uses of insanity in any indie horror game, merging psychological storytelling with mechanical consequence. The player begins to doubt not only the protagonist’s stability but their own understanding of what’s happening. It’s a subtle but powerful way of translating cosmic horror into gameplay—madness not as a scripted event, but as an evolving, destabilizing condition that corrodes logic and trust.
Despite its ingenuity, The Consuming Shadow isn’t without flaws. The dungeon-crawling segments, while atmospheric, can feel repetitive after several runs. Enemy variety is limited, and the procedural generation occasionally results in predictable layouts. The controls are deliberately stiff to heighten vulnerability, but this design choice can verge on frustration, especially in confined spaces or during frantic fights. Some players may also find the game’s pacing uneven—moments of high tension often alternate with long stretches of monotonous travel. Yet, these shortcomings are in some ways inseparable from the experience itself. The sense of exhaustion and repetition mirrors the protagonist’s struggle against an inevitable cosmic doom. The game’s imperfections reinforce its central theme: that survival in the face of incomprehensible horror is messy, uncertain, and never heroic.
What makes The Consuming Shadow remarkable is how its disparate parts—investigation, horror, humor, and roguelike structure—coalesce into something deeply personal and unsettling. Yahtzee Croshaw’s signature voice as a storyteller permeates every element, from the cynical wit of the narration to the bleak depiction of a world on the brink. It’s clear that the game was created as both a love letter to Lovecraftian fiction and a commentary on the futility of control in the face of chaos. Every failure feels like part of the narrative rather than an interruption of it. The procedural elements ensure that no two playthroughs are identical, and each run tells its own version of the apocalypse—sometimes you uncover the truth in time, other times madness or chance claims you first.
In the end, The Consuming Shadow is a haunting, intelligent, and deeply unconventional experience. It’s rough around the edges, but its ambition and atmosphere more than compensate for its technical shortcomings. It captures the essence of Lovecraftian horror—not through spectacle or violence, but through uncertainty, decay, and the slow unraveling of reason. Few games so effectively merge mechanics and narrative to evoke dread, and even fewer do so with such a distinctive voice. For those willing to look past its indie roughness, it offers one of the most original interpretations of cosmic horror in gaming: a grim meditation on knowledge, madness, and the smallness of humanity in the face of the infinite.
Rating: 8/10
Ok so ive never seen zero punctuation or anything by Ben Croshaw, and frankly i only bought this game due to how cheap it was, so this was a surprising find! love me some eldritch ♥♥♥♥, stuff that makes me spin the hamster wheels in my head, games that let me build a fundation from my failures! even the way the controls confused the ♥♥♥♥ out of me emphasized how out of my depth and scared ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ i would be if i had less than 3 days to repel an ancient god. 8/10 awesome experience
This game is harder than it looks (at least for me). You get punished for running and unless you're fast, you'll be punished for fighting. The time limit isn't so bad considering I've died before I get to the end game as of this review. There are unlockables that make the game easier or harder as much as you wish so I make better progress the more I try. Story is your generic Old Ones wanna smash humans so you need to do something while trying not to go crazy. The insanity effects are a nice touch though. Well worth the price
10/10 would spam click again (If you know, you know)
Absolutely addicting.
💋
La ambientación y la narrativa son god, compralo, es muy atrapante, Yahtzee tiene una forma única de contar historias y si te gustó la saga de Chzo y extrañabas a [spoiler] Trilby [/spoiler] esto te va a encantar.
the mechanics are very cool, sometimes theyre more scary than the monsters!!
there is an amazing amount of detail and randomized variety that makes replaying over and over cool.
Good fun, just wish it would let me use my second monitor without minimising it or run borderless windowed
It's not a terrible game, it's fairly okay but there are some baffling design decisions from somebody that reviews videos games for the last 2 decades it kinda feels like he should've known better.
Makinbg you spend perk points to unlock the harder challenges so you're weaker than before and also having very limited perk points means |'ll have to wipe my progress to do the other half of the challenges to have a decent chance.
It's also a game that seems to expect and want you to fail until you level up a few times so you get the perk points.
Other than that, if you can get past the graphics which if you grew up in the Flash era you'll probably not have a problem with that and if you like rogue-likes and Lovecraft you'll probably enjoy it. For a little while at least.
An original game idea from the man himself. Fun and creepy and very text-based. But it is difficult, and by the time you get used to the difficulty, you're already skipping past most of the writing, and the game loses some of its immersive edge. It's worth a play, though, and if you get sucked in there's a lot to find.
An excellent if very difficult game. 9/10
This game ignited my love of 2D roguelikes, and if you can't get past the aesthetic, you're a weak soul who doesn't like games. Sorry, just stating facts. There's nothing more tense than being at the very end with no sanity left over and very little health, knowing that all that stands between the world and annihilation are the bullets in your gun.
Yahtzee made a sick deduction game and I paid a dollar for it.
I've bought bars of candy that cost more than twice as much and have been infinitely more disappointed.
Buy it. Play it.
I absolutely love the atmosphere of this game. It truly embraces the 'less is more' idea to horror and leaves things to your imagination.
If you're into horror and eldritch related stuff, this is definitely for you as you only about a certain amount of time to banish the invading god until it comes. It's a bit like cluedo but without the murder mystery stuff...though I will tell you lot, it's a lot of fun with the Birthday Stars as they increase your stats permanently throughout a whole run. I also like how the game has a system to keep people from staying in one place for too long by making stalker chase them after the dungeon is complete.
I'll give this a 9/10 rating, heavily recommend playing due to multiple endings and all that.
Super fun game
has a try not to blow your brains out mechanic
very relateable
fr though this games a hidden gem, BUY IT NOW!
Gud
The Consuming Shadow may be simple, but it offers a surprisingly memorable experience. The game’s atmosphere is tense and unsettling, and the gameplay, while basic, really keeps you engaged as you try to survive in a world full of strange horrors. The random generation of events adds replayability, and the minimalist style works well to create an eerie, mysterious vibe. It’s not a complex game, but it definitely leaves an impression.
7,5/10
Simple but effective, it’s a great experience for those looking for a unique horror game.
Cosmic-horror themed deduction-based roguelite. While not the prettiest game, The Consuming Shadow has a very unique and satisfying gameplay loop.
Every playthrough has a new mystery to solve which makes this game a rare replayable puzzle game
A simple to play yet detailed story driven game evoking the best of the Lovecraft style mythos.
So you want to figure out which of the three Lovecraftian entities involved is currently invading our side of the universe? To that I say, good luck, for you only have 60 hours to figure it out and the universe seems to be pretty suicidal right now given how much it refuses to give you the last piece of clue to figure out the banishment ritual.
There's nothing quite like it. A roguelite 2d arpg with detective and cyoa elements. I keep coming back to this one over the years and enjoy checking if there are any new let's plays. Somehow the creepiness stays constant through countless runs.
combat isn't all that good, but this game is genuinely great, and it also lets you kill yourself before even starting
It's of course rough around the edges, and on first viewing one might mistake it for an old flash title, but the game design and writing are both impeccable, and at the end of the day, isn't that all that really matters?
It's ambitious, bold, and experimental. Maybe a little too big for its britches, as the combat doesn't quite live up to the rest of the gameplay, but an extremely solid and unique experience in general. 9/10
Fun little game.
Its a great game and genuinely had me looking at the clues trying to piece together who was invading with the few clues i had.
I too enjoy pistol-whipping elder gods in the face
Gameplay is a bit of a pain in the ***, especially just as you start out or switch to a higher level, but the "proceduraly-generated investigation on a time-crunch" aspect is surprisingly addictive, with an excellent setting and decent atmosphere.
good
A game that despite some of the jank and rough edges, clearly has a lot of love and effort put into it. It has it's own ways of keeping you on edge fighting for your life and sanity, while also racing against a clock ticking towards the end of the world.
This game reminds me of a more horrific version of FTL Faster Than Light. But instead of trying to destroy a rebel fleet, you're trying to banish ancient evils invading your world. Yahtzee did an incredible job creating a bleak oppressive world that wants to kill you at every turn.
It's amazing to me that a game with so much content and replay value costs less than a box of french fries from a fast food place.
Мощный минималистичный выживально-хоррорный экшен-детектив, потерявшийся во времени. Игра вышла в 2015 году; она могла спокойно выйти на десять или двадцать лет раньше... в принципе, я думаю, что ее можно портировать хоть на Спектрум.
Великобритания, первая половина 2010-х. Древнее зло пробудилось. По всей стране опускается тьма, вылезают непонятные существа и кушают людей или превращают их в себя. Оказывается, в наше измерение из соседнего ломится [strike]Ктулху[/strike] нехорошее божество. Главный герой – решатель оккультных проблем, такой себе ведьмак нашего времени. Кстати, всего главных героев четыре, каждый со своим стилем прохождения.
Геймплей – поездки из города в город в поисках темных подвалов и заброшенных парков, где можно получить нужную информацию. Во-первых, это части заклинания, необходимого для укрощения злого божка, а во-вторых – установление его личности, потому что божков существует сразу три штуки, а в гости к нам собирается только один. К экшену добавляется детектив, вычисление нужного бога выглядит как составление паззла из мелких улик. Собрав все, останется поехать в Стоунхендж, прочитать заклинание и потом еще выдержать дуэль с обиженным божком, хотя там герой спасает уже не мир, а только свою жизнь. Попутно надо следить не только за здоровьем и количеством боеприпасов, а еще за состоянием психики. Его трудно улучшать, а если нервы у героя слишком расшатаются, он начнет видеть глюки и самоубиваться. Плюс ко всему ограничение по времени – у вас есть максимум 60 часов.
Дизайн игры старомодный, туториала почти нет, некоторые вещи надо соображать самому или нагугливать. Например, совсем не сказано, как убивать культиста, который неуязвим за “энергетическим щитом” и читает вздорные заклинания в адрес героя. Нужно произнести это же самое заклинание быстрее, чем он, и тогда “щит” исчезнет.
Итак, есть процедурная генерация локаций, богов и карты мира, случайные текстовые события, несколько персонажей и несколько концовок. Прокачка – набор уровней и выбор бонусов перед каждым новым прохождением. В итоге это хороший, хоть и старомодный роуглайт с большой реиграбельностью.
И – не оборачивайтесь.
*An Hour Passes*
*Vine Boom*
TL;DR - recommended if you like roguelikes, Lovecraft, Silent Hill, Ben Yahtzee Croshaw, well-written and atmospheric games
It's a cool horror real-time roguelike with a great atmosphere influenced by Lovecraft and Silent Hill. Quick and highly replayable; has permadeath. Very well-written, though the text does get repetitive after a while. The sound and music are great, the graphics are minimalist but still look a bit rough. Bugs are very rare - it's possible to get stuck if a portal appears right over a doorway and you can't close it immediately; the auto-aim feature can also sometimes actually hinder you.
p.s. warning for achievement hunters: getting 100% can take a long, long time.
The shadow has only been consuming my time, not my wallet.
before you start you can select "kill myself" which will genuinely end the game
best game best game
Now that this is only a dollar, there's no reason not to buy it; one of the best horror roguelikes on Steam, with plenty of content, an addicting survival horror gameplay loop, solid progression, and lots of real risk-reward scenarios. If you can get past the somewhat abstract style (combat and graphics are just there enough to serve the other aspects of the game), you could spend hours and hours with this thing.
This game is the poster child for the phrase "don't judge a book by its cover".
The screenshots absolutely betray the game's atmosphere.
On the surface, it just looks like a flash game from 2002, but underneath it is so much.
Seriously recommend for any fans of horror.
If you're a fan of games like Withering Rooms and World of Horror especially, you definitely need to play this.
gkkdkd game
Took me 9 years to finally play it after buying it to support the creator, I regret sleeping on it, the logic puzzle of figuring out the identity of the god and banishing them is really well done, and the writing is top notch. Warrior for the win, Gabie smash!
If you're obsessed with FTL like me, and you also like detective games that require actual brainwork then you'll probably like this, got very addicted very quickly and finally achieved Ending A after half a week of playing it. I wanted to play this when it came out but I never had a compatible PC for it (Mac user) until recently, and I was surprised that it never seemed to really take off beyond Yahtzee's main audience that I'm aware of, so I thought I'd give it some love. My only complaint obviously is that visually it's a bit ropey, the art style compensates for very rough looking art, so it didn't bother me once I actually started playing it. My only visual complaints are some of the sanity effects, the blinking screen doesn't last long enough to impede you so it mostly just makes me eyes, hurt, the static and reduced visibility achieve that better. I also encountered two other visual things that I legitimately could not tell if they were bugs or insanity effects or not, mainly the character's walk animation freezing or the character becoming invisible.
The game starts with a button to kill yourself
this game is Technically a Chzo Mythos game(down to sharing it's developer with the Chzo Mythos games) even when Chzo in this game can get portrayed inaccurately(from Procedurally Generative nature of this game), this Survival Horror game is where you can cast spells with Runes(even when this can cost your sanity when used, and if your sanity reached Zero by whatever, your character can commits suicide) in addition of using limited ammunitions of 9mm Handgun(comes in 3 types: standard, Armor Piercing, and Hollow point) to deal with monsters.
this game is better than FNAF game not only you can pulls a Harry Potter here in this survival horror game(at the cost of your character's sanity, unless playing as the Wizard of course)
if this game was remade with better graphics and more polished in terms of gameplay and how stuff works, would prolly be a 10/10. its good now, but it has potential to be a lot more imo
Really good.
An incredible game. I have played this one over and over again, enjoying its simple loop, its myriad of challenges, and its cathartic endings. I hope more people play this game so Yahtzee gets more money to make stuff like this, or even better, make a touch-up of the game with better graphics.
Psychological horror done RIGHT, with enough challenge and variation to make repeat playthroughs feel engaging.
Had this game for many years now, Ran around, shot horrible monsters, pistol-whipped horrible monsters... kicked horrible monsters. Investigated and banished many Gods and died trying many times too. Would I recommend doing that? This is a positive review, I feel y'already knew the answer t' that. Heh.
It's an alright enough looking game for what it is (except the Wizard, wow she needed a bit more time), but I don't really care about graphics. I like the gameplay, got critiques of it, like I do for everything, sometimes it feels like getting hit is kind of an inevitability or luck, but I enjoy it. I also enjoy the simple deductions based on facts (here's a tip, every dungeon is tied to a God and you can tell this by the colour of various things, the runes on the walls and the corpses descriptions being related to said God's aspect, this includes Stonehenge which is always tied to the invader).
I'll also sum up every character real quick:
Scholar is standard because he's very standard, he's the default character and explicitly called that for a reason. He's the water to the rest of the characters other drink options, but water is good. It should be your main drink, as Scholar should be the main character you play.
Trilby AKA The Ministry Man (he's quite clearly Trilby) has the same gameplay as Scholar, but with the full ritual and less time its a simple investigation for the correct God. He also has a lot of cash, which can be nice. Good for quick games.
The Warrior is the personal favourite of mine. He's the Scholar with no gun (well he refuses to use a gun, heh) and the kick looks a little silly, but wow is it powerful and wow is that dodge move useful. A funny thing is that he usually ends up rich because no bullets to buy or find in dungeons. Maybe fitting for a criminal looking for redemption. He's also my favourite looking character overall.
The Wizard is the magic focused character. A gun and magic at no mental costs, but no melee attacks. The magic runes also degrade in her mind, so she needs to look at 'em in dungeons. Of the four she's my least favourite character, because both her combat options are basically on a timer and sometimes you wish she could just smack a Hopper when you don't want to waste ammo or Rune Memory on such a basic thing. She can be alright enough when you work around her issues, but ends up my least favourite due to them. Fun tip, the Banishment room in Stonehenge can replenish all runes, so it might be a good idea to go there and try to top-up in a pinch. Also, as I mentioned earlier I think she's the worst drawn character by a country mile. Oh, another thing, she's the easiest person to fight the Ancient with since you can just spam magic in the fight, that's fun, that's my favourite part of playin' her.
In spite of the issues I have with the game, I've got near or maybe over 100 hours in it by time of you reading this (which is how I developed these opinions, hahahaa). An' since its now cheap as chips (cheaper, actually), I reckon y'should buy it if y'am interested in it.
really, really good.
the art is MSpaint-tier and the combat is messy, but it has everything you'd expect from a conventional roguelike, including unlockables based on points accrued during failed runs. there's also a randomized per-run customization system in the form of birth stars, adding more layers of depth and possibility to an already-engaging indie game.
for $1 you absolutely cannot go wrong. if you like roguelikes, BUY IT.
Don't let the art style put you off, this game is good. Very creative gameplay loop. I haven't felt this anxious exploring dungeons since Bloodborne.
A very interesting horror game that does its mechanics well.
It took a bit to get used to the janky controls, but I thoroughly enjoy the games atmosphere and logic-puzzle-solving.
Imagine if you will, a game, where shooting yourself in the head may be the correct option. Jokes aside, this is well designed cosmic horror. Not what you'd lovecraftian-lite. Yahtzee knows how to design things effectively, and this is a massive example.
It is not the prettiest game I've ever played and the combat isn't really that engaging. But I love the very idea of being forced to do actual investigation to banish an elder god and the time limit really adds to the tension. If you look at the store page and think "Huh, the game is pretty cheap", you should definitely give it a shot. Hopefully (but probably not likely) someday we will get a sequel with extra polish.
Such a precious little gem! A good detective game with Lovecraftian theme!
新买游戏的注意了 win10要打开适配的测试版才能正常游玩 详情见讨论区开发者公告
A Cthulhu mythos based game that fits the setting and genre well and got me some fun time
I've been Yahtzee's fan for 15+ years, so my view might be a bit skewed. Great job for one man. Like the spells and the tie to sanity, and how the ending is determined by your performance through the game. My favourite part though is gathering the clues which you then have to put together to figure out who the bad guy is. Wish there was a special boy award for getting everything right about all three gods. Very nice of Yahtzee to just straight up drop the price by 90% (not a discount, a permanent lowering of the price) because his new game came out. Definitely 100% worth it with this price tag. But I have to admit that ultimately I still like Yahtzee's Chzo Mythos series the most.
If you leave a screen enemies on it will just disappear, so you can despawn them by leaving. Reenter and it's random whether or not there will be enemies. The designer did it like this because he couldn't be bothering coding the game to remember what's in different screens. The thing that's supposed to counteract this is the fact that you lose sanity if you leave a room with enemies in it. Weird and a bit of a stretch, but it gets worse. Enemies will sometimes spawn a moment AFTER you enter a room, so if you move quickly you can get to the next exit and use it, and an enemy might spawn JUST before you leave, causing you to lose sanity. Having all of your sanity taken away doesn't end the game for you tho, so if you're already low on it, you can just leave and reenter any area until there are no enemies in it, trivializing the whole struggle.
When playing as the wizard, the game's lack of memory of what was in a screen becomes apparent again. Runes can be found which restore her ability to throw spells, but when you enter a screen it randomizes whether there will be a rune, so you can just clear a rune, then reenter the room, and new runes will just spawn on the wall out of nowhere, so you can repeat that until you get the rune you need. This scummy gameplay is needed tho, because the amount of spells you can throw is limited, as well as your ammo, and you have no other attacks, so you can literally be left with no way of defending yourself, even if you've used the bare minimum to kill enemies.
When you realize the game only lets you carry one magazine of each type, it feels nothing short of silly. Putting a cap on an ammo type is standard for games, but that typically happens at an amount where you can imagine it would be a struggle for the player character to carry any more. This guy can't muster the energy to carry seven rounds of handgun ammo. You might think a trip to the gym would be in order, but nope. In this game, astrological birthright is what lets you carry more.
If leaving rooms with enemies still in them doesn't drive you mad, the hitboxes will. There must've been fifty times when I tried to melee and cried out "There no WAY I missed that!" or when I'm standing CLEARLY behind an enemy and their poison breath hits me anyway. Further, having autoaim forced on you is frustrating when it misses all the time. When enemies randomly become invulnerable as they fly towards you, autoaim is the least of your frustrations tho.
The game is based on great ideas, which I why I've played it a bunch. The minimalistic approach to the gameplay is really compelling. You don't play as a superhuman who whips out a gatling gun and blazes through 50 enemies -- you play as regular person with a handgun, and every bullet matters, and it's really exciting to cast your first death spell. Whenever hitboxes don't baffle you, fighting is really fun.
The core concept of battling a Lovecraftian god and its minions is great and the menagerie of monsters is diverse and fascinating. There's plenty of atmosphere to immerse you into the conflict, especially with Yahtzee's great knack for writing, but it's a weakest link scenario where that unfortunately matters little compared to the negatives.
Uma das melhores adaptações dos Mythos de Lovecraft para os games. Só fica atrás dos Darkest Dungeon. Não percam.
A flash-game style graphics that's eldritch-themed horror game with roguelike elements. Fairly enjoyable for a dollar.
Cheers Yahtzee You beautifully mad Bstard.
I enjoyed it so much. I keep coming back to this because it's genuinely satisfying as well as challenging. It's like one of those "minute to learn, lifetime to master" games because I established how to play quickly, but am still trying for all the achievements. I highly recommend, because I've had this in my library for years and my ADHD self hasn't lost interest in it yet.
Originally I became familiar with the developer of this intriguing horror game, Ben 'Yahtzee' Croshaw, through his comedic review series on YouTube aptly known as 'Zero Punctuation', seeing as I am both familiar with Yahtzee's style of writing (alongside the general quality of it) as well as being a fan of his works from as far back as 2011 when he was just starting to take a career on YouTube seriously as it were.
Over time Yahtzee has expanded his creative works into several fields, one of them being the video game development side of things as he has had a history of making various small projects on the sides (5 Days A Stranger and Adventures in the Galaxy of Fantabulous Wonderment come to mind) since it goes without saying that this game here is what perhaps some might call his 'Swan Song' as it were, but we'll touch upon that as we go along with the review here.
Since this, unfortunately, is a negative review here, let's start off by going into what this game here, The Consuming Shadow, entails as well as it's strong points before delving into it's problems, some more serious than others, that ultimately left me feeling rather disappointed here despite wishing to give it a good shot despite already knowing of some of it's issues beforehand.
With that being said, The Consuming Shadow centres around one of four playable characters (with only The Scholar being available at the start whilst others are unlocked through achieving certain hidden objectives during a playthrough) as they aim to banish one of five invading 'Ancients' as they attempt to rid the many towns of the plaguing 'Shadow' that is threatening to overwhelm the ordinary English countryside lifestyle as the threat worsens throughout the duration of the game.
To accomplish this big feat though, one has to investigate areas of interest, be they towns suffering from the Shadows or stumbling upon places on the road by chance, with the primary goal of discovering various clues about the cult and their God that has decided to invade in order to establish the colour and 'Runes' associated with the god to properly banish them (although even this is not so simple as said cult will likely attempt to throw off the player's sense of direction by leaving documents that point to another God that is not invading, this being another Ancient out of the possible three to be chosen out of the five total that is either allied with the invading Ancient but not necessarily invading the realm themselves or is against them entirely) in a ritual that can only be done in Stonehenge, the game's final 'dungeon' of sorts that can be ran straight into as soon as the game begins but is quite ill-advised without enough clues to accurately determine how best to cast the right runes for the banishment ritual.
Although one can also take on jobs that involve simple deliveries to neighboring towns for extra funds as well as helping to clear out monsters coming from the Shadow, be it a particularly large and dangerous foe that requires careful handling of the combat to deal with or to expel a dimensional rift that is spawning these monsters by means of casting the runes associated with the rift in the right order, as these will help aid the player in less direct ways such as more money for the means to achieve your goal better (medkits for further healing, more ammo for shooting agile/dangerous monsters with and equipable items that give you various benefits etc) as well as the occasional significant clue that would otherwise be very difficult to acquire normally.
All in all it sounds pretty good, as it is a fairly decent game for the rather cheap asking price of £0.89 in 2023, however it does come with some problems that I'll start to delve into here.
First and foremost is the problem of gameplay balancing as, although one can make the case that the 'original challenge' of just beating the game on regular difficulty is really the 'start' of the game as each time you finish a playthrough you will receive an ending ranked from A as best to G as worst, which gives you a multiplier depending on the rank that affects the score which then translates into XP that, once enough has been gained, will result in you levelling up and gaining a 'birth star' alongside new challenges to try out.
Obviously it helps that, with this being something of a 'roguelite' game, that continued playthroughs will result in not just the player slowly getting better at the game but also having these birth stars that can be placed on constellations at the start of each game to give them various improvements to stats (such as more Sanity, better lockpick chances and higher car speeds etc) that can aid them ever so slightly but, when more than a couple of birth stars are thrown into the mix, can seriously make your starting character become quite powerful and makes what was a fairly difficult challenge of preserving resources for the right moments as you literally fight to survive in your quest to gather enough information about the Ancient you're dealing with in order to banish them into just a simple checklist of getting enough clues so you don't fail the banishment ritual or accidentally banish the wrong Ancient by mistake, thus robbing The Consuming Shadow of it's main gameplay challenge. (Additional challenges do come into play here but, with it mostly being more of the same just with added restrictions and the occasional 'boost' to enemy difficulty as it were, it feels rather 'artificial' to say the least)
Other problems include the graphics, whilst fairly simplistic but stylized decently enough to create a foreboding and tense atmosphere, occasionally glitches out with the player animations getting stuck, enemy hitboxes being a tad unreliable when trying to melee them (I swear two enemies in particular are more dangerous than what they should be because of this particular issue) and the HUD itself in the car not being the easiest thing to navigate alongside RNG playing too heavily into the success or failure of a playthrough. (Sadly this problem only gets worse if you struggle at playing such intense games as these, despite the simplicity of the combat)
However my personal biggest issue that really made this game a hesitant 'Do not recommend' case for me here was what I can only describe as a 'sort-of gamebreaking' bug.
I'll be going into detail with this, so bear with me as I try my best to describe what exactly this issue is as, unfortunately, there's little info I can dig up about it and hardly any solution that actually fixes the problem is in sight.
What I describe this 'bug' here is in relation to when you are in your car and are ready to move towards a new destination on the map, whether to do something inside the town or to pass by it on the way to another place, as attempting to start the car will simply see it vibrating (or stalling) as it seemingly refuses to move anywhere despite having the 'Drive' option selected and leaving it on.
No amount of tinkering around with anything else in the car (be it the other side where it involves your medical supplies, clues gathered, equipment or any background object on the side where you drive the car) seems to make any noticeable difference, the only solution appears to be leaving it on it's own anywhere from two to upwards of FIFTEEN minutes that then, when you trigger the drive function that it actually works and speeds along to your next destination as the time quickly goes down to indicate the travelling done. (Note that time doesn't just go down whilst in areas of combat but WILL also go down whilst inside your car except faster!)
Sadly this critical gameplay bug that doesn't stop me from playing the game but makes it a chore just to try a regular playthrough means that, until this is fixed, (which I find to be highly unlikely) I can not, in good faith, recommend this to other people even with the fairly cheap price on offer.
It's like an H.P. Lovecraft novel with Harry Dresden as the protagonist is a video game. It's taken me a while to learn the controls and game mechanics, but now that I have I find gameplay very addictive. Combination of combat, strategy, and puzzle-solving make for a robust game experience each time. And as a roguelite, it moves quickly, but rewards multiple playthroughs with level ups and abilities for the next round. The graphics are not stellar, but considering one guy made everything, the graphics work with the atmosphere being created.
Unique gameplay and makes me use my brain
love it
this game has a very "i would've been irredeemably traumatized by this if i was younger" vibe
Drive car, go insane, pistol-whip god.
I love Yahtzee's Zero Punctuation reviews & have always found them funny. Hearing that he made a game only made me wanna buy it. I'm not hugely a fan of roguelikes since luck and randomness tend to mess me up a lot, but I decided to give it a chance here. See if this will be the one that makes me appreciate horror & maybe roguelikes.
...nothing changed.
Don't get me wrong, the game is fun at times, unnerving at all others (which is the intent) & I do recommend it. I'm not even bothered by the janky Flash-style art & animation, if anything I think that can add to the atmosphere. I just wanna say that you will die A LOT in this game.
First, each run gets you a birth star you can use to upgrade yourself, but it resets to zero after each new character you unlock. It surprised me, but at least it incentivized me to play as all of them to get the best upgrades.
Secondly, luck & randomness decides not only how you find out each ancient & their agendas, but also how you unlock new characters. You mess up once, you gotta start all over again & hope you have better luck. It wore me down at times & so far I only got the Ministry Man unlocked (almost unlocked the Wizard during one run, but messed up).
Thirdly, each person's play-style is different & you eventually develop your own. Mine for example was to memorize each enemy's attack patterns, use hollowpoint bullets for strong enemies, & not use lockpicks when I can easily find keys in each dungeon. Also, feel free to tell me I'm an idiot for doing this, but using drugs to keep your sanity up & rushing through Stonehenge will still nab you ending A, right? .....right?
Lastly, prioritize health & sanity upgrades. You may think you're safe after 1 or 2 dungeons, but the enemies get harder & tank more hits. And with the countdown, it won't be any easier to stock up on ammo. Trust me, 60 "hours" may seem like a lot, but you better good at time management or that's gonna run out fast.
Overall, I recommend this game to any roguelike fans & horror fans. I do wish there were at least a crouch feature (Crtl or LT) to dodge certain attacks but also get affected by the broken leg ailment & the ability to access your inventory during dungeons (F2 or R Stick In) to make the game a little easier because this is one hard game, but satisfying to complete.
hood irony the game
you have the option to kill yourself before you even start. very realistic.
Very Cthulhy rogue-like, I liked most the clue system, in which you need to think or make educated guesses if time, money or sanity is running out.
Also the star sign- buffs are a interesting idea, if not terribly fleshed out. I would like it even more if the character acknowledges their buffs some how. Some short lore writing to be found, maybe?
Combat is complete flailing, even when sanity is on peak. And it is really shallow, but the main beef of the game lies in clue interpetation and resource managment, sooo...
Overall, would recommend. Just don't expect to get through it the first try.
Nice attempt at a ♥♥♥♥ game
was playing this game in the library and was throw out for violently right clicking five hundred times per secondwhen i then shouted at on lookers "THE DARKNESS IS HERE I MUST KILL CHZO DEMON SPAWN HAHAHAHAHA" i was promptly tazed by campus security 10/10 would kick inter dimensional horrors again
This is honestly one of my favorite games. Yes, yes, the graphics suck. But the game itself is really awesome. This is a lovecraftian horror roguelike with a logic table! What else would one need? It's a bit rough around the edges but I've had a blast with it.
would be better if keyboard key mapping is not like this; it's uncomfortable.
Good game but gotta thumbs down because it needs an epilepsy warning, game heavily uses strobing lights for horror sequences and I didn't see any warning, so could be a health hazard
I've very much enjoyed this game. Yahtzee is great and I got very excited about its release thanks to his Yahtzee19 channel that I used to watch.
im not a big fan of roguelikes in fact i kinda hate them, but this game and the game hades make it tolerable and even fun. i really love this game because of the lovecraftian aspect to it and trying to find the all the answers on your own. also each run takes about 30 minutes or maybe an hour to beat, due to the fast paste nature of this game makes it easy. and the randomness of it makes it more fun each run. plus you can just guess when you have 2 or more runes and it works half the time. although its random each playthrough the birth stars help get you going faster which saves time.
i give this game 10 out of 10 its really good.
Graphics are rough, but there's a delightful, oppressive atmosphere about it.
It's stressful, it's tense, and it's a race against time to save the world from all sorts of eldritch horrors...but it's a fun game, even with the horrors involved! Just remember to keep hold of your sanity...and run if you see a lanky, tall man.
it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts
After watching the The Ego Review, a Let's Play style video done by Yahtzee himself (And Gabriel was there, which was fun), I immediately bought this, and I'm very impressed by The Consuming Shadow. Once you get used to the graphics, it's very interesting, and you never really know how well you're going to do. The procedural generation aspect, the necessity to use clues to figure out which final boss you're dealing with, and resource and time management all work together to make a very interesting experience.
It's challenging at times, but usually fair, and once you've gotten some levels you can easily make it all the way to the end reliably. Use the table to work things out, learn what pieces of equipment really work for your personal playstyle, and when you've got all the characters you can really make things as easy or difficult for yourself as you prefer.
Overall, I give The Consuming Shadow a solid 7/10. Pretty darn good, I just wish Yahtzee would add some new content now and then.
As a fan of horror games, this one is subtle but has a way of creeping up on you the more times you replay the game. Drawing on Cthulhu Mythos the story told in four possible ways across different time fractures: The Scholar who's history investigations found the horror approaching; The Ministry Man who hired The Scholar and follows up on his shocking discovery; The Warrior who through random chance found The Scholar's writings and decides to deal with it himself; and The Wizard who got drawn into the darkness trying to use it for her own gains only to realise just what hell is coming. With multiple endings and random level generation, no play through is the same twice and the game has special challenge game modes to play after you've finally unlocked everything. I strongly recommend this game if you are a horror fan.
---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☑ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS
---{ Gameplay }---
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Meh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't
---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf
---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma
---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☑ Potato
☐ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer
---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☑ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls
---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if you care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☑ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding
---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☑ Average
☐ Good
☐ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life
---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☑ Short
☐ Average
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond
---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☐ Worth the price
☑ If it's on sale
☐ If you have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money
---{ Bugs }---
☐ Never heard of
☑ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs
---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☑ 7
☐ 8
☐ 9
☐ 10
this is just like my friend's delusions
