If you’re somewhat into poetry then you might recognize the name Edgar Allan Poe, an American writer well known for his short stories such as The Raven and The Tell-Tale Heart, just to name a few.
He’s often referred to as “the master” in horror poetry, with his work focusing heavily on mystery and the macabre. He left such a big mark on the scene that there are awards named after him called “The Edgar Awards”, which are presented annually by the Mystery Writers of America.
His work has been the inspiration for quite a few things, with one of them recently being a game adapted from his creations “The Tell-Tale Heart”, “The Cask of Amontillado”, and “Berenice”.
Developed by multimedia studio Inscape, this first-person point-and-click psychological adventure delves into Edgar Allan Poe’s brilliant mind, as you witness the stories from both the minds of the victims and the perpetrators.
Stop-motion animation captured the atmosphere so well
When we think of stop-motion animation, most of us instantly think of franchises such as Wallace and Gromit or Shaun the Sheep, mostly shows or films which use this type of animation dating all the way back to the 80’s.
It’s something not seen commonly nowadays, purely because technology has advanced so using the most advanced methods just makes things easier compared to stop-motion which requires meticulous details and the patience of a saint.
Now think of video games and how many have you played that actually use stop-motion animation? The answer for most of you is probably a no, unless you played the most recent hit using this animation, Out of Worlds.
Edgar Allan Poe’s interactive horror does indeed also use stop-motion, and I have to say as a big horror fan it surprisingly works really well with the genre, combined with the puppetry it made the game so much creepier and created such an uncanny atmosphere, something which I didn’t expect to feel so quickly.
The sound design along with the voice acting played a huge part in the atmosphere, the narrator and the voices of the characters did really well and made the overall game so much creepier, and completely nailed the “1900s” voice.
Whilst not technically being labelled as one, for the most parts it felt a lot like a visual novel except that in said visual novel you were able to move around the area and actually interact with most objects within the environment.
Although I wasn’t a big fan of the whole point-and-click mechanic I have to say it did work quite well with this game, mainly because the graphics are similar to retro titles so naturally it doesn’t look out of place.
I was getting into it ever so slowly, but unfortunately due to a few repetitive glitches that I came across I wasn’t able to complete the full game let alone get past the first story, which was a shame because I was starting to get into it and curious as to how the stories ended, but alas I wasn’t able to see why Edgar Allan Poe’s work is highly praised by so many, but maybe reading it instead would prove to be a better way to appreciate it.
