New RPG Cyclopean: The Great Abyss is a Lovecraftian Ultima homage, and I can’t get torches to work

Cyclopean: The Great Abyss appears to have glorious dungeon graphics but I can’t say for sure because I can’t get torches to work. I think your character is supposed to kindle them automatically when you venture into a dungeon – at which point the view switches, classic Ultima-style, from top-down into first-person. My character never deigns to light a torch, however. Possibly this is because, no matter how many torches I loot or buy from the underworld’s infrequent traders, my character page always tells me I have none. Is my character eating them? Are they too afraid to light them and expose what those dungeons contain? Do I need to read the manual properly? Or is it just a bug?

For now, I must wander the catacombs in pitch blackness, navigating by way of the minimap and the sound of my character walking into walls. Sometimes I walk into a ghast, Dark Sentinel, or other Lovecraftian hoodlum. I’m sure the monsters are hideous but again, I can’t see them, and the turn-based combat sound effects are oddly cartoonish – generally, it sounds like I’m punching a snowman. I realise “never actually show the monster” is a cardinal rule of horror, but I think you’re allowed a peek when the creature is actively eating your face.

Oh how I wish I could see the monsters of Cyclopean: The Great Abyss, because this feels like a promising cosmic horror game, not least because it’s also a minimalist, mildly sandboxy exercise in retro RPG mechanics – hardly “cyclopean” at all, but certainly enticing.

It casts you as an English aristo of some kind who has dreamt their way into the Great Abyss, and must search for a way back to the Waking World. You begin by rolling your stats and equipment – a really rubbish dagger and some protective rags, in my experience. Then off you trot to get your soul sucked by a Moon Beast. The overworld appears to be fixed, but I’ve encountered different dungeon layouts when revisiting the site of my previous character’s death. Beasties aside, there are doors with pickable locks, treasure chests and, best of all, spike traps. I have triggered many a trap in my time with the demo. Fortunately, you can’t trigger them repeatedly.

Cyclopean came out in early access this month. The current build supports the core elements of combat, stealth and dialogue. It can be played from start to end with three potential endings. All going to plan, the 1.0 version will launch in six months and feature more elaborate quests, more elaborate NPC interactions, and a more elaborate sanity system. I haven’t had a chance to see what happens when you go insane because I can’t see anything and I keep stepping on spikes and I keep dying. It’s hard to descend into madness when you have all the base survivability of a mosquito in a microwave.

Developers Schmidt Workshops are, in fact, a single person from Chicago, Illinois. Their past creations include Islands Of The Caliph, “an old-school inspired action RPG based on Middle Eastern folklore and Islamic spiritual tradition”. Given that precedent, I’m curious about how they’re going to navigate the usual problem here of Lovecraft being a big smelly racist. In the meantime, you can find the demo on Steam.