Wonderfull story with a distinct Lovecraftian feel. I died just as things started to get interesting though. But i will definitely replay this. Good work!
Lorian Thu Nov 24 17:51:38 2016
Way to win
SPOILER
Docter, knife usage, elephant gun, libary use.
END SPOILER
Yaztromo Fri Jun 2 01:14:43 2017
I love re-playing this, from time to time...
no name Tue Jun 13 08:21:30 2017
Hmm, too short for my liking, and the ending seems to be rushed. I would play through book 2 if there is such a thing, though. Stats for my game: Skill, 12, HP, 17, Luck, 7, Sanity, 11
CplFerro Tue Jul 11 22:53:53 2017
Atmospheric and well-written but the program didn't let me use my Tommy-Gun so I died.
Gavin Thu Jul 13 03:47:39 2017
Back in the day Per Jorner used to take the Michael about how part of the plot line of this was you couldn't have your tommy gun in polite society.
Mark Thu Jul 13 18:25:09 2017
Combat is bad, literally no damage done each round but I was taking damage just fine
Manfred Thu Jul 13 22:41:59 2017
I was amazing story and game. I wish I had not used the first aid kit, and had used the throw the kinfe before the kill me.
I probably play again later,because i really want to know why the woman appears and whats on the plan of the cultists.
My first attempt Fri Jul 14 00:24:05 2017
Well, I got played for a fool... guess I'll try again
bluejuice915 Tue Nov 21 19:24:44 2017
Wow. Extreme kudos for the intricate gameplay and diversity with occupation and proficiency. This is one of those well written stories that teases you with little bits you pick up each time you run through it. Battles and weaponry was impressive too. Good job hooking me through the end. 99/100
RogueOne Tue Nov 28 23:54:01 2017
Done!
Slipper Fri Dec 29 17:38:41 2017
Aaaaargl, these cultists are brutal!
A very nice experience to play Bodies in the Docks, but why Gilgamesh in the role of Dagon? He is not related to water or sea in my knowledge.
jason Sun Dec 31 18:30:19 2017
Liked the story and the HP Lovecraft setting. Combat seemed a little unfair however. There should be an option to runaway if you don't believe you can win.
Mr. Reaper Wed Jul 25 22:30:57 2018
Well, that was lame. I go to the town, do lots of investigating, meet a guy on the docks to learn more, then get attacked by two cultists each with skill 7. My skill is 11 (great), but I have a -3 modifier for some reason in this fight, so I get killed, even though I should be an incredible fighter -- I took the Brawling skill. My Stamina was 19 (average) but there was little chance I could win this fight vs 2 opponents while suffering a -3 modifier.
Lame lame lame to end the game with my very first fight.
Andrč M. Pietroschek Wed Oct 10 21:16:01 2018
My quest to make Simon Osborne return, do a revision or grant license for us to patch it up, continues...
There is so much wonderful artwork about the Cthulhu myth by now, and not half of it greedily commercial stuff.
Anonymous Fri Feb 15 09:58:44 2019
I really like the plot of the story! I just find it extremely difficult to move on the story sometimes and it took me a while to work it out... But otherwise it's really great!
paul Sat Mar 9 11:56:46 2019
killed fightng cultists :(
Yaztromo Sun Aug 4 11:24:53 2019
I run this gamebook as an RPG adventure various times during these last years, but this time I had a surprise: the players actually asked me a copy of a map of Portsmouth (as it was in the 20s), as it is mentioned in the game. Fair enough, I thought, and, with the help of internet, I quickly summoned it. I was greatly surprised to see that the docks in Protsmouth do not go directly into the ocean, but they go into a river that goes into the ocean through some kind of lock (have a look at it: https://maps.francisfrith.com/pop/portsmouth-1919_pop809907.png) This way the sea born creatures have to queue with all other boats to get access to the docks through the locks!!! Is this going to spoil all narrative? How can I explain it in a meaningful way?
Yaztromo Sun Aug 4 14:17:31 2019
I am using this gamebook as a basis for a RPG adventure (it's not the first time), but this time the players asked me a map of Portsmouth as mentioned in the text. Fair enough, I thought and I found on line a map of Portsmouth dated 1919 (a century ago!) and I was very surprised when I realized the the port (and docks) of Portsmouth isn't directly open to the ocean! They are rather on a river (on the back side of Portsmouth, to make it easy) and that river is connected to the ocean through a key. I think this may impact the action in this adventure, as the lovecraftian fish-heads will have to queue wit merchant boats outside the key until they are allowed to pass... what do you think?
Thalantyr Wed Aug 21 02:58:35 2019
Good one! I enjoyed this one quite a lot.
Yaztromo Fri Oct 11 12:39:22 2019
Hello, any ideas of how I can manage, converting this gamecock into a RPG adventure, the fact that the docks of Portsmouth are not on the ocean? I need some help.
yaztromo Wed Nov 13 13:15:17 2019
On the map from 1919, I can't find any place that would really fit the following description:
You walk down the cobbled street, noting the fearful glances you seem to be receiving from the locals. Yet no one approaches you, and you are left to your own devices. After a few hundred yards, the street turns sharply right, and you are walking against the seawall. To your left beyond the seawall, the high tide laps against the beach, the only sound you can hear. Portsmouth, once a thriving resort, is now a deserted ghost town.
Further along the promenade, a pier stretches out to sea, though as you draw nearer, you see that it is roped off, abandoned and derelict: another testimony to the decay of this once great city.
It is another half a mile until the promenade becomes rougher, and the guesthouses are replaced by large, grey buildings, warehouses. Soon you come to the docks, though there are few ships here today. Out to sea, you think you spot a trawler making its way out from the harbour. At the end of a rough wooden jetty you spot a number of fishermen loading a small boat, evidently ready for an excursion upon the majestic sea. Aside from this, there is no movement, no sound in this abandoned and derelict part of town.
mcg Wed Nov 20 20:31:59 2019
Oops, most interesting fist part, bit of an abrupt ending.
sam Wed Jul 1 10:55:27 2020
love this.
Xu Minghao Mon Apr 19 08:40:09 2021
this was pretty good
Stinger Mon Aug 16 14:09:00 2021
Does anyone know why I start out with a minus 2 attack strength in the first fight against the cultist on the beach? I chose detective.
Moxie Fri Sep 3 02:32:33 2021
Really good game! The atmosphere and exploration of the time period are excellent, perhaps more appealing than the horror itself. I've played it a few times and I just wish there were maybe checkpoints or something, so you could complete the story without having to restart from scratch after every death.
You can use your browser's bookmarks/favourites to 'save' at any time.
Mage Tue Oct 19 01:58:33 2021
Finally! Took me way too many tries and I needed max values for most of my stats to barely scrape out a win! The lack of healing/restoration (even Doctors have a very tight limit on his First Aid skill) and the fact that most opponents have highly-inflated STAMINA compared to the average gamebook, AND the fact that you always encounter enemies in pairs, really ramps up the difficulty level. Even with Max SKILL and combat bonuses from Knife usage, there's way too many opportunities for opponents to get lucky on the dice and whittle down your STAMINA in a single battle (and leaving you weak to later fights without the chance to heal up).
Low on Smokes Wed Mar 22 07:20:57 2023
Tough battle here seems I oetirishey but at least I got close to the truth. 2nd time around & now it's (2) cultist that had to do me in.!
MPerera Sun Sep 3 21:30:01 2023
I wish it had been longer!
YARD Wed Sep 20 04:09:31 2023
I have to be honest, I think this might be the most overrated work on here. After all, it is the only one which is explicitly mentioned in the FAQ, which does raise the expectations for it, rightly or wrongly. I guess that at the time, it benefited from a massive novelty factor, since there was next to no interactive media based on Lovecraft then: even Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth was still about a year away, and apparently, there were only really Infogrames' Shadow of the Comet and Prisoner of the Ice. Granted, the great Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem was already out in 2002, but as a lesser-known game on a lesser-known console and strictly speaking, it was "inspired by", rather than directly based on.
Nowadays, though, we have seen a veritable boom in Lovecraft media during the second half of the 2010s, and that includes more video games I can name. The most famous ones, of course, is another "inspired by" console exclusive, Bloodborne, followed by Darkest Dungeon, but there have been plenty more works mining the mythos directly with variable degrees of success, such as the more modern Call of Cthulhu, The Sinking City, Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones, Lovecraft's Untold Stories, Moons of Madness or the freely available Infra Arcana. I could keep going indefinitely, as there are literally dozens more examples: just a few months ago, there was a highly acclaimed Lovecraftian fishing game called DREDGE. My point is that with this benefit of hindsight, there's just so little to it.
Some of the issues with it could probably be blamed on being intended as part of a trilogy that never came to be: hence a substantial fraction of skills being potentially useful in the future yet useless in the here and now. By my estimation, Chemistry, Biology, Navigation and Acute Hearing/Eyesight all fall into this category, while Brawling and Driving are right next to them, since they only seem to have any influence on a completely skippable encounter, and even then, not having them barely impedes your progress.
If you are feeling generous, some others may be written off on the internet still being young and less-useful for doing research at the time: i.e. it's pretty obvious Simon Osborne chose Portsmouth because its name matched Innsmouth the closest, and didn't look much further into it, but I am not sure if it would have been all that easy to bring up Portsmouth's historical maps back in 2004 as it was in 2019, when Yaztromo did that and proved that Portsmouth's actual geography makes the story impossible. Similarly, ref 83 mentions ammo smuggling: much of the German ammunition wasn't even compatible in the first place (i.e. 7.92mm bullets vs. 7.62mm), but I am not sure if it was as easy to look it up in 2004 as it is now.
Many other issues are just bad design, however. I.e. it's equally ridiculous that Knife Use gives you a whole MACHETE, which apparently no-one minds seeing on the belt of your detective/doctor/gangster, and yet, the only difference between that, and being completely bare-handed, is whether you enter melee combat at -3 or -2 modifier, while Cultists' knives are at +1? REALLY?!
And it also seems like there's absolutely no point in taking a Handgun skill, since you can always just take an Elephant Gun (or a Tommy Gun, I guess) and there is no apparent downside - not in the tight quarters, not in terms of ammo (infinite for all weapons), and no-one seems to mind you walking all over the place with those massive firearms. It was funny when at 86, your coat gets taken, and your Tommy Gun is just out in the open, which nobody minds, but this is even funnier with the Elephant Gun.
Integrating firearms into FF is quite a struggle, to be sure, but gun-wielders taking a shot or two at most and then charging into the fray for literally no reason (whether during the ambush on the beach, when it's the cultists who do that, or the next potential fight, where it's YOU who decides to charge a knife-wielding cultist even if you do not have a melee weapon) is a particularly arbitrary way of doing that. Then again, it's also arbitrary that both those first two cultists and the third one seem to be equipped with the same kind of knife, yet you can only loot it from the third cultist - apparently that was the only way to make that encounter seem worthwhile.
YARD Wed Sep 20 04:56:06 2023
To be fair, this work does do one thing very well, and that is in its descriptions of urban decay and post-WWI malaise. I think only a few works here (Outsider!, The Ravages of Fate, The Word Fell Silent, Flame in the North and perhaps The Diamond Key once I get to it) can claim a comparable level of insight. Unfortunately, though, a large fraction of that can only be seen in the skippable branches (i.e. if you take the train on one attempt and drive on the other, if you see all three of the town's inns, and if you go to the police station, the doctor, the bar, or the docks), and the main path is MUCH less interesting, as you really only need to do ONE thing to finally start fighting the cultists. Worse, unlike many other works on here, where optional encounters give items or information that directly benefits you on the main path, here, it's all irrelevant. In fact, those encounters actually make cohesion WORSE, as they are ignored on the main path. I.e.
SPOILER
What was the point of going to the library to read about the Cult of Gilgamesh and all that if we STILL do not recognize the tattoo at 67, in spite of ref 114 specifically mentioning it?
END SPOILER
And there's a lot more weirdness if you either do things in a slightly different order than intended, or just pay more attention than the author himself apparently did.
SPOILER
It’s weird that a lot of the refs seem to go completely linearly i.e. 37, 38, 39, or 66, 67 and 68, or 91 and 92 or 118 and 119? Isn't that really frowned upon, because on a physical page, you get to see the outcomes of your choices before you take them?
Background says that it is set in the 1920s, yet according to ref 44, it is actually no later than 1918-1919?
It's INCREDIBLY strange that you get a choice of backgrounds, two of which would be highly unlikely to be done by women in 1918s/1920s (even a female doctor would be rare, considering that the British Medical Association didn't accept them until 1892), THEN you get to choose your gender in a SKIPPABLE encounter, and then the subsequent refs assume you are a man anyway. I.e. you can answer that you are a woman, and then STILL get ref 83 with "she has recognised certain speech patterns and words that mark you out as such a businessman." There are also all the references which effectively say you have personally taken part in The Great War: plausible for a female doctor, not so much for the rest.
At 39, it says "but you recognise her by her unique diamond brooch, which she was wearing earlier." – even if you fell asleep and only saw her note?
Travelling circus option in the library only seems to make sense if you got to ref 36.
Options at the docks do not change from day to day, at all. In particular, you don’t find anything on the beach in ref 75, even after you just killed some people there the previous day. Likewise, at 76, you dismiss the mariner even AFTER reading about the "mythical marine creatures" in the library AND after fighting those two/three cultists, who have brooches with the creature.(Perhaps after fighting the actual Deep One as well, but I haven’t tried, considering how unlikely you are to survive that.)
Also at 76, that mention of members of the Resistance sounds REALLY strange in a story set in 1919. I suppose there had to have been some French doing sabotage and the like in the occupied territories during WWI, sure, but why the hell would they need to flee all the way to England, and not to the unoccupied parts of France?
The writing for beach encounter just feels so wrong. You get attacked, and then have no choice but to stay in one place for the whole hour, and the cultist with a rifle just does NOTHING – neither investigating where the first two and trying to shoot you while you are so exposed, nor going back to get more support? For that matter, dead cultists would seem to be some ironclad evidence to present to the police, yet you cannot do anything as logical as that?
Lastly, is there any reason why we can't head directly to that warehouse during the day? Or any conceivable explanation for how the player character managed to kill a cultist on the beach without ruining WHITE robes with blood, sand, etc.? Not that it matters a whole lot, to be fair, since they only seem to let you bypass one fight, and then everybody knows who you are anyway.
END SPOILER
YARD Wed Sep 20 05:02:57 2023
I should also say that while the internal monologue is pretty great on the optional paths, it crosses over into outright frustrating on the main.
SPOILER
Notably, why should I have any attachment to a character who cannot be bothered to look after themselves, as seen in ref 68: "You are too lost in your introspective thoughts to take any precautions of stealth, so you present a perfect target for any gunmen who may be lying in wait, but no shot comes". HOW did THIS guy (according to ref 83 and others) even survive the war in the first place? Was THAT the best Julian Striker could find?
Also, we didn’t retch after killing the first two cultists, but the rifleman was a step too far? For that matter, we get no such reaction if we are drugged on the train (I expected that to happen, though I thought that the entire champagne bottle being SEALED might have presented an obstacle to that?) and then kill a cultist before going anywhere else? That entire scene feels so pointless - almost as bad as the one in Devil's Flight. Here you at least get your gun taken away as you are captured, but the Cultist is still polite enough not to tie you up or to take your gun for himself, for absolutely no conceivable reason.
END SPOILER
Last not least, proofreading.
SPOILER
15, 19, 37, 38, 39, 48, 55, 67, 84, 96, 99, 101, 106, 118, 118, 119, 124, 128, 132, 226, 236, 251 – extra space before the question marks.
7 You notice that his voice, while soft carries with it a hint of menace. (comma?) + also near to the fireplace. + he says once more "Thank you again
11 their bodies are later found near to the docks, + contacted the police with regard to the matter,
38 you sit up in your seat sending something tumbling from your lap and onto the floor.
48 to catch what she is sating. (stating?)
52 for a further night.He seems rather anxious
56 may keep as evidence.Angry at
57 its forbidding cast iron gates (hyphen?) + But what's worse was there was intelligence behind its eyes
58 "Didja get 'em?" he croaks?
69 a strange, human fish hybrid,
75 Even for this time of the year, such complete (what?) is unusual and unsettling.
83 Antony "Fat Tony" Fletcher is renown as one (renowned?)
86 "So, why are you here?" he asks
87 making it seem almost blood red
92 would be nigh impossible (hyphen?)
96 The wounds horrific wounds
106 (I think.) Were you searching for information on strange local cults ?
Or were you interested in whether there is perhaps an occult connection?
(these options sound very similar? Is there any way to rephrase that?)
And at 5, Spanish Influenza is described as "near-fatal". That seems REALLY wrong, considering that it was most definitely fatal for MILLIONS of people. Again, any way to rephrase that?