It makes sense that showing the unknowable and the limits of what humans can understand in Eldritch literature would be hard to do in movies and games like Call of Cthulhu, which depend on showing and explaining the unknowable. Even so, The Alien Cube does a great job of keeping the tension and mystery going by weaving together bits of story and strange environments. This lets the player enjoy looking into the eyes of cosmic dread.
Alessandro Guzzo made The Alien Cube, which is a first-person Eldritch horror game like Land of Pain. Arturo is a normal person. One day, he gets a letter from his dead uncle saying that he has left him an inheritance and that he will get it soon. Arthur doesn’t know about the scary messages, scary visions, or alien cube that came with the gift from his family.
Alien Cube is like point-and-click puzzle games and first-person horror adventures. Often, to solve a puzzle, you have to look for the missing key, gear, or lever and then use its opposite. Each area is free to be explored. In games like Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Arthur seems to be in a whole other world. This makes him run away in terror, even if nothing is really there. All of these things work well and keep the player’s attention, but there are two big problems with how they work and how they are used.
It’s not clear if the crouching and jumping moves were meant to be more obvious, but they are hard to do and often not needed. The Alien Cube is mostly a game about running and walking, but there are a few awkward and uncomfortable platforming parts that are caused by the game’s high input latency. When Arthur wants to crawl under or through something, the player must click on an animation prompt. Crouching just lowers Arthur so that the prompt is visible. This makes crouching stand out. Even though a dangerous cult calls up even scarier Eldritch creatures, Arthur is never forced to dive or jump for safety. This makes it so that these mechanics only happen sometimes, which makes them random.
The voice acting in The Alien Cube is also a bit slow, as is the story telling. Voice acting shows up randomly in the game, just like the other things mentioned. Most of the story is told just through words. Due to the fact that the main character doesn’t speak, there are times in this movie when a voiced performance seems out of place. So, the story in The Alien Cube makes sense, and the game’s setting is a good representation of Lovecraft.
This latest part of the Cthulhu mythology is a bit of a letdown, but small glimpses of other Eldritch beings keep things interesting. The last few minutes of The Alien Cube are a lot of fun to look at. Even though many people may not be interested in the story, the overall effect is one of sadness, mystery, beauty, and fear. The Alien Cube, a tribute to the genre, is a good choice for Lovecraft fans who want to experience his work in a way that isn’t written.
