Game: The Hunter’s Journals – Wight Chapel Dreams
Platform: PC, Android
Genre: interactive fiction
Style: light influences
Verdict: Recommended
Buy: Steam
Lovecraft Video Games received a review copy of The Hunter’s Journals – Wight Chapel Dreams.
Halloween is almost upon us, and with it will come the release of the latest entry in the Hunter’s Journals interactive fiction series, Wight Chapel Dreams.
So far, every game in the series has begun with you taking the role of a legendary hunter on a new case. One of the exploits that led to your fame among hunters is when you faced the Crawling Horror of Wight Chapel. Well, now it’s time to learn about those events, as Wight Chapel Dreams is framed as you recounting the story of what happened at Wight Chapel.
Playing a rookie adds an interesting layer to your choices, since you’re being judged on your competency as a hunter now that you’re leading a case for the first time. You need to take care not just to avoid death, but to come across as brave and smart.
Aside from that, the gameplay is largely the same as it has been for the last few entries. You’ll make choices that lead you down different branches of the story and fight enemies along the way. In combat, you and the opponent will each roll dice, and your result is added to your skill stat. If your total is higher, you deal damage to the enemy, and vice versa. Your gameplay is enhanced by your chosen Heirloom, which gives you a special passive skill, and Trait, which applies both a positive and negative effect.
Wight Chapel Dreams is one of the easier entries to survive and reach a good ending in, but it’s much trickier to reach the best ending. Your ending is determined by your choices throughout, which affect how you’re viewed as a hunter. The main story feels somewhat linear, with a clear progression of events, though there are still points that branch into multiple paths.
The frame story of you recalling past events also introduces some unexpected elements of humor, since it has to reconcile everything with you being famous as the hero who stopped the Crawling Horror.
Now, one thing I should mention is that Wight Chapel Dreams is not especially Lovecraftian. It has some trace elements due to the overall Hunter’s Journals universe, but this story leans much more heavily into steampunk. So while this won’t be your choice if you’re looking strictly for another cosmic horror adventure, Wight Chapel Dreams is an enjoyable addition to the Hunter’s Journals series that provides a nice glimpse of a time when you weren’t yet a battle-hardened hunter.
Buy: Steam