We said in 2018 that it would be great if game developers would relax the Cthulhu mythos and focus on other kinds of horror. However, it is unlikely to happen anytime soon, and every once in a while a game will feature a face with too many tentacles as the protagonist. Stirring Abyss, a strategy RPG about a submarine that runs into trouble on the ocean floor, may be one such game.

Developed by a three-person Finnish studio calling itself Sleepy Sentry, "Stirring Abyss" is based on HP Lovecraft's 1920 short story "The Temple," about a grieving German submarine during World War I. The game features the USS Salem, which sank to the bottom of the ocean in the early days of the Cold War, and the surviving crew members are manipulated to figure out what happened (and what is happening in this mysterious underwater ruin) and eventually, hopefully, escape.

When exploring outside the submarine, the game has "XCOM" elements to it, with turn-based movement and combat with undersea freaks who want to harm you. Weapons are very basic, such as daggers and spearguns, but as the story progresses, you may be able to perform "powerful but cruel mutations" on your crew that increase their chances of survival at the expense of humanity.

Resources scattered across the ocean floor must be scavenged to make weapons and supplies, and to repair and upgrade the Salem, which serves as an undersea base. Naturally, sanity mechanisms are also present. The terror of the deep black sea takes its toll on the crew, and some spirits are strengthened by the ordeal, while others are broken.

I recently played a pre-release build of "Stirring Abyss" to test it out, and while it is still rough around the edges, I really liked it because it manages to capture the aesthetic of the subject matter. The audio is thick and ominous, and the pulpy art style suits it well: publisher Slitherine says Stirring Abyss is "inspired by classic board games and traditional RPGs" and is more bizarre than scary, and it certainly certainly has that look.

While the combat in Stirring Abyss, at least from what I have played, seems simplified compared to a full-blown tactical game (death at the hands of invisible enemies is all too easy), the story is what makes the game interesting: hoping to discover secrets and supplies You can either push forward into the darkness in the hope of discovering secrets and supplies, or you can play sparingly and risk missing out on what might be survivable.

This is the second game to come out of Slitherine's K-Project, which aims to help small indie projects reach a wider audience, following Tactical Troops: Anthracite, due out later this year. It will be the second game following "Anthracite Shift," which is expected to be released later this year." Last year, more than 9,000 games debuted on Steam alone, and K-Project is our way of helping indie strategy games get noticed, remembering where we started and an act of love to help others with the same dream," said Marketing Director Marco Minoli said.

Stirring Abyss does not yet have a release date, but is currently listed as "coming soon" on Steam. For more information, see the screenshot below and then visit slitherine.com.