The Shore

Short lovecraftian walking sim. The game as a whole feels janky and whatever little combat there is is equally as awful. Love the story telling and visiuals tho which matter more in this genre. Despite the rough state, I didn't get stuck anywhere or encountered any serious bugs. For a euro it's fine, just don't buy it in a full price.

A short horror experience good for anyone wanting a decent few scares and some absolutely GORGEOUS visuals of lovecraftian horror, and if you love H.P. Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos, this is ABSOLUTELY a must-play for you.

PROS:
-Completed within 2-3 hours
-STUNNING Lovecraft-inspired vistas and visuals
-PHENOMENAL Monster design
-Puzzles aren't overly complicated, just throw yourself at a puzzle for a minute or two and you'll figure it out
-No major game-wrecking bugs, only a few small easy fix ones
-Checkpoints are forgivingly placed so I didn't have to slog through anything repeatedly

CONS:
-Story isn't necessarily a con, but it's not the main driving force in the game. It does its job
-Voice Acting work was not phenomenal, but wasn't awful either, again, did its job. Gave me Amnesia vibes at times
-A few minor bugs, I accidentally got into the game engine by hitting ESC upon beginning of the playthrough, and had to Alt-F4 to get back to the main menu
-Only one other small bug I noticed, I got stuck on a platform in front of a certain Old One's prison. Alt-F4 and it was fixed
-Sometimes I was confused on what was needed at the beginning hear the lighthouse, and did a little back and forth, but it didn't take so long I lost the will to keep playing.

Overall, it was worth the sale price I picked it up for. Should you be able to get this for any price of around $12 or less, and the themes sound good, snag this and enjoy. I loved it, even with the small bugs and the parts of the game that were middling. The rest of the game, and what I feel the devs truly wanted to capture, shown through with the monsters, the settings, the visuals, all of it.

Very satisfied!

Overall not a bad experience, although a bit short. Had a similar vibe like the solus project.
Pros:
-Nice visuals
-okay-ish story
-fantastic sound design
cons:
-rather poor va, like a 4/10.
-short
If you're a fan of lovecraftian stufff it's worth playing it imo

This game reminds me a bit of Firewatch. While there’s is a little more to do than Firewatch, some running, some combat, some find key, open door sequences, The Shore is more of an interactive story that unfolds as you explore by walking around.
If you’re really into Lovecraftian tales and the Cthulhu Mythos, it’s enjoyable. The story is interesting enough to keep moving forward.
What I found frustrating about the game was there is no map system and it is sometimes difficult to figure out where to go or where you’ve been. It is also, at times, difficult to discern where you may walk and where you may not walk.
Overall, an average game experience that I enjoyed, but others may not.

Only on Sale, and like 50% at least or more.
Walking simulator like Dear Esther but with a little more action, you have to fight a little here.
Not amazing game but easy achievements

The Shore is a Lovecraftian horror walking simulator developed by Ares Dragonis, a Greek video game developer whose involvement in the creation of the game originally started around 2017 to 2018 according to the timelapse on the “Ulele” page (basically another kickstarting site) and after being introduced to video games by his father who worked with arcade machines, he had dreamed of creating his own game and as such he had started following Youtube tutorials since the age of 15. From what I’ve seen of his past as well from his Linkedin page, he used to work for the Greek Special Forces as an inflatable boat operator?? That’s not something that I’ve seen much so cool and impressive! He had also fallen in love with Lovecraft’s cosmic horror after working on a game called “Arms of Redemption” freelance style though I haven’t been able to find any release of this game anywhere and then decided to work on his own game as a test of his skills. From there he would hire other game developers like Alexander Gorbenko (Marketing) and Adonis Brosteanu (Blueprint Development) before ultimately getting funds crowdfunded on the aforementioned Ulele page. Some of the features I’ve seen that are not in the base game include multiple underwater levels, gameplay as Cthulhu, a new storyline based on Dagon and the ruins attached to him, backstory on the main character as well as storylines based around Lovecraftian Outer God Shub….whose last name I am not finishing here. The crowdfunding overall would get $5,645.35 out of $4,651.16 which isn’t bad but it hadn’t reached the rest of its goals sadly. A demo would release in the Summer of 2020 which garnered enough attention for Epic Games to send them money from an Epic Games MegaGrant Program and the game itself would later release in February 19th of 2021 to Mostly Positive Reviews on Steam or mixed reviews overall due to criticism on the puzzles and gameplay while praising everything else.
My introduction into The Shore is one I’m unsure of personally, but it could’ve been anything from Bloody Disgusting articles at the time (as I used to read those all the time looking for new horror games), Steam Recommendations, wishlists from buddies, I’m not sure. Overall though, I noticed it because Lovecraftian Horror is my favorite horror genre ever basically due to the emphasis on fear of the unknown. Eventually someone who I knew named Ashe would end up buying the game for me in September 2021 so shoutout to Ashe, and I would play the game around January 2022 for the first time all the way through. However I hadn’t reviewed the game at the time, and as such I’ve been trying to hit up as many of my old games to write reviews and as such the excuse came about when for the month of October I would be hosting a “Halloween Free Game/Cheap Game” streaming marathon between two of my buddies. The Shore would end up being the very last game to finish up for this marathon though a couple of days late due to scheduling stuff but I now have some final thoughts on the game itself.
For Plot/Other Sections:
If I were to describe my experience with the gameplay, I would say that when you first start out playing the game it’s about the equivalent of a standard “walking sim” or so. You’ll move along a rocky beach and uncover a puzzle here and there, pick up some items (some of it optional for achievements) and basically explore enough ground to find Lovecraftian entities scattered about. You wanna find the rock from The Colour out of Space? One of them is later on in the beach, witnessed from nearby the initial lighthouse where you start. Want to see a freaky orb in the middle of a crater? Yeah sure it’s there. A couple of sightings of weird fish men? Yeah you’ll see one or two here and there. That’s all cool and all, and that generally could be summed up with another review by Steam Member Oxmeyer: “If you think of it like a virtual walking experience of a Lovecraftian art gallery, it's not too bad.” That basically is the extent of the first half of the game, and whilst it’s unoriginal, for the most part it at least works. People have stated that there were game breaking bugs, but for the most part I never encountered any game breaking bugs throughout my two playthroughs or so. Once it gets to the second half of the game (where you first arrive at the Monolith to free the giant fish man) however, that’s where the puzzles get confusing and start to drag on. My one complaint here before I get into the second half of the game is that the first half has all the cool content, unoriginal as it may be.
From here it just kind of feels like one singular hallway with a mixup in between with puzzles, puzzles which are either kind of confusing or monotonous. The initial monolith puzzle with the controller has you painstakingly push in each individual blue tube on a little altar to get an orb, with each orb you have to put in each of the eyes on the two statues right next to it. You’ll do this thirty times probably for each statue and get eight orbs to place into the eyes of two statues before you get one big orb to put into the nearby floating thing that unleashes the shackles of the fish beast. It felt rather monotonous and confusing trying to even figure this out but then again I suck at puzzles right? The answer may be yes, but I also just didn’t feel like this was a puzzle that made me smack my forehead once I figured it out and said “duh this makes sense”. A lot of other puzzles kind of do this later on, like the one in the space arena? You have to light up all the eyes of the weird oversized humanoid heads, all the while you fend off enemies in an arena with a weird artifact. While the weird artifact is cool at first, I felt like the maze-like arenas mixed in with the struggle of how fast some of these guys tend to overwhelm you can also lead to a slight annoyance. It wasn’t annoying to where it made me rage, but it did annoy me enough to take me out of the experience because it felt like this was a game that set out to be one thing and then shoehorned in some other stuff. That’s kind of what a lot of the game’s content and even story felt like? A mishmash of Lovecraftian ideals into one sort of art gallery with a wrap around segment akin to an anthology series kind of shoehorned in. Was it great? No. Was it awful? Meh, not really. Just middling and boring, which I felt sad about but what can you do I guess. Maybe the art design and sound design is better?
The Shore was a game that I remember coming out of the game the first time thinking that it was kind of alright, but also indicative of the same patterns of ups and downs? I guess if I were to sum up my feelings on the game, I would say that it was as much of a mixed bag for me now as it was back then. When you’re exploring the island and everything’s all good then it excels a bit more but that second half just kind of dragged on and could’ve felt better for me personally.
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If you think of it like a virtual walking experience of a Lovecraftian art gallery, it's not too bad.