Whereas visiting EGX over the weekend, there have been loads of indie video games to be enjoying, however none impressed me fairly like Ebook of Abominations. This demo cast by simply two builders at Magination Video games left an enduring impression on me, with the Pokemon clone feeling like a cautious combination of Stardew Valley’s artwork fashion, Pokemon’s battling mechanics and music, and the devilish nature of Lovecraft’s works multi function.
Within the brief demo that I performed, you get up in your house which is adorned with books and rusting furnishings, and it instantly felt as if I’d woken up in my farmhouse in Stardew Valley. Albeit, in a distinct dimension. You allow your private home and should battle it out with some slime, the place you’re taught how battling and seize mechanics work.
Though Ebook of Abominations is clearly impressed by Pokemon, the developer has nonetheless tried to make issues authentic. Your assaults are, properly, your assaults, however somewhat than whipping out potions and sweet in your pocket monsters, you’re utilizing spells and tomes to maintain them combating match. And as a substitute of slinging PokeBalls at enemies to tame them, you’ll have to finish a seize spell over a number of turns – with out dying or killing the hostile monster – earlier than lastly ending off the combat and gathering them for your self.
There’s additionally no PP relating to utilizing assaults. As an alternative, sure assaults have cooldowns over a number of turns, so it’s important to be very strategic – and cautious – about once you use your strikes, and who you utilize them on.
After a bit exploring, capturing some slime and killing some zombie-like creatures, you run into Miasmoth, The Befouled and its minions. It’s nearly offered as a Darkish Souls combat in a Pokemon-sized world, with the massive HP bar for the creature taking over the width of the display. Along with your measly however aggressive creatures, it’s definitely doable to beat this cryptid to a pulp, however that’s one thing I didn’t fairly handle to do throughout my time enjoying the Ebook of Abominations demo.
The developer of Ebook of Abominations got here up with the concept for the sport as one thing that it needed to play, and figured that different individuals would need to play, too. And so they’re not flawed. Whereas there’s loads of horror-themed mods for Pokemon on the market, and a few spectacular Pokemon clones, there’s nothing fairly like what this pair of builders are getting down to do. A lot so, that the duo creating the sport – Magination Video games – took dwelling the Abertay College’s DARE Academy Award for its distinctive concepts and unimaginable efforts executing them.
Moderately than gathering cute pocket monsters that bear resemblances to animals, automobiles, and even home goods (pondering of you, Sinistea), Ebook of Abominations has you battling out with spell-casting cryptids, with an artwork and audio-style that hails again to the early Pokemon video games on GameBoy and Nintendo DS. It’s one thing that I’d argue there’s positively a niche out there for, and the kind of sport that us horror-loving Pokemon followers need and wish.
With Ebook of Abominations being the work of simply two individuals, the sport isn’t anticipated to be accomplished anytime quickly, sadly. Magination Video games has shared that it will possibly see the sport arriving in 4-5 years time, however it’s trying to increase its staff and hopefully velocity up growth, with all being properly.
You possibly can maintain updated with the event of Ebook of Abominations over on the video games Twitter.