Mythos: The Beginning

[Dark Gaia]

Dark Gaia proudly presents the spiritual successor to the One Night series.
 
                                                                          

 
Introduction
 
Mythos: The Beginning is a survival horror/adventure role playing game based on the pulp-horror and monster movies of the 1930s. Set in London in 1934, Mythos tasks you with creating your own paranormal investigator from scratch and guiding them through a frightening exploration of the infamous Harborough Asylum. Three young university students have vanished while attempting to conduct a scientific survey of this dreaded place, and it's up to you to find them! Throughout the night you'll discover that Harborough Asylum's reputation is more than an urban legend, and you'll have to fight for your life against otherworldly Lovecraftian foes.
 
Story
 
Harborough Asylum is an abandoned mental hospital located on the outskirts of London. It was established in 1882 and soon built up a reputation as London's harshest institution thanks to its brutal and controversial treatments. After a string of mysterious patient deaths, said to number more than 40 victims, it was finally closed down during World War I and has been disused ever since. Despite this turn of events, Harborough Asylum remained one of England's most infamous sites, soon becoming the subject of an alarming number of local ghost stories. Now Harborough Asylum is a place where only the most bravest (or foolish) men would dare to tread.

You play as a renowned paranormal investigator, best known for solving a famous missing persons case several years ago. Tonight, Professor Harrison Blacktail, a mysterious academic somehow connected to the asylum's past, has turned up in your hotel room at the Imperial Arms. He has commissioned you for the most dangerous case of your career: search for three missing students inside Harborough Asylum, and discover whether the terrifying legends are true.

Characters
 

You - You're a paranormal investigator of some renown. Now you're about to face the most frightening case of your career.

  Professor Blacktail - A mysterious demonology professor with some connection to Harborough Asylum.

  Peter - A famous American cat burglar who came for the antique furniture and got much more than he bargained for.

  Luana - A terrified psychic trapped in her worst nightmare.

  Night Watchman - Guards the asylum from trespassers. How has he even survived for this long?

Features

• Blends traditional survival horror gameplay with a "true" tabletop-style RPG experience, complete with dialogue trees, non-combat skills and dice rolls.
• Create your character from scratch. Choose their gender, background and profession, and then role play them. Will you be a square jawed investigator, or an intrepid journalist?
• Pen and paper RPG inspired character advancement system. Levels are gone forever! Spend EXP directly to buy stats and skill increases.
• Multiple ways to play the game! Don't want to fight the enemies? You don't have to! Gain EXP for correctly utilising non-combat skills such as Persuade and Occult Lore.
• Fully voice acted dialogue -- a first for a Dark Gaia game!
• Utilises the fantastic Mythos Graphics Pack by PV Games to create an immersive horror experience.
• Completely custom soundtrack exclusive to Mythos.

Screenshots
 

 

 

 

 

 

Download

Visit the Dark Gaia Studios website to purchase Mythos now for $5.99 or try the free demo!
 

 

[Dark Gaia]

Hi all.

The free Director's Cut DLC for Mythos: The Beginning will soon be live on Steam, adding a number of player requested features and general polishes to the game.

This huge update includes the following additions:

• Two new mid-game monsters, the Long Neck and the Flesh Eater.
• New puzzle solutions and ways to bypass obstacles.
• New skill checks have been added throughout the game, giving you more opportunities to use your character's Talents.
• EXP system has been slightly tweaked.
• Support for Steam Trading Cards (to be available very soon).

This DLC will download automatically the next time you launch Mythos. After the update is completed, your game should be version 1.0.0 DC. If you don’t have the Steam version of the game, you can get a manual installer by clicking the link in your purchase email.

 

[Matseb2611]

Not sure why this doesn't have any comments. The game looks interesting. I might try out a demo to see what it's like. PVGames graphics are really underappreciated in the community.

 

[Dark Gaia]

I found that due to the more realistic style of the PV graphics that it was quite difficult for me to make maps with them, but with enough practice you can create some very good looking locations. I'd definitely use them again, but there is a learning curve compared to RTP styled graphics that I'm not sure I've adjusted to yet. This is why many of the locations in Mythos are dark - I'm trying to obscure my lack of skill

 

[Matseb2611]

Yeah, mapping with PVGames resources is harder, I agree.

Well, I've tried out the demo last night. The game is not bad, though there were a handful of criticisms that I'd like to share if you are up for it.

The idea of creating your own character is pretty great. And getting a chance to choose different classes creates replayability, so nice one. I chose the male Detective.

One criticism I have from the very beginning of the game is that dashing is disabled, which makes it a nightmare to explore, especially when I have to backtrack a lot (and this game has a fair bit of backtracking). I did the same thing with my short horror project last year and one tester pointed out that lack of dashing was annoying, and they were absolutely right.

Another thing, how come you didn't use the 8-frame sprites that PVGames packs have? The 3-frame ones walk a bit stiffly. I'd highly recommend the 8-frame ones for smoother movement.

Voice acting is an interesting touch. It wasn't bad, but it was a bit slow. Also I noticed the night watchman's voice sounds exactly the same as professor's.

There are also a few passability issues in the game. For example the chairs and a few other tall structures. The upper part of them should have a * (star) passability so that you can walk behind them, but in the game they were impassable (X). The dirt patches on the floor were also impassable, which is strange, because a dirt patch shouldn't stop someone from walking across it. The mapping in general wasn't bad though. The level design from what I played did the job fine and there was a nice atmosphere presented. The only minor gripe I have is that some of the doorways are located on the sides of the walls, meaning you cannot see them. The only way I could tell something was there (and it was a guess) is that there was an empty space. However, in the dark it is easy to miss many of these. For example I didn't even see the entrance into a save room until I've walked that corridor at least 3 times.

The horror aspect. I didn't really get scared to be honest. There were a couple of nice jumpy bits where you see a monster off the corner of your vision just before it disappears, but jumpy moments do not create much horror, and as soon as the first monster revealed itself and I got to fight it, all the horror was lost. Usually not being able to see the horror is horror in itself.

The monsters themselves were somewhat interesting though. I like the concept of Anthropophobe (a spider that fears humans, right?). The battle difficulty seemed fine at the start. I played on normal though, so not sure what purist difficulty is like.

I do really like the idea of being able to assign your attributes how you wish. That is a really good feature and can create some solid gameplay.

I didn't really get to the end of the demo, because I got stuck. Pretty much every door, cabinet, and chest was locked and I've explored as much as I could before giving up, because not being able to dash made it discouraging to explore.

Sorry if the feedback sounds negative, and I hope I am not forgetting anything. Usually I make notes when I test games, but this time I just wanted to sit down and enjoy a demo. Though the game is not bad, I think some of the errors could've been avoided with more testing, in particular those passability errors.

 

[Dark Gaia]

Thanks for the feedback! Interestingly, the demo was released while the game was still in development and is actually based on a build that is about 6 months out of date. I really should get around to releasing an updated demo some time soon, but I've been busy with other things.

Most of the careless errors such as the passability errors were fixed in the retail version, and through patches I made exploration a little easier as well - there are more ways to open locks, objects are easier to examine etc. Most of your experience is roughly the same as what you'd get in the full version, though. The difficulty of the game is rather hard. It's designed to be reminiscent of old-school survival horror games.

To answer your question about the full spritesheets - it's quite as simple as not being able to find a commercially available script for that feature, though this is a priority for the sequel

 

[Matseb2611]

I see. Yeah, I'd definitely recommend changing the demo to a more recent version, especially that this demo is linked to from your site, so a lot of people will be playing it prior to considering the full game, and if those errors (that have been fixed) put them off, you could lose a lot of customers.

In regard to scripts that use full spritesheets, there's Modern Algebra's Extra Movement Frames. and also Victor's Multi Frames. It's worth contacting the scripter whichever one you decide to use. Victor's one has a small fee. Modern Algebra's I think just requires permission. I used his in my recent commercial title (that used PVGames graphics) since he gave me the permission.

Hope this helps.

 

[Dark Gaia]

I wasn't aware of Modern Algebra's script. Thanks

 

[Shelby]

Those Steam reviews are always a kick in the #$% still it's good to see the new graphic packs being used in a completed game, I hope to see more of them, we liked the One Night series, horror games are in short supply. Let's keep those updates coming.

 

[Sakif X9]

This game looks interesting! 

 

[Indinera]

This game looks interesting! Would be pretty cool for a steam release, if you're interested in that I can help you out!

http://store.steampowered.com/app/325320/

 

[Sakif X9]

Oh what the heck, couldn't find it, thanks buying it

 

[felsenstern]

Well, I gave it a try, but after like 7 hours of gameplay, I ultimately failed to get through the never ending bridge. Does anyone here have a clue how to pass the bridge, because I can't find a way and it looks rather like a bug to me. I've also followed a walkthrough on youtube, but exactly at this spot there is a gap in the video...


edit: never mind, I found the clue in the steam discussions... ;-)


edit: Well, it was a very nice story. Personally I'd expected to encounter some of the history of the asylum (either the adults or the kids) as ghosts and boss mobs probably, maybe even with a choice to take revenge and save their souls... I really hated the part with the cracks on the floor. I liked the Vampire style skill choices you put in, but by using them I ended up having a lot of useless key items in my inventory to a point where the ones I still needed were out of the window and I didn't know that I had to scroll down to use them. I really enjoyed the voice acting. So good work, will check more games from you in a while! Cheers!


edit: Ah well, about the battles... I think too, the moment, you can fight down a monster, the horror element is mostly gone. Not sure how to do battles in a horror game, but my question would be, are they necessary at all?