The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu

The premise and ambiance of this game was fun, and I really wanted to like it. However, this was purchased with the intention of primarily playing in multiplayer mode, which since the last patch, has become completely unusable even after extensive troubleshooting. We have only 4 hours of play time in, and can no longer proceed, which is unfortunate. Because of this, certainly can't recommend the $30 investment for a game where a primary method of play does not work at all.

I do not recommend this game in its current state. The concept is interesting, the monsters are fun, and the fear mechanics have a lot of potential, but the overall gameplay feels far too punishing and unbalanced. The monsters are difficult and brutal. They can take you down very quickly, and some can instantly kill you if you do not already understand how their mechanics work. Learning how each monster behaves can be enjoyable, but the punishment for not knowing is often too severe. Expedition supplies are determined by RNG, so you never know what equipment you are going to receive. Upgrading weapons also requires a currency that can only be earned by successfully completing expeditions. This is especially frustrating because weapons break too often, and the game constantly puts you under strict time pressure. I understand that the developers want to keep players moving and use that pressure to create fear, but it often becomes more annoying than frightening. The hallucinations are a fun idea, but they happen so frequently that they quickly lose their impact and become another constant annoyance. The weapon-upgrade system is also unrewarding. Even after spending currency to upgrade a weapon, you do not get to keep it once the expedition is completed or failed. Because nearly everything is temporary, it feels like you are not working toward any meaningful progression beyond increasing your rank. There is also a priest who follows the group around with a cart, which is used to store treasure before it is taken back to the boat. The problem is that he frequently wanders away when you need him most. If you leave the main path or enter an area he cannot follow, he may travel across the map trying to reach you. By the time you need to deposit treasure, he can be nowhere nearby. There needs to be a command that tells him to stay in one place. You can call him back using a horn, but repeatedly using the horn causes the forest to become more hostile because of the noise. The same problem applies when calling your co-op partner. This means the game punishes you for trying to fix an issue caused by the priest’s unreliable pathfinding. There also appears to be a major difference in lighting between platforms. I play on PC with basic settings and can see inside caves and mines without much trouble. My friend plays on Xbox, and those same areas are almost completely pitch-black for him. Even with a torch or lantern, he still struggles to see. This makes the game much more difficult for him for reasons that do not seem intentional. The flintlock rifles and pistols also feel underpowered. It can sometimes take two shots to kill a normal monster, while some of the larger creatures may require three or four shots. That is a high price to pay when every gunshot makes the forest angrier because of the noise. Firearms also appear to be unusable in the rain, which creates another major problem with the RNG supply system. I had an expedition where the only weapon I received was a flintlock pistol, but it rained for the entire expedition. This meant I was never able to use the only weapon the game had given me. Weather affecting flintlock weapons makes sense, but the game should not give players an unusable loadout with no reliable alternative. There is a genuinely fun and interesting game here. The monsters, hallucinations, expeditions, and fear mechanics could make for a great experience, but the durability system, temporary upgrades, RNG supplies, excessive time pressure, platform lighting differences, unreliable cart pathfinding, and overly punishing enemies need better balancing before I could recommend it.

Even though this game could use a bit of polish in certain areas, I think it's a very fun exploration experience if you're able to play in a group of 2-4 friends. :) I'm leaving a positive review for support and hopes of this game getting a bit of polish, because it has good potential of becoming even better.

The game is extraordinarily promising. The scares are good, the atmosphere is tense, it really nails the Lovecraft feel in many ways. Unfortunately the netcode is abominable, my friends and I spent hours letting the game through firewalls, changing our DNS, running functions in CMD and so on and so forth. But nothing seemed to work, we could scarcely complete a mission without the server arbitrarily switching to single player and kicking other people out. We do not have this problem in any other game. Please fix this. I want to enjoy your game.

This game doesnt have as much content on release as one would hope but is it fun? absolutely its a blast to play with friends and has you looking over your shoulder all the time. personally id say this game is worth picking up and in future hopefully more content gets added and the game feels more fleshed out

I ♥♥♥♥ myself. Never knew trees would be the scariest thing in this game..... Best game of the year!

Crazy? I was crazy once. They left me on an island A haunted island A haunted island full of tentacles The tentacles made me crazy