Love this game! One of the best Lovecraftian games I've played to date. Sadly for those of who love all things Lovecraft, there's not exactly a wealth of decent games (or even movies) out there, but I'd say this is definitely a great entry.

The writing is great, and definitely matches the spirit of the books. I read that some people were confused by it, but I'd think the problem in those cases are rather in the expectations. I mean, do you think the Old Gods should spell things out for you? That the rumblings of a lighthouse keeper trying to pierce the fabrics of reality should be didactic, like a textbook?

Then there are the chores. To be honest, I didn't think them to be neither excessive nor annoying. Once you get used, it's trivial to handle them. You don't have to clear the graffiti and the cobwebs, mind you.

In all, I think this game will appeal to those who enjoy a good story, a Lovecraftian atmosphere, and making choices.

A special thanks to the devs for making this compatible with macbooks!

Fun game, takes about 8-10 hours to complete. Good story line with a lot of plot twist (like dredge if you played that). I would highly recommend it good game to play when you just want to have a laid back game night.

I'm so close to recommending it, but even for 10 dollars, I just can't really recommend Static Dread; like other reviews have pointed out, it falls off in the second half. It isn't that the story doesn't continue to develop--there are unique beats each day, and interesting developments. It's that the actual *game* part of the game c o m p l e t e l y stagnates.

While the conditions for guiding ships become a bit more complex, they're trivial to fulfill. While ships used to feel unique and even come with images of abnormalities they hauled aboard, this stops happening entirely, and the ship dialogues become reused. The threats you face in the lighthouse never evolve in any fashion.

Food and drink is an annoyance, not something you really need to strategize for. Most of your money can be spent on either collecting hats or pictures aimed at achievement hunting, not any real in-game reward. The game is not frightening at any point, either; not one jump out of me.

While there is a lot of 'choice and consequence,' what it all adds up to is not very satisfying or conclusive. The ending you get largely depends on what final choice you make, and I'm pretty sure you can get most all of the endings just redoing the last day (not really worth it, mind, as all it gets you is some different text).

And while the game thrives on its atmosphere, this too really starts to fall off in the second half because there is this *utterly* incessant droning noise that is *loud* and never shuts up. Too bad if you wanted to sink into the ambiance of a spooky lighthouse, because your senses are just going to get assaulted the entire time. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if this was a bug or something, but in general, I think Static Dread just struggles with its soundscape.

At about 7 hours (including a handful of replays for certain days) I can't say you don't get your times worth out of the relatively meager investment, but I think this game just isn't completely finished, frankly.