Missed Classic: Hound of Shadow - A Murder is Announced

Written by Vetinari

Whoever may have had an however fleeting or passing acquaintance with other famous Lovecraft-adjacent games (or even just stood downwind of someone who had), when faced with a title like The Hound of Shadow knows exactly what to expect: one of the most iconic creatures in the Cthulhu Mythos, the Hound of Tindalos.

The main characteristic of these creatures is that once a human becomes known to them as a prey, they will pursue the victim through anything to reach their quarry.

Say hello to my little friend.

So, starting the game proper I had quite a good idea of what I would be facing, at least in terms of the main antagonist. Something relentless, that would hunt down the investigator without mercy wherever and whenever he would be. Instead what I got was a quiet stroll through the streets of Marylebone in London.

But I am getting ahead of myself. We start the game by going to a séance, which by itself is something more appropriate to Arthur Conan Doyle than the Agatha Christie with which I tried to approach this detective role-playing.

I think the Great Detective could either be Sherlock Holmes or Batman. I am leaning towards Batman.

It is the evening of August 22nd 1920 and our good friend John Playford comes and whisks us away from our apartment in a taxi, taking us to this séance. While travelling by taxi we can discuss about the situation. 

John is a bit of a skeptic.

In the meantime, while taking and reorganizing some screenshots, I suddenly notice that the game advances the time even when you don't input any command, which is not something that I particularly enjoy in text adventures. I played Infocom's Border Zone and while in that game it was never overtly annoying, it was also not something that added anything memorable to the experience.

I immediately decide to restart and be a little more proactive in this first part of the game, asking questions and examining things and whatnot. This immediately highlights another frustrating feature of this game: the parser is not very much developed.

Trying to “ask about medium”, “follow maid” or even just “examine room” all elicit responses such as “I can't do that”, “I don't understand”, “I beg your pardon?” or “Try again”.

I go check the manual to assuage my fears and find a little paragraph about the available text instructions, which manages to give me a better idea about what to expect.

This could be useful.

I then proceed to get through the first part of the game (the aforementioned séance) which is more or less on rails.

After being let inside the house by a maid, we are ushered in the room where the séance will be held. Some other people are there: two elderly women, a young lady, three young men and an older man that seems to be a banker.

After a while the medium, one Adept Karmi, enters, introduced by his assistant Yasmin. Probably thanks to my high Perception I notice some clues that point out that Karmi is obviously a fraud, and also that Yasmin is none other than the maid that opened the door and let us into the house, just in a different costume.

Nice group of people.

After dispensing some obviously fake supernatural advice to one of the guests, it then seems that Karmi is suddenly possessed for real by some occult entity, and while in his state of trance he says to one of the young men at the table, in a distressing woman's voice, that the Hound of Shadow is upon him and that he bears his mark.

Chaos ensues and the séance is hurriedly ended. One of the old ladies has fainted but is quickly revived thanks to some smelling salts. John puts you by force in a taxi and brings you home, and then says that he will come back the next day at noon to discuss further.

The street outside my flat.

I take stock of the situation by using the “what do I know” command, and I am given a quick rundown of the investigation. My sleuth immediately dismisses the socialite as unimportant, even though she was the only reason that he was at the séance in the first place, and instead decides to fully concentrate on the young man since he is convinced (without any shred of supporting evidence) that the prophecy about the mark of the hound is genuine. By checking the screenshots I have taken, I see that the man was described as being “slightly built, with fine sandy hair and wire-framed glasses, and looks as though he could be a student or librarian.”

And then suddenly the game springs the copy protection at you.

After playing through this first part, I already have some beginning impressions:

• The game tells you when it is trying to load a picture, then after your prompt it loads the picture as full screen, which is a nice touch.

• The prose and the descriptions are particularly apt and interesting, making a good job of setting the ambiance of the game.

• There is no sound at all. Not even a beep.

I try to explore the area around my flat, which consists of various streets mostly arranged towards the north-east. After you travel too far, the game says that you are lost and an helpful bobby asks you where you are headed, gives you directions and you are subsequently teleported back there.

Soho Square is directly north of my apartment.

Even if the area is pretty large (around 40 to 50 rooms), there are not many points of interest, just a lot of empty streets with some nice pictures. The British Museum seems to be one of the main focuses, but at this time of the night it is closed.

So I decide to enter my flat, and in the lounge I can read a copy of the Tatler, where there are advertisements for cinemas, nightclubs and theaters. This gives me an idea.

I try some commands and find that “Go to cinema” works, but disappointingly it only serves as a small interlude to pass the time, as also “Go to nightclub” and “Go to theater”. In any case after experiencing the London nightlife I decide to go to sleep instead and wait for what tomorrow will bring.

After waking up in the morning, I spend a frankly embarassingly long amount of time trying to get dressed (since the game helpfully provides some pyjamas to sleep in, and a wardrobe that looks like it could be opened or at least used in some way). Apparently however the action of exiting my flat is already enough to discard my pyjamas and, I can only assume, wear my day clothes, since in actuality the inventory is not showing me as wearing anything (even if it dutifully notes that I am wearing my pyjamas while in bed). Better not to dwell on this too much.

Exploring the area around my flat during the day, I notice that there are some interesting features that I skipped over last night, namely a couple of London Underground stations and a couple of bus stops.

Tottenham Court Road is on the Central and Northern lines.

Embarking on the tube I manage to get to a new area, the Liverpool Street Railway Station. The game however does not allow me to disembark in any other subway station, apart from the ones that I have already seen in the Marylebone area. The same goes for when I try to travel by bus. I can only surmise that later in the game I will have to catch a train to go somewhere else.

I do not find any other points of interest, so I wait until noon for the appointment with John. Punctual like clockwork, he arrives at my flat to have lunch together.

As an Italian, I find the names of the restaurant and of its proprietors very upsetting.

While eating, he drops a bomb saying that he recognised the woman's voice who spoke while Karmi was possessed, and then proceeds to tell me all about a run-in that he had while in America with an occult society, that ended as well as could be expected.

This stuff seems heavy.

John then proposes that we use the British Museum Reading Room to research this Hound of Shadow, and asks me to get a pass for it, so that tomorrow we can go there together.

Right now the plot does not seem to be moving at a very brisk pace.

“Go to museum” works like a charm to teleport to the British Museum, and I manage to find my way to the Reader Admission Office, where they explain the bureaucratic process of being admitted to the Reading Room. I fill in a form and I am given a temporary pass, but also note that I should write to the Director of the Museum in order to have a permanent pass arranged. 

The linchpin setting of many a Miskatonic University adventure.

Entering the Reading Room there is not much that I can do right now, except asking about the procedure for retrieving books from the library. 

I already dread the moment when I will have to find some books in this catalogue.

I get back to my flat, write a letter to the director in order to obtain the permanent pass and then find myself with nothing else to do until tomorrow. To pass the time I go to the cinema and then the theater, then make my way to my bedroom for a good night's sleep.

In the morning I go to the appointment with John at the Museum, where he proceeds to unload an infodump on me.

This man is doing all the legwork while I spend my days at the moving pictures.

He suggests that I check with this Mr Talbot at his place of work, while he performs some other tasks inside the Museum that, judging from how things have been going so far, will certainly be more interesting than what I get to do.

Rowland Marcus - Antiquities and Rare Texts.

I already passed this way yesterday and there was nothing special to see. It is interesting that now instead the game dynamically recognises that I have found out a new location that ought to be described in more detail. Fair point to you, game.

Mr Rowland Marcus himself.

Inside the antiques shop I find a load of occult objects and texts, but nothing that immediately strikes my fancy. Asking about the young man, the proprietor says that Talbot is unusually not here today. Then he clams up and does not wish to add anything else. I try to persuade him (thanks to my excellent social skills) and the game just says “It doesn't seem to be doing much good, but that sometimes happens, no matter how good you are at something”. This does not bode very well for the supposed influence of character skills on the story development.

In any case, I get back to the Museum to tell John about my findings (i.e. nothing at all) but he doesn't seem unduly worried and says we can try again tomorrow. Yes, John, probably tomorrow my Persuasion skill will be magically working again.

Rant aside, John says he has tried to find information on the Hound and has found some in the book “Psyche” by Edwin Rohde.

I spent almost a full in-game day at this desk.

What follows is a series of cross-referencing books to find information, which would be already boring after the second time you do it, if it wasn't for the excellent write-up of the various tomes descriptions and their contents. At least my fear that I would have to follow all of the directions that were given by the Enquiry Desk to retrieve a book were unfounded: just typing “find <name of the book>” worked really smoothly.

• In Rohde's book, I read about Hecate and her relation with Cerberus.

• Then John asks me to find Brand's “Dictionary of Faith and Folklore” and to search about the Hound there. This digs up entries about the “Hounds of Annwyn” and the “Barguest”, and a further cross-reference to Chambers' “The Book of Days” page 229.

• Retrieving Chambers, it says that these phantom creatures were sighted in East Anglia, and there is a further reference to Hone's “The Everyday Book and Table Book” and its account of the sighting of one of these dogs at Bungay and Blythburgh on August 4th 1577.

• Hone's tome gives details of the apparition of this terrible creature, and after that the Reading Room closes and the clerks throw you out.

Discussing our findings during dinner, John is very interested in those two East Anglia towns of Bungay and Blythburgh, but before checking them out he suggest that the most prudent course of action for tomorrow would be that he finds some old newspapers from San Francisco where he will look for clues about the secret occult society and the woman who died there, while I can go try and find Mr Talbot again and maybe have better luck.

Since there is no point discussing about it, I go to sleep and prepare for another boring day tomorrow, but that will have to wait for another post.

Session Time: 3 hours 30 minutes

Total Time: 4 hours 30 minutes

> What Do I Know

The Adept Karmi and his assistant are probably frauds, Matthew Talbot was told he bore the Hound of Shadow's mark, seemingly as the result of genuine possession, your friend recognised the voice used as that of a woman who died last year in America and in 1577 a black dog attacked churches at Bungay and Blythford in Sussex.