Shadows Over Loathing (v2024.03.05)

Ocean City hides a prohibition-era nightmare behind its deliberately crude stick-figure grin, mixing detective work, eldritch horror, and relentlessly silly comedy. Shadows Over Loathing follows your search for missing Uncle Murray, whose antique business connects to cursed collectibles, criminal schemes, and cosmic threats that refuse to stay politely offscreen. The world feels like a hardboiled mystery written by someone who cannot resist a terrible pun, with mobsters, government corruption, talking animals, and unknowable tentacles sharing the same black-and-white streets. Its tone is playful rather than grim, but the strange plot gradually builds into a genuinely engaging supernatural conspiracy.

You travel across a broad map, investigate locations, collect odd items, solve puzzles, talk your way through problems, and take on side quests that can be as straightforward as finding a person or as bizarre as dealing with time travel. Character creation begins with three distinctive classes: the crowd-controlling Pig Skinner, reality-bending Cheese Wizard, and enigmatic Jazz Agent, each offering different skills, dialogue options, and combat tricks. Battles use turn-based systems with positioning, buffs, debuffs, and companion abilities, though many encounters allow nonviolent or comic alternatives for players more interested in exploration and conversations. Progression comes through gear, perks, quests, familiars, and increasingly bizarre antiques, while optional activities such as fishing provide another source of rewards and jokes.

What separates it from most comedy RPGs is the density of its writing: nearly every object, menu, enemy, and throwaway interaction seems to have a punchline, yet the humor supports rather than replaces the adventure. Its hand-drawn monochrome presentation looks intentionally simple, but the sheer range of environments and character customization gives the setting more personality than its stick figures initially suggest. Choices, class-specific solutions, optional areas, and varied builds make repeat visits worthwhile, especially for players who enjoy uncovering every absurd secret. Fans of West of Loathing, point-and-click adventures, or offbeat RPGs like EarthBound will feel immediately at home, while newcomers can jump in without prior series knowledge.