Shadow of the Comet

Shadow of the Comet: The Official Strategy Guide (Prima Publishing, 1994; re-released by the author, 2019) was written by Steve Schwartz. In addition to a game walkthrough, all game dialog, and a disk of saved games, the book includes the Lovecraft story The Call of Cthulhu.

• Title — Shadow of the Comet • Developer — Infogrames • Platforms — MS-DOS, PC-98, Linux • Released — March 25, 1993 • Genre — Adventure • Modes — Single-player

The player can control the protagonist Parker via the arrow keys. When Parker comes across something he can interact with, a button press will allow the player to do so. Items that Parker can take will project a white line from Parker's eye to the item, indicating that when the player interacts with the item, it will be added to Parker's inventory. Apart from this the game plays like a standard third-person adventure game.

The game takes place in 1910 and concerns the visit of a young British photographer, John Parker, to the isolated New England town of Illsmouth (an allusion to Lovecraft's Innsmouth) to witness and photograph the passage of Halley's Comet. In 1834, on the last passing, Lord Boleskine visited the town after learning that certain conditions near the town would allow astronomical objects to be seen clearer and closer than on any other spot on earth. He decided to test this theory by observing the comet from Illsmouth, but something unexpected happened and he went insane, spending the rest of his life in a lunatic asylum. Parker, learning of the 1834 incident and reading over Boleskine's papers, wishes to succeed where his predecessor failed. When he arrives, Parker stumbles upon a sinister conspiracy and must survive the three days between his arrival and the comet's passage while finding out what happened in 1834.