An ambitious indie project with some impressive visuals, saddly hamstrung by weak gameplay and a lack of understanding of Cosmic Horror. The game opens promisingly in a strange and nicely detailed setting filled with forboding dialog and uncanny sights to put the player ill at ease, but is all to eager to begin throwing indisticnt tentacle monsters at you, so much so that they begin to appear within the first 30 minutes. This dispenses with any sense of atmosphere and subtlty the game has, and it fails to recover. Narratively the game is so focused on telling the intimate story of a father searching for his missing daugther that it barely touches on the implications of any of its comsic mysteries, never really reflecting on the bizarre and alien places you visit and creatures you enounter. Ultimately it all ends up feeling like lovecraftian window dressing. Mechanically the game is mostly about puzzle solving, but also features the occasional monster chase sequence or combat section, neither of which are ever well executed. Most of the puzzles boil down to just pressing the interact key on whatever visually distinct objects are in the room, only a few of them require actual consideration. Lenght wise, the game comes in at between 3 and 4 hours. Overall if you're desperate for a lovecraftian gaming fix and big sea/space monsters are enough to satisify you, The Shore contains enough striking visuals to be worth a look. If youre seeking an actual slow creeping sense of dread or a thought provoking reflection on cosmic mysteries, keep searching.
