The Lovecraftian-themed Pokemon clone we need and deserve is in development

While visiting EGX over the weekend, there were a lot of indie games to be playing, but none impressed me quite like Book of Abominations. This demo forged by just two developers at Magination Games left a lasting impression on me, with the Pokemon clone feeling like a careful mixture of Stardew Valley’s art style, Pokemon’s battling mechanics and music, and the devilish nature of Lovecraft’s works all in one.

In the short demo that I played, you wake up in your home which is adorned with books and rusting furniture, and it immediately felt as though I’d woken up in my farmhouse in Stardew Valley. Albeit, in a different dimension. You leave your home and must battle it out with some slime, where you’re taught how battling and capture mechanics work.

Although Book of Abominations is clearly inspired by Pokemon, the developer has still attempted to make things original. Your attacks are, well, your attacks, but rather than whipping out potions and candy for your pocket monsters, you’re using spells and tomes to keep them fighting fit. And instead of slinging PokeBalls at enemies to tame them, you’ll have to complete a capture spell over multiple turns – without dying or killing the hostile monster – before finally finishing off the fight and collecting them for yourself.

There’s also no PP when it comes to using attacks. Instead, certain attacks have cooldowns over multiple turns, so you have to be very strategic – and careful – about when you use your moves, and who you use them on.

After a little exploring, capturing some slime and killing some zombie-like creatures, you run into Miasmoth, The Befouled and its minions. It’s almost presented as a Dark Souls fight in a Pokemon-sized world, with the huge HP bar for the creature taking up the width of the screen. With your measly but aggressive creatures, it’s certainly possible to beat this cryptid to a pulp, but that’s something I didn’t quite manage to do during my time playing the Book of Abominations demo.

The developer of Book of Abominations came up with the idea for the game as something that it wanted to play, and figured that other people would want to play, too. And they’re not wrong. While there’s plenty of horror-themed mods for Pokemon out there, and some impressive Pokemon clones, there’s nothing quite like what this pair of developers are setting out to do. So much so, that the duo developing the game – Magination Games – took home the Abertay University’s DARE Academy Award for its unique ideas and incredible efforts executing them.

Rather than collecting cute pocket monsters that bear resemblances to animals, vehicles, or even household items (thinking of you, Sinistea), Book of Abominations has you battling out with spell-casting cryptids, with an art and audio-style that hails back to the early Pokemon games on GameBoy and Nintendo DS. It’s something that I’d argue there’s definitely a gap in the market for, and the type of game that us horror-loving Pokemon fans want and need.

With Book of Abominations being the work of just two people, the game isn’t anticipated to be completed anytime soon, unfortunately. Magination Games has shared that it can see the game arriving in 4-5 years time, but it is looking to expand its team and hopefully speed up development, with all being well.

You can keep up to date with the development of Book of Abominations over on the games Twitter.