The Sinking City

It features an investigation system in which the outcome of the player's quests will often be defined by how observant the players are when investigating different clues and pieces of evidence. The town of Oakmont is made up of seven districts which have all been affected by flooding to various degrees, and the player must use a boat to safely traverse the flooded streets to reach drier areas. Disturbing scenes and encounters can cause sudden, sharp drops in sanity, affecting the player's perception of the surrounding environment, and complete loss of sanity is fatal. The Sinking City takes place in the secluded city of Oakmont, Massachusetts in the 1920s, a place that is not marked on any map and few people know how to find due to its remoteness. Cultists in bloody ritual garb are an unremarkable sight on the streets alongside fishermen, average townsfolk, refugees from the destruction of nearby Innsmouth, the destitute and desperate and well-heeled members of the upper class. Six months prior to the events of the game, Oakmont was inundated by a mysterious, persistent flood of supernatural origin that has submerged many of its streets and cut it off from the mainland. The Flood brought with it a dark force that inexorably instils hysteria and madness in the minds of the terrified citizens, along with a plague of otherworldly creatures attracted to death called Wylebeasts, and the struggling city is on the brink of collapse. Navy sailor and World War I veteran turned private investigator, travels from Boston to Oakmont at the invitation of Professor Johannes van der Berg to discover the cause of the nightmarish visions that have been plaguing him since the disappearance of the ship he served on, the USS Cyclops. Soon after arrival, Reed is also hired by Robert Throgmorton, the influential and physically striking head of one of Oakmont's leading families who has also been studying the visions, to locate Professor Harriet Dough, the researcher Throgmorton had tasked with uncovering the cause of the Flood. While pursuing his primary investigation, Reed also pursues several other tangential cases which embroil him in the politics and conspiratorial machinations of the power players of Oakmont. He investigates a break-in at the storehouse of a charity organization called the EOD and uncovers the perpetrator is a university professor who wasn't trying to steal the supplies being handed out by the organization, but rather poison them, because the EOD is actually the Esoteric Order of Dagon, a cult worshipping Dagon, the God of the Deep Ones, which is trying to expand its influence in town. Reed can either choose to turn in the poisoner or aid him in the hopes that the death of innocent charity recipients will sabotage the EOD's schemes. Later, he is hired by local crime boss Brutus Carpenter after somebody drugged him in his own home, sent him to a morgue to be burned alive and then replaced him with an identical clone. Reed discovers Brutus' attempted killer was his own son, Graham, a wounded World War I army veteran who's fallen under the sway of the Church of the Lord of the Woods, a sect that worships Shub-Niggurath.