Saint Kotar: The Crawling Man is an interactive tie-in comic that gives players a bit more insight into the main game’s background and serves as a great entry point for the horror mystery title, Saint Kotar.
Horror is not an easy genre to get into, especially if you don’t have a lot of past experience with it. Particularly with cosmic horror, which isn’t very beginner-friendly as the sub-genre often deals with topics that will make readers question their own reality and existence.
However, Saint Kotar: The Crawling Man serves as a great starting point for those interested in it as the comic incorporates classic cosmic horror stories such as The King in Yellow. Saint Kotar: The Crawling Man is a short interactive tie-in comic for Saint Kotar, a horror mystery game developed by Red Martyr Entertainment and published by SOEDESCO.
Saint Kotar: The Crawling Man is the first in a series of interactive comics called Saint Kotar: Tales from the Cursed Valley. These comics are set in the world of Saint Kotar and they explain the backstory of some of the characters you will encounter in the main game. The Crawling Man explains the story of Rudolph “Mojse” Mojsek, who was once a beloved teacher of the town of Sveti Kotar and a man of god, who, after surviving a mine collapse, becomes a mad cult leader whose mind is as broken as his body.
Despite being a very short experience, roughly 30 minutes, Saint Kotar: The Crawling Man is certainly a good one. The comic, much like the main game is rich with atmosphere and players will easily feel immersed in the setting, from the joyous sounds of children playing to the hushed mutterings of shadow demons that lurk in the dark, you will feel as if you’re a part of the world, even as you witness some of its darkest moments.
Besides its excellent atmosphere, the comic features panels that are done in a painterly style that shifts and changes along with the story. In the beginning, characters are illuminated with warm and soft light, and the world seems bright and lovely, But as the story progresses the colors become more muted, the lines of the artwork become more jagged, and the shadows become deeper and darker.
Another interesting feature found within Saint Kotar: The Crawling Man is the interactive panels. The player can move the camera and see more of the environments held within each comic panel. This helps environments to not feel so flat and gives them a more of a three-dimensional feel. However, as the story progresses and Mojse falls further and further into madness you start using this feature less as a way to appreciate the beauty of environments and more as a way to see what is lurking in the shadows just out of sight.
That’s the beauty of Saint Kotar: The Crawling Man. It’s often very difficult to achieve that sense of dread that comes with watching someone slip into madness and yet the comic does this perfectly in only a few panels. The player has no choice but to watch as such a kind man falls into madness.
The smile we see on Mojse’s face is no longer seen as something warm and joyous and instead becomes something filled with anger and malice. For the real monsters of a cosmic horror story are not the monsters that come towards a man but rather the monsters that come from within him.
With its excellent atmosphere, writing, and artwork. Saint Kotar: The Crawling Man serves as a great starting point if you want to get into the cosmic horror genre. However, this is a video game review and calling Saint Kotar: The Crawling Man a video game is a bit of a stretch. While yes there are trophies you can earn and you do move your mouse across the screen, it is still just a comic, hence why throughout this review and it’s been called that, because that’s what it is…a comic.
Releasing it on Steam as its own standalone “game” feels like an odd choice, as while it is a very good read, it is still not a video game and putting it on Steam, a video game digital distribution service, seems like a very odd choice as there are better platforms to distribute it on.
Besides being a good entry point for cosmic horror, Saint Kotar: The Crawling Man also serves as a great entry for those interested in playing the main game, Saint Kotar, which takes place in Sveti Kotar, many years after the events of the comic and it is just as good, if not better, an example of entry-level cosmic horror.
The comic helps introduce a lot of the lore and history behind the town, as well as explain things more in-depth than in the main game, such as the story behind places such as the Karkasa Forest or the Udav Mountain. We also get to see characters in the comic that are no longer alive in Saint Kotar.
Saint Kotar: The Crawling Man, is a fine entry into the cosmic horror genre, but if you came looking for a full video game, you are sadly going to be disappointed as Saint Kotar: The Crawling Man is just a short interactive comic. While its atmosphere and art style are both impressive, it is far too short and leaves you wanting for more. However, if you want a better “video game” experience, then check out the main game Saint Kotar. Both Saint Kotar and Saint Kotar: The Crawling Man are available on Steam.
