iLovecraft Review

Howard Phillips Lovecraft was an American author famous for his works of horror, fantasy, poetry, and science-fiction, and a 20th Century master of a sub-genre which has come to be known as “weird fiction.” As well as becoming an icon of popular culture, over the years he has been the inspiration for many authors and artists such as Stephen King, Alan Moore, and Neil Gaiman to name but a few. Today his works have become something of a popular influence in video game culture, with the most famed being the Call of Cthulhu role-playing card game.

iLovecraft is a beautiful multimedia experience that invites readers to immerse themselves into Lovecraft’s world with five disturbing horror stories, all of which have been beautifully illustrated and are accompanied by some haunting music and sound effects to add to the atmosphere.

The user interface is simple to use and very straightforward. As if it were an eBook, readers just swipe their finger right to left across the screen in order to turn the page, and return to the menu by tapping the icon at the top-righthand corner. From the menu, it is then possible to choose one of any of the five stories, read a brief history of H.P. Lovecraft himself, or feast the eyes on some beautiful drafts of the stories' many illustrations.

The illustrations are wonderfully integrated into each of the stories, all of which are animated in a variety of different ways. Each of the illustrations has an extraordinary way of bringing the stories to life, be it by the user interacting with the image itself or by a haunting animation that manages to create a creepy rendition of the scene as it is read.

Though the stories are brief, each of them do a great job of immersing the reader within its beautifully presented pages with a large enough font and some hand-drawn sketches adding a little substance to the package. Unfortunately the app does not offer much of a reusability factor once the stories have all been read, and unless there happens to be more additions to the library of works within the app, to many it will sadly be a one-time pleasure.

That said, fans of Lovecraft’s works will greatly enjoy the iLovecraft experience, and newcomers will find each story a delight to read. It's worthy addition to any iOS device, and just in time for Halloween.