The Wickie: Journey of a Lighthouse Keeper – A Lovecraftian nightmare, but not the good kind

I feel like I’ve been pranked. Like I’ve been subjected to some kind of a practical joke. Not many games get this reaction out of me (only the hilariously bad Of Bird and Cage comes to mind), but here we are. The Wickie: Journey of a Lighthouse Keeper was introduced to me as a first-person narrative thriller with elements of Lovecraftian cosmic horror – as you may already know, these are all things I love. Obviously, I kept my expectations tempered, as I usually do, but not even I was ready for the nightmarish things The Wickie would unleash upon my then-intact sanity: a “final” product that didn’t feel final at all, along with Lovecraftian “dread” which I’d rather just call “dreadful” instead. A broken, seemingly half-finished experience devoid of enjoyment, drained of life and lacking in purpose. If you think I’m coming off as frustrated, that’s because I am. Because what is this game, man.

Broken islands, broken minds (mostly mine)

First impressions are important, and mine were quite terrible. In the first five minutes of the game, I already managed to break the entire interface, which prevented me from interacting with the environment. Okay, fine, no big deal. I restart. Whatever. The very first puzzle then also breaks (I was meant to interact with an item, which disappeared into the wall), and the door I’m supposed to open remains closed. So that’s two restarts in ten minutes, and I haven’t even left the very first area of the game. Either way, once you jump through these hoops, you’re dropped off on one of the islands you’re meant to explore. Talking to the locals is a fairly joyless experience, as the dialogue’s tendency to bore rather than intrigue remains a recurring theme of The Wickie.

Nonetheless, I keep moving... for now. Yet the environments I see feel off. I’m not getting any sense of wonder, nor is there a desire in me to explore because everything feels lifeless and empty and sterile, and not even in a pleasantly creepy, “liminal space” kind of way. That said, I do continue with the plot, which tells me to go talk to this one guy. Said guy instructs me to climb up to a gondola-like thing and pull a lever to move on. So, I spend a good twenty minutes looking for this blasted lever, and it turns out it was a weirdly textured gray mess that completely blended into its environment, preventing me from noticing it. Lovely.

Onwards! (to nothingness)

Anyway, so I stand on the platform and pull the lever. The carriage then takes off without me on it. Yes, you read that right. It just zooms off into the distance, never to be seen again, while I’m standing on the platform in utter silence and disbelief, like a third grader who just missed the school bus. The comedic timing couldn’t have been more perfect – except this is meant to be a thriller. So anyway, I load up a previous save (again) and take care to actually stand on the platform this time before pulling the lever. After what feels like an eternity, I leave behind what I assume is a boring tutorial area with boring buildings and a bland, forgettable art style. I’m off to explore Lovecraftian secrets and other cool stuff! Yes, sir. Actually, no. No, sir. Before I even arrive at my destination, the game bugs out and I fall off the platform while it’s still moving, dropping right into the sea below. Which slowly kills me. Time to reload AGAIN as my personal sanity points keep getting devoured like Jaffa cakes at an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Following that unintended side journey into the sea, I manage to not get myself killed and finally get to the next island. Another few boring NPCs, another boring location where I spend a few minutes collecting samey-looking medical papers scattered across the level for some kind of banal side quest. Exciting. This is also the area where I open up a door and step into... a part of the game that looks like it was never finished. You might think I ended up glitching through a wall or something, but no. You just go through a doorway and find yourself in a room that feels like an out-of-bounds area of the map, with unfinished textures floating in the air, missing walls and all that good stuff. Now imagine me doing the confused John Travolta meme, because that was pretty much my reaction. In any case, after getting bored of that, I once again hopped onto a gondola-like carriage and sped onwards to the next location, which was the part that finally broke my sanity like it was a chair in a pro wrestling arena.

Here be octopus monsters (silly ones)

Yes, there are monsters, but don’t get too excited. My exploration of this next part of the journey began with yet another interesting discovery. I walked into a house and found some of its floor to be missing. Okay, fine, I figured the place was in ruins, so it makes sense why it would be missing stuff. Except... this was yet another case of a door-that-leads-outside-the-map, as the hole in the floor led me to ANOTHER out-of-bounds area where I literally walked through an area seemingly located under the rest of the map. You might be wondering if this was intentional. I don’t know, man. I was literally walking around on the other side of walls, clearly in an area that the player isn’t supposed to be in. The journey itself was chill, and even resulted in some nice views here and there, but it was entirely pointless, so I just loaded up a previous checkpoint and decided that this time, I wouldn’t be exploring the part of the map that’s clearly unfinished, but somehow the player is given access to it. I’m not a beta tester, okay?

My spirit still not broken, I decide to actually go into the tunnel the game wants me to explore. Inside, I was met with a comically bizarre sight. Alien tentacle creatures randomly flying around in a cave (even bumping into walls), with other, bulbous monsters bouncing around near them like well-fed kindergarteners on hopper balls. “Great, finally some creatures and spooky stuff,” you might be thinking to yourself. No, my friend. I’m afraid to say you do not fully realize just how colossally underwhelming and just straight up funny this encounter was. I’m not sure if this was meant to be disturbing in a Lovecraftian way, but it came off as clumsy and hilarious. The tone felt completely off. I stood there, staring at these creatures, not sure what to think. They didn’t harm me, they didn’t even react to me, they just... existed, and kept hopping around in their strange, drunken stupor, bouncing around jovially. And so, I moved on. As I exited the tunnel, the next NPC I met even made mention of them – I just nodded, letting him know that I did indeed witness the weird tentacle beast disco room, but mentally reminded myself that it was the most absurdly hilarious thing I’d ever seen in my life. So much for a cosmic horror atmosphere – it’s been killed and buried, with bouncy ball creatures bouncing happily on its grave.

I broke the game (again)

Still dazed and confused, I climbed up a really long ladder and moved on to the next area, exploring empty houses with nothing but huge cogwheels in them. Riveting stuff. Earlier, there was also a puzzle to solve involving flipping the right switches (I asked the talking cat for hints, don’t judge me), but what I found really memorable was the way I managed to... (wait for it; drumroll, please) break the game again. Yes. Remember that ladder I mentioned earlier? Well, in my foolish hubris, I assumed I could just use it to climb back down. Oh, how silly I was. Instead of climbing down like a normal person, my character started moving farther and farther away from the ladder and began floating in the air while still staying connected to said ladder in some mysterious way. It was a bizarre sight, although hardly the first one I had to witness in this game. And hey, at least I learned how to levitate. Sort of.

My next destination was an office-like room: it even had a big, comfy chair in it, which, as I soon learned, would be my downfall. I clicked on it, my character sat down... and then the game locked up. I don’t mean that in the sense that it crashed. No, it was still running, but I simply could not interact with anything. My buttons just... stopped working, much like they did in the beginning, if you still remember that. So, without no other options, I pulled up the main menu and exited the game. Thank you, The Wickie, but I’ve seen enough. Any more of this and I would’ve really gone as mad as your average Lovecraftian protagonist, and I certainly did not wish that upon myself. Who would’ve thought – the real cosmic abomination was the game the all along.

The end (for me, anyway)

I poured four hours of my life into The Wickie while trying to make sense of it. Frankly, I’m not sure if anyone else on planet Earth – other than the developer – has played it as much as I did. I’m mostly just saying this because the issues with the game become glaringly obvious if you spend more than twenty minutes with it. I mean, I understand this is the kind of game that refuses to hold your hand and wants you to unravel its secrets on your own. It even said so at the beginning. I get that part. My issue isn’t the fact that I was lost and confused, it’s that the game did absolutely nothing to make the journey feel engaging, interesting, or worth your time. I was expecting an atmospheric investigation with some Lovecraftian elements, and instead got a barrage of bugs, and a bland, empty world full of seemingly unfinished parts that made me feel like I was in an Early Access tech demo. Granted, the game is still getting patched (so you may not encounter all of the things I wrote about here), but why was it released in such a state in the first place? I don’t know. What I do know, however, is that did not enjoy my time with The Wickie, and that I cannot, under any circumstances, recommend it. And now you’ll have to excuse me – I’m off to find another magic ladder that hopefully allows me to levitate into a better game.