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Lovecraft Mythos is a single screen platforming affair with some nice concepts to keep things interesting and some odd looking creatures as you would expect from a game based on the works of H.P.Lovecraft, Cthulhu and all that.

Not a lot of information can be found about the Spanish publishers, Ancient Bytes. Online search came up pretty much empty. One must conclude that this is their first ZX Spectrum game release.

Once loaded, the title screen options include starting the game, a choice of game modes (easy, normal, hard), joystick, redefine keys, call a god, the scoreboard and credits. The current keyboard controls are shown at the bottom of the screen. You control a Rick Dangerous lookalike who must jump and shoot his way around each screen, collecting keys, bullets and a yellow heart to replenish your lives whilst avoiding the many deadly terrors.

Easy mode gives you five hearts, five bullets, and triple bullet pickups. But you don't register any kind of score so it's more like a practice mode. Hard mode gives you just two hearts, three bullets and single bullet pickups.

Normal mode give you three hearts, five bullets and again, single bullet pickups. I don't know their proper Lovecraftian names but the terrors who stalk you include a one eyed tentacled terror who mostly just sits and hangs around, a flying serpent guided terror who hovers and follows you about, a lizard like guided terror who will jump around and chase after you and finally there's a lightning fast terror with stumpy legs and long fingers that runs along the bottom of the screen should you invade its space.

Every time you are hit by a terror you lose a heart. If your hearts drop below the maximum another will appear as a pickup. Zero hearts means its “Game Over”. Collecting keys is the main objective of the game. Every time you collect one, another soon appears and a picture is built up block by block in the top centre of the screen. Once this picture is complete it's off to the next level. Terrors do not appear until you collect the first key that appears on each screen. Depending on the game mode you have selected, you are limited to a set number of bullets. You need to use these wisley to protect yourself from being hit by the moving terrors. If you have less than the full quota, a bullet pickup will appear.

The terrors are a bit devious. They don't need a reason, like being shot, to respawn. If they get bored they will disappear and respawn at a random place on the screen. This stops you from hanging out in a seemingly safe place for too long. When you complete a screen you are told which god is watching you and then your hearts and bullets are replenished ready for the next screen. If you die you are told how many levels you found, your final score and a bunch of other stats. You also have the options to retry a level, give up playing, or call a god. The latter relates to which god is watching you when you complete a screen and allows you to access that screen.

You seem to have infinite retries of a level so although the game can be quite difficult, even in normal mode, it is a little forgiving. I really like the terror graphics. Each has its own personality. The screens are made up of the usual platform type blocks and there's some decoration, like torches, too.

There's a very satisfying, deep bass style jingle on the title screen that reminds me of the terrific Zombie Zombie audio from Sandy White's sequel to Ant Attack and the in-game spot effects are also suitably meaty sounding and reminiscent of the old Atari VCS sounds effects. There's also a straight forward high score table where you can log your efforts to rid the world of insanity and terror.

Lovecraft Mythos has that simple, early 80s arcade gameplay going on. What's not to like about that? It's got fast and chaotic gameplay but you can use a few tactics to slow it down a bit and give yourself a rest from the madness.

When you finish a screen there's very little time to see the picture you just created. Then again it's the same picture. It would have been nice to have a different picture for each level.

The game is not as creepy as I thought it might be based on the subject matter. Nevertheless, it's still an entertaining platformer, with added blasting, cool sound and nightmarish terrors. It might be a little difficult for some in normal mode but there's always the easy mode for practice.