I think you're underestimating Quake's sound design and Lovecraftian influences by Sandy Petersen. For me the games that best illustrate this are ancient Ultim

I think you're underestimating Quake's sound design and Lovecraftian influences by Sandy Petersen. For me the games that best illustrate this are ancient Ultima games. Ultima I-IV have tile based symbolic graphics. Ultima V also is tile-based, but makes an effort to represent every torch, chair, brazier; as much detail as they can fit. Fallen Enchantress screenshots worked for me, but the game itself was a failure.