The Stone of Madness, developed by The Game Kitchen and published by Tripwire Interactive, is a tactical stealth game that will challenge even the most seasoned players. Set in the chilling confines of an asylum shrouded in darkness and mystery, the game features a unique blend of stealth, strategy, and puzzle-solving elements.
The Stone of Madness has a really unique and creepy art style, like something out of an old, scary painting. It’s dark and atmospheric, and it definitely makes the game stand out. The game is set in a Spanish monastery setup in the 18th Century. The players assume the role of Alfredo and 4 other controllable characters, Eduardo, Amelia, Agnes and Leonora. Each playable character has a different set of strengths and weaknesses. The objective of The Stone of Madness is to utilize all 5 playable characters and escape the asylum. As they are making an escape, the players get to uncover dark secrets about the monastery and its practices.
Gameplay is set up based on different objectives the players will have to complete, and there a day is divided in three different zones, Morning, Evening/Night and Midnight. Players can move around freely during the Morning/Day time, as long as they are not moving into the prohibited locations not for the patients. And during Evening time players can still move around but they have to stay away from the spirits. And moving around at Midnight is prohibited, as long as players are caught roaming around there. And at the end of the day they are moved back to their cells.
Players, during the exploration, are allowed to utilize their strengths and try to avoid triggering their weaknesses. Alfredo can carry candles and read signs to get clues, while watching violence or corpse near can affect his mental stability negatively. Eduardo is the strongest member in the party who can break open doors using crowbars or move around wood planks to make bridges to clear the way for other party members but is afraid of darkness. Amelia is a young girl who can move around through the cracks and crawl spaces and reach places where some of the other members can’t, but is afraid of gargoyles or scary statues. Agnes is an old lady who can use spellcasting, or creating lights and using potion mixings but is afraid of mirrors. And last but not the least Leonora is an excellent lockpicker and can use her skills to knock out or kill other NPCs to create a way but is afraid of fire.
Players will have to scavenge any items found through the monastery as they can use them actively during the day time. Also they can use the items and at night utilize Eduardo’s skills to craft items players can use or use other characters action points to heal health and mental state. Alfredo can use the found books to get knowledge points that can be used to unlock additional skills on the characters.
The game has a heavy focus on Stealth and players will have to use different ways to achieve objectives. The Stone of Madness is an isometric game where players can switch to different characters and move the players to achieve the objective. There are certain bugs and issues with the way UX is for clicking things and also the saves that are very irregular currently, that drawback the game, and as you keep playing without completing the objective the game gets a lot tougher, as the player’s mental state deteriorates, there are permanent negative status effects.
Overall, The Stone of Madness is a solid entry as a Tactical Stealth game, but not entirely sure that it is going to attract a lot of audience due to its difficulty and play style. I would rate this game 8 stars out of 10.
The Stone of Madness is available for PC via Steam.
Related: Reviews by Hemal Patel
A gamer turned into a game developer. A huge batman fan and follower of Arkham Series, generally I like to play mostly Action and RPG genre of Games. Into the Abyss!!! PSN: AbyssRyder
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