First Impressions: The Stone of Madness (PC)

[Disclaimer:  I received a review key for Stone of Madness through Keymailer, a third-party company that connects publishers and developers with content creators.  The game key was given without promise or expectation of a positive review, only that it be played, and content be created.  Unless otherwise noted, all content in the following article is from my own playthrough of this game.]

The Stone of Madness
Systems: Windows, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S/X, Nintendo Switch, Linux, Steam OS
Release Date: October 10, 2024
Publisher: Triplewire Interactive
Developer: The Game Kitchen
Time Spent: 2 Hours 24 Minutes
Chapter 1 Playthrough video on YouTube

I was expecting The Stone of Madness to be a moderately stressful game, seeing as how The Game Kitchen also developed the Blasphemous series, but I wasn't expecting to feel stressed out on so many levels all at the same time.  The Stone of Madness is a stealth game.  It is also a game where you have to manage the sanity level of your character.  It is also a game where you play, at least through the end of the first chapter, three other characters with a total of five by the end of the game.  I was not prepared to be stressed by the combination of managing three characters' sanity among their respective skill sets, coupled with the 'stay out of sight' stealth mechanic.  On top of all that, while playing the first chapter, there was the stress of recording my gameplay for the above videos and appearing like a complete rube for the video that I put up on Tuesday.  And the final nail in the proverbial coffin was the text that popped up, that the game frequently autosaves during the prologue, but will eventually only save at the end of every day.  This mechanic then adds a level of added stress to a person who already has a limited amount of time, even when a day cycle only lasts about 20 minutes.  But then that begs the question if there is a time limit to complete the game, or if the "timer" is the sanity of your characters?  So many questions.  So many things to stress about.

But it's the fun kind of stress because it's a video game, and one steeped in Catholic horror, similar to Blasphemous, but in a less Dark Soulsy way, and more in a The VVitch meets Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade with a smattering of Umberto Eco thrown in for claustrophobic measure, but in a kind of way that I can't explain further.  In short, the game plays as a mystery with the player controlling multiple characters in "real time" as they try to, initially, find out the whereabouts of a young woman who was taken deeper into the bowels of a monastery turned asylum.  You start out the game with one character, Father Alfredo, and by the end of the first chapter, you have two additional characters in your party, all with their own abilities, strengths, and weaknesses that you have to manage.  Father Alfredo is afraid of corpses, Eduardo is afraid of the dark, while Lenora has a fear of large open fires (anything bigger than a torch or lantern).  Any confrontation with their phobias results in damage to their sanity.  Sleeping in their cell at night also results in an automatic -12 to their sanity.

If you've watched any of my first play videos, you'll see I make plenty of mistakes, and some of that is stress-related from knowing I'm recording a video for public viewing.  There's also quite a bit of getting used to new mechanics, how to efficiently and effectively use the controller, how to efficiently and effectively plan out the actions of three people, and what exactly everything in the game does.  While watching parts of my Chapter 2 Part 1 video, I realized I should have stationed Lenora or Father Alfredo to carry out actions instead of having Eduardo do all the literal heavy lifting.  I should have had Lenora search the body of the priest before stuffing him into a crate.  I should have tried using Father Alfredo's "Bless" ability to drive off the ánimas instead of it taking out all my characters.  I also didn't realize Lenora's "Black Market" skill meant trading materials for money instead of the other way around; I was saving those rags to try to craft a priest robe for Father Alfredo to make traversing the courtyard of the asylum/monastery less conspicuous.

At the moment, Father Alfredo's sanity is down to 1, Eduardo's is down to 45, and Lenora is sitting high at 54.  I'm only in the early stages of Chapter 2, and I'm not feeling like my prospects are particularly high.  I am really tempted to start over, but this time, attempt to play through on Easy/Story Mode instead of the Normal difficulty setting.  Does that make me a bad gamer?  Eh, I don't care, the stress will still be there, but it might allow me to more familiarize myself with all of the game mechanics without feeling like I'm backing myself into a corner that I won't be able to get out of.  Maybe we'll just see how Days 3 and 4 pan out, and go from there.

One of the few critiques I have is the difference in art styles depending on what you're doing in the game.  The character portraits have a more hand-drawn and scratchy aesthetic that I really like.  The animated sequences have more of a Saturday morning cartoon appearance, if animated cartoons existed in 18th century Spain and were put out by the Church to scare the masses into believing in the healing power of their God.  The in-game appearance is a mix between the two, leaning more towards the cartoonish look, but it's less obvious because the griminess of the setting and how far the camera is from the characters draws less attention to the cleanliness of the colors/paints of the characters.  There is a bit of a whiplash going from one art style to another and then back again, but I feel that after a few more hours, that's likely to change and will be something that I'm used to.

I think I'll really be able to dive deep into The Stone of Madness in the coming weeks as I git gud with everything the game is throwing at me, be it in Story Mode or Normal difficulty, and know how best to use each character while maintaining their sanity while smacking guards, nuns, and priests with boards and stuffing them into boxes and closets.  There's always fun to be had in the stress-induced darkness of this cloister.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
He Tells Me What To Do