When things go terribly wrong at a secret research outpost on Mars, you find yourself plunged into the depths of cosmic horror.
Moons of Madness
Developer: Rock Pocket Games
Price: $25
Platforms: PC
MonsterVine was provided with a PC code for review.
Moons of Madness starts with a nightmare, as you walk through your corrupted research outpost and glimpse shadowy figures in the darkness, only to wake up to a normal day at the base. Starting with a dream isn’t always a good idea, but in this case, it works. The rest of the game starts out slow as you see a slice of the protagonist’s daily life on Mars and perform routine tasks such as re-aligning solar panels, but little hints that his nightmare was more than just a dream make sure that early taste of horror stays in your mind.
All of this builds up to your discovery of a strange creature that has broken free inside the base, and from that point on, the story rarely lets up. Monstrous beings, hallucinations, and secret experiments lead you toward an ancient horror waiting to be unleashed.
There is no combat in Moons of Madness, and only a handful of chases and stealth sections. Most of the gameplay is spent solving puzzles that often require you to explore a contained section of the base, such as finding the scattered pieces of a machine or finding a way to get past a locked door. Some puzzles are more challenging than others, but it’s usually straightforward enough to figure out what you need to do. You’ll also spend a fair amount of time reading messages at computer terminals, some of which are required while others are only there to flesh out the story.
Moons of Madness mainly relies on its atmosphere for horror, and it does an excellent job of it. The environmental design and atmosphere are so unsettling, I found myself uneasy even when there was nothing around to kill me–although there were several points across my 7-hour playthrough when I was in danger. There are also a handful of well-placed jump scares that work to the game’s advantage.
Most of the gameplay is smooth, although there are a few quirks, such as an optional objective marker that will insistently point you toward what it considers to be your main goal even if you have an additional task that must be completed first. The controls during puzzles aren’t always intuitive, there is a single missable achievement that you can only get by dying in a particular spot, and the protagonist’s reactions sometimes feel just a little off. However, these are minor concerns in what is overall a good experience.
I went into Moons of Madness hoping for a Lovecraftian story, and it delivered. It has that Lovecraft-inspired tone through and through, so if cosmic horror is your thing, you should be pleased with the way Moons of Madness develops. A few parts of the story feel a little disconnected from the rest–possibly because Moons of Madness is set in the same universe as the publisher’s MMO Secret World Legends–and I was disappointed in how similar the two endings were, but overall it was a dark, unsettling journey that hit all the Lovecraftian notes I went into the game hoping to see.
The Final Word
Do you enjoy slower-paced, puzzle-driven horror games? Does the phrase “Lovecraftian horror on Mars” get your attention? If either or both of these is true, Moons of Madness is a horror game you shouldn’t miss.
– MonsterVine Review Score: 4.5 out of 5 – Great
