I’ve always had a complicated relationship with puzzle games. At their best, they make me feel like an absolute genius when I manage to put together the pieces of its riddles. At worst, they stump me for hours on end and make me want to play something else. On the other hand, stealth games have appealed to me ever since I was a kid.
They are, in of themselves, a different kind of puzzle: how do you outsmart an enemy with nothing but your wits, some gadgets, and the shadows? Sneaking through crowds as you get closer and closer to a destination, challenging yourself with handicaps against a foe that is clearly outmatched compared to you, is a thrilling feeling. So what happens when you combine puzzles, stealth, a hand-made art style, and a gameplay mechanic that feels right out of a tabletop adventure?
You get The Stone of Madness, an ambitious new game from The Game Kitchen. It has an intriguing story, great characters, and a stunning art style. Plus, its gameplay loop is unlike anything I’ve seen before. In theory, these sound like a match made in heaven. I certainly thought so, which is why I sunk almost thirteen hours into the game on my Steam Deck. As such, due to some major technical issues, limited options, and the aforementioned loop being more frustrating than it is fun, I can safely say that The Stone of Madness is one of the most infuriating games I’ve ever played.
Checks and Balances
The Stone of Madness hooked me within the first few minutes. Even from the menu, I was intrigued by the style and premise. That interest only continued as the first cutscene began to play. The game has an absolutely stunning handmade art style that feels like a painting come to life. The developers state that they were influenced by Francisco De Goya, and you can tell, especially if you’re familiar with his art style.
The choice of artist was clearly a conscious one, as the game takes place in 18th-century Spain. Specifically, it takes in a Monastery that doubles as a prison. You take control of five different characters throughout your journey: Alfredo, Eduardo, Leonora, Agnes, and Amelia.
Each of them is stuck in the Monastery for a different reason. Alfredo, for instance, is a former Priest who was locked away for exposing the corruption of the Church. Amelia, on the other hand, is a little girl who is kept in the Monastery due to being an orphan. The only thing they have in common is the desire to escape, so they must pool their resources together to do so.
There are, of course, a few major things standing in their way. First, there are the many guards, priests, and nuns standing in your way. If they catch you doing anything even remotely suspicious, they’ll either damage your character or become more suspicious of them, to the point that they are watched more while doing normal activities. If any character runs out of hearts, they are sent back to their cell for the day.
Second, there’s one of the game’s other unique mechanics: the sanity meter. If you play on normal or above, every time you go back to your cell for the day, you lose a little bit of sanity due to the stress of being locked up. Even if you’re on easy mode though, every character loses sanity due to a certain phobia. Eduardo, for example, is afraid of the dark. Meanwhile, Leonora is afraid of fire. These can affect their unique actions, and if they run out of sanity, they get a new fear.
Additionally, there is the constraint of time. There is both a day phase and a night phase. In the day phase, players can progress the story by doing quests and uncovering the mysteries of the monastery. As the day draws to a close, though, more enemies will pop up and even the areas that are not prohibited will become dangerous. So, you have to switch to the night phase, where you can craft items, recover health and sanity, and do other actions to prepare for the next day.
You may feel that your characters are “weak,” and that the odds are against them. This is clearly intentional, even if certain phobias are so debilitating that they make certain strategies ineffective. That said, each character’s individual mechanics helps give them an edge.
For example, Leonora can knock out enemies and even assassinate them to take them out of the picture permanently. To compensate, for every kill, she loses one hit point. Eduardo can lift heavy items, Alfredo can disguise himself and use a lamp, Amelia can move into small spaces, and Agnes can use witchcraft. Like Leonora, each of these abilities has checks and balances.
Upgrades can help negate any character’s drawbacks. Leonora, for instance, can utilize a gun instead of having to rely on a knife or wooden plank. This allows her to kill enemies from a distance, even characters who are immune to melee attacks. She will still lose a hit point, but this is a vital upgrade, especially in the late game.
These mechanics are all fantastic, especially in the early stages of the game. The variety of different approaches you can take is something I always loved about stealth games, and the first act of The Stone of Madness excels at that. Another great example is when you recover the titular stone of madness and have a choice to give it to one of two characters.
Depending on who you pick, the direction of the narrative can completely change. Further, the difficulty and length of the story will also change, as will the characters you encounter. The options are a story that focuses more on exposing the corruption of the Church that has a medium length, or one that focuses on the Monastery’s past and the history of madness that has infected it. I picked the latter, despite its self-described “long” length.
Unfortunately, after this choice, the major problems with The Stone of Madness come into clear focus. After this moment, the game quickly turned from one of the most compelling indie games into one of the most frustrating.
A Maddening Loop
All of the strengths of The Stone of Madness are also its weaknesses. Throughout my entire playtime, I noticed countless issues that ranged from technical glitches to a lack of accessibility to an absurd difficulty spike. Starting with the technical glitches, to some extent, these are fixable.
The main thing I caught were several instances of lag that were so bad, that the game would move at a rate of almost one frame a second. At some points, the lag would be so bad, I actually got stuck in several walls and doors. The game even crashed so hard, it corrupted my save. Thankfully it was right after the prologue so I could pick up where I left off, but it was still alarming.
It’s hard to say if these are problems with the engine or something else. As mentioned before, I played the game on the Steam Deck, which The Stone of Madness is said to be optimized for. Hopefully, these issues will be fixed not long after the game goes live in just a few days. The problems that can’t be so easily fixed, though, are built into the game’s very structure.
The main issue is that this is not a game that you can simply pick up and play. For better and for worse, even if you lower the difficulty to its lowest level, the difficulty spike after the prologue is immense. There were several moments where I would be hiding in the shadows, out of a priest’s view, and they’d still find me. I lowered the enemy’s awareness to its lowest, and even then, I’d still be spotted within moments.
I should note that recently, I’ve been playing certain games on easier difficulty to reduce my stress levels. The Stone of Madness is a game where that is ineffectual, as I was always stressed out in most scenarios. It doesn’t help that the puzzles you’re expected to solve while under threat of being spotted are absurdly obtuse.
What do I mean by obtuse? Here’s an example of one such puzzle I faced: about halfway through the game you are tasked by a spirit to avenge their death by assassinating a specific key character. Like with any game, there is another option to solve this problem if you’re not comfortable killing this character: you can expose their crimes. I opted to try to do just that, and it turned out to be one of the most difficult puzzles I’ve ever faced.
According to the spirit, the evidence implicating the character in their crimes is in their office. So you eventually find their office, which has an attachment for a rope that Leonora can use. The only issue is that the rope doesn’t connect, so the next option is to find a key. I looked in every corner of the area to find this key, and I couldn’t see it anywhere. There is no indicator, nor any hints in the objective tab, or even a map for you to consult to cross-reference potential locations. It didn’t help that the area is surrounded by triggers for the phobias of every major character.
On a whim, I decided to try the rope again and it miraculously worked, despite not working previously. As Leonora, I analyzed every note in the office, looked through every drawer, and looted every possible object. With my head held high, I went to confront the character…only to find that the option to expose them was unavailable. I couldn’t believe it: I checked the same area again and again, checked to see if I missed anything, and still, nothing. So I assassinated the character and dragged them single-handedly to the destination.
This kind of logic applies to every single puzzle. There are lamps that can be used to open doors and they look almost exactly the same as most other maps. Certain puzzles will lock you into one solution with one character, such as those involving Eduardo and the planks he can use to make paths. Oftentimes, the way forward for a main quest is unknown. You can spend hours solving one puzzle, only to find that it wasn’t the puzzle you need to solve to get the item you need to progress.
The internal logic of some of the game’s puzzles is also bizarre. The moment I realized I could not progress for fear of losing my actual real-life sanity was when I had to use an item with a furnace. I had switched off one of the furnaces and didn’t remember how I did so (because there is no map), so I found another one. I took all my characters through to the area in question, had them sneak past, and equipped the item to the one character who could use a furnace.
My progress was stopped dead, however, when I found out that the furnace needed a key. There is no piece of history, particularly in-game, that implies that the Monastery would keep a furnace in a kitchen under lock and key. It feels more like difficulty for the sake of difficulty. Further, due to the technical issues and lack of any real accessibility, or even a basic quick-save option, The Stone of Madness will stress you out more than fill you with the desire to play more.
Unfortunately, I was deeply disappointed with my time on this game. Which is a shame, since the art style and opening act filled me with so much hope.
Great Style With Frustrating Substance
Over the last few years, I’ve come around to puzzle games more and more. Genres like horror that utilize the technique I’ve slowly come around on. Further, classic puzzle games like Portal 2 I’ve managed to beat without any reliance on a guide. In spite of my improved track record with the genre and my love of stealth and isometric games, though, I found The Stone of Madness to be a deeply frustrating experience.
Don’t get me wrong, I adored the art style. Plus, I loved the characters and the story. Even the gameplay is initially very fun. When I started the game, I fell in love with it and was intensely addicted to this prison break-adventure. However, that all fell apart after the prologue.
I’ve never had a game that has stressed me out so much because of its frequent glitches, infuriating puzzles, lack of any real accessibility, and internal logic that doesn’t make a lick of sense. Perhaps that’s the intent; a way to make you truly feel like the game’s five many characters. If so, that’s both admirable and absurd.
Immersion should not come at the cost of fun, and at the end of the day, I did not have fun with The Stone of Madness. It’s a shame, but this game is the epitome of style with a substance that is deeply frustrating. If you’re an average player who is stepping into the real-time strategy, stealth, puzzle, and isometric genres for the first time, I absolutely do not recommend this game. It will drain your sanity, and unlike the game’s characters, you’ll be hopeless to stop this spread of madness.
Disclaimer: Tripwire Presents provided Final Weapon with a PC (Steam) copy of The Stone of Madness for review purposes.
