The nonsense of Hello Neighbor killed any mystery or fear of the weirdo who lives next door within the second hour of trying to figure out how to use a magnet to control a shark. I have a love/hate relationship with puzzles in video games, and especially when it comes to horror. These all come early on and promise a supremely scary ride to follow, so it’s a shame that the game then decides to limit the horror itself and focus on being more of a puzzler. Featuring several well-executed jumpscares, Moons of Madness has a handful of truly unsettling moments, such as a veiled creature appearing behind you or a monster stalking you through vents. You may be left gasping for other reasons, however, at least initially.
You have a finite air supply that you have to replenish often in a similar vein to Narcosis, though while that survival horror made oxygen the biggest scare, you will seldom be left gasping in Moons of Madness. You need to equip a suit to beforehand, otherwise you will succumb to the oxygen-less surface of Mars very quickly.
You venture around the station, unlocking doors and drinking coffee before eventually venturing outside. The first hour or so of Moons of Madness is a quaint adventure designed to introduce you to the game’s unique approach to life on Mars. This is slightly more cumbersome than it should be sometimes, you just trying to find the objective marker often resulting in you accidentally connecting to some tech instead. Using a device strapped to your wrist called a biogage, you must scan the environment for clues and connect to certain systems, such as a security camera or a water reclaiming unit, to uncover just what is going on. This is no adaptation of The Martian as potato growing is sadly absent from the gameplay, but rather a descent into madness that is tonally and mechanically hit and miss.Īs mainly a pacifist horror, it’s not as simple as going around Mars and shotgunning away the tendrils - you are just a simple researcher, after all. After a troubling dream, Shane awakens to find that something is going very wrong. Moons of Madness is a horror game from Rock Pocket Games that puts you in the weighty space shoes of Shane Newehart, an engineer under the employ of the shadowy Orochi organisation to look after an outpost on Mars. Call of Cthulhu and The Sinking City are just two games that have recently paid homage to the actually rather dodgy author, so how do you make something Lovecraftian that stands out at this point? It’s simple: set it on Mars. Lovecraft is getting around a lot these days, isn’t he? Despite never being as popular and well-known as the likes of Shelley and Stoker, his creations have been the source of many more adaptations and nods over the last few years than either of those two.
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