Moons of Madness
A mysterious signal has been recorded coming from the red planet. The message confounded Orochi scientists. Their analysts broke it down and determined it was of intelligent origin. Orochi management immediately concluded that the discovery was too sensitive for public knowledge and moved to keep it hidden. In secret, the corporation began construction of Trailblazer Alpha, a state-of-the-art Mars research outpost designed to identify the true nature of the message. You are Shane Newehart, an engineer stationed at Trailblazer Alpha and your security clearance means you are completely unaware of the existence of the mysterious signal. Your job is simply to keep the lights on until the transport ship Cyrano arrives bringing with it a new team to take over your duties. Soon you discover strange and unusual setbacks. Crucial systems are malfunctioning, the greenhouse is filled with a strange mist and the rest of your team has yet to return from their EVA mission. Things are starting to fall apart. You begin seeing and hearing things that aren’t there. Visions, hallucinations – or is that even what it is? Is this real… or are you slowly descending into madness?
Game Discussion
Steam User 10
A decent but short Lovecraftian-inspired cosmic horror story with solid voice acting and a pretty intriguing premise.
Definitely not a scary game at all, as they seem to focus more on creating a tense atmosphere rather than jump-scares or monster chases, which actually fit the narrative alot better imo.
Would recommend if you're into Sci-fi mixed with Lovecraft, though definitely only a one-time-playthrough kinda game.
Steam User 8
I truly enjoyed playing through this. The environment and game play is so fun and the feel of being on Mars hits differently. Give it a go for sure
Steam User 6
I've never had a monster during a chase sequence in a horror game stop and wait for me to go the right way before continuing to chase me.
Steam User 5
This is one of these games where a -neutral- review would be appropriate.
Its not bad enough to justify a negative rating, but also not enough good ideas or gameplay for me to blindly recommend it to others.
Pretty forgettable in summary.
Its a walking sim with a okayish story, but it is missing a lot of tension and suspension despitebeing a horror game and puzzles are pretty unintuitive or just very uninteresting.
Most mechanics also come up once or twice then never get used again, also there are no real rewards for creative thinking or exploration.
If you can get it on sale for 5 bucks or less, you can check it out, but you won‘t miss out if you skip this one.
Steam User 5
Solid entry in the Cosmic Horror genre. Your character is voiced, and talks to a couple other people through out the game, as well as talking to himself to kind of guide you along. There are some good scares and tense moments. There are 2 endings, and i liked both of them.
If you are into cosmic horror or Lovecraft, give this game a shot. It isn't a long game, so i would recomend getting it on sale.
Steam User 4
When it comes to walking horror simulators Moons of Madness lands right smack dead center in cosmic horror next to the likes of Conarium, only in difference being an outer space stealth, puzzler, interactive horror flick. It's not an easy game, it's not outrageously difficult either. You'll come across a few centrifuge puzzles the second of which you may bash your brains out trying to figure out. I didn't look up any guides, I just bore with it, sat there and figured it all out.
All in all it was alright, I had some fun. It's pretty decent. I didn't get caught up reading all the in-game materials, after spending a few hours playing the game I told myself hell no I'm not reading all that stuff. Glad I didn't cause by the end of the game I was ready for it to be over with, not a good or bad thing. It didn't last too too long. You can do much worse, trust me.
Steam User 3
"Moons Of Madness" is a horror game developed by Rock Pocket Games and published by Funcom, set in the same universe as Funcoms MMO "The Secret World" and it's 2015 Spin-Off "The Park". In the game, we take control of Shane Newehart, a technician stationed on a secret Mars base called Trailblazer Alpha. The whole project is financed by the mysterious Orochi Corporation. As we are waiting for our replacement crew, inexplicable technical issues occur and we start to experience increasingly disturbing hallucinations, so we set out to uncover the secrets of the red planet and the real reasons for the mission...
"Moons Of Madness" is a very linear, story-driven game that blends lovecraftian cosmic horror with elements of Science Fiction. It's mostly a walking sim with horror elements, where you explore your surroundings, solve puzzles and discover the back story by reading E-Mails and logs on various computers. While the story is quite enjoyable and probably the main reason that kept me interested, I can't deny the fact that it was a bit too much of reading. Especially during sequences where the game tries to create tension and urgency, it kinda killed the pacing and the atmosphere sitting down at a computer and reading four to five logs, going into the next room and finding another two computers with log data... Although the writing isn't bad and I read everything I could find, I noticed myself skipping through the texts in later stages of the game simply because I wanted to continue playing. On top of that, I felt like the many topics of the story haven't been fully explored. The game throws in a lot of different ideas and storylines, but they often felt underdeveloped and never get any real closure.
On the other hand, I really enjoyed the way the puzzles were integrated. They seemed daunting at first because they were presented in a very technical way, most of them became clear after fiddling around for a bit and the game always gives you enough help if you carefully explore the surrounding area.
What's also really well done is the atmosphere on Mars. Little details like managing the oxygen supply of your space suit while being outside or correctly using air locks before leaving and entering a building made me feel like a real astronaut stranded on Mars.
All in all, "Moons Of Madness" is more like a 5/10 game for me. I'll recommend it because I had fun exploring the story and there aren't that many great games that deal with cosmic horror, but it's definitely not a masterpiece. While the atmosphere is great, a lot of it's plot points are left underdeveloped and it felt like a lot of planned content was cut or not finished. Which is a shame, because I would have loved to dive deeper into this story and the mysteries behind it.