Moons of Madness

Well, I just finished Moons of Madness in a single sitting. At about 4-5 hours, the length is nice for this sort of game IMO. As for the game... that on the other hand is a little more complicated to rate...
I enjoyed MoM a lot, and I don't regret the purchase. But it did fall flat in a few areas for me. Obviously I don't want to spoil anything so I won't talk about anything specific to the story, but there are definitely a few points where your character shifts from fairly intense moments of panic to very casual and almost cheerful soliloquy. The issue is that they are very jarring tonal shifts, because there's no passing of time between these moments, your character literally goes from gasping for air and fear of dying induced panic to jovially talking about his childhood within seconds. It really hurts the overall pacing for me. I also feel like the narrative beats were a little too telegraphed, and there weren't really too many surprises.
Overall, my biggest issue is that while there is a lot of Lovecraftian themes and notes that are very successfully incorporated into the game, they are a little at odds with the character and his actions, and it ends up feeling a bit like two different games were smashed together and sometimes that works, and at other points it feels very inconsistent.
I think if you are someone who likes to eat up any Lovecraft inspired works, you'll probably have a pleasant time here. Likewise if you are just looking for a nice horror story, you could do a lot worse (some of the jump scares in this were incredibly well timed). But if you aren't sold very heavily from the trailers, I'd wait for a sale.
EDIT: Just wanted to add on that the level design in MoM is, for the most part, incredibly well done. This is true also of the artistic direction. I personally found the music to be somewhat forgettable but that is obviously going to vary quite a lot from person to person.

Overview
Moons of Madness is a narrative-focused adventure game set in a future where Orochi, the largest multinational on Earth, established a secret research outpost on Mars. Players will impersonate Shane Newehart, a low rank maintenance engineer, whose seemingly routine repair mission soon turns out to be a maddening journey, amidst secret technology and extra-dimensional events.
This title does well in multiple compartments, delivering a good quality narrative-driven experience. First of all, the sci-fi setting of early space-age mars outposts is depicted beautifully and realistically, with great art direction and consistent quality in environment design, care about details. Mixing this setting with lovecraftian paranormal events, depicted accurately and following the "canon" decently enough, creates an involving combination both horror and sci-fi fans can enjoy. Secondly, also important for this genre, the story pacing is well done, alternating moments of action such as chase sequences or stealth sections with more calm, but still tense situations, more focused on reading the optional lore scattered around or solving one of the numerous puzzles. Gameplay variety is good enough aswell for the genre, offering varied enough situations to not become stale, adding QTE-based combat sequences, stealth, chases and plenty of puzzles.
This said, there also are some flaws to note: first of all, some puzzles are not very clear in explaining all of their mechanics, this can lead to frustration simply because the player does not know in full what can, or can't be done in a certain puzzle. Also, at times the progression could result excessively on-tracks and streamlined, with generally very few secondary areas to explore and no other side activities, even minimal, to do apart from the strictly "main" path.
Overall, Moons of Madness is a solid narrative adventure, nailing atmosphere, setting and story pacing, which are the core components for this genre, and also offering a varied enough gameplay to not become boring in the long run. Priced at 25€ by default, and offering 5-7 hours of content depending on exploration and time taken to solve puzzles, even with good content quality but no replay value, I would suggest to all but the most hardcore horror fans to wait for a sale before buying.
Rating:
Good
Pros & Cons
🔵 Pros
+ Excellent graphics, atmosphere and art direction in both high-tech and lovecraftian environments.
+ Varied gameplay offering stealth sections, QTE-based combat, plenty of puzzles, chase sequences.
+ Numerous optional lore entries to know more about the events transpired on Mars and the general setting.
+ Good quality writing, narrative and dialogues contribute in constructing a tense horror atmosphere.
🔴 Cons
- Some puzzles' mechanics are not explained / hinted at very well.
- Almost no side areas or other content (except lore entries) detached from the main path.
In-Depth Breakdown
🎮 Gameplay Analysis
The gameplay of Moons of Madness is divided into Exploration, Puzzles, Stealth and Action Sequences.
Exploration constitutes the majority of the experience, and is mostly performed on foot both inside structures and outside on the Martian surface, with the aid of a spacesuit, while at certain times also a rover can be used, but has auto-pilot and cannot be controlled directly. While exploring, players are be able to interact with computer terminals, documents and select items in every environment, and while some of them result critical for progression, the majority are instead additional lore material to have a better understanding of the setting. Given the realistic tone of this experience, oxygen depletion is a thing, but very slow and almost never a problem with abundant resupply stations - while fall damage, environmental hazards and other things can effectively kill you, restarting from the last auto-save checkpoint. Generally, exploring the environments is satisfying, lore is interesting and the atmosphere is good enough to make every new environment exciting (if not frightening) to explore.
Puzzles are numerous throughout the adventure, and mainly consist in logic-based conundrums such as assigning the correct values to an electrical system, re-routing circuits in the correct order, or making various shapes go right with each other by recognizing patterns. Other puzzles might also be about finding an hidden item, or performing something a little more outside of the box. The only problem is that some of these puzzles are unclear about what players can or can't do, and this can lead to frustration and over-thinking when mostly it was a simple, yet obscure solution.
Stealth sequences are found only a couple times, and consist in staying hidden from surveillance cameras and drones, while also disabling them temporarily with a special tool if needed. They are decently realized and a nice variation without particular issues.
Action sequences mainly consist in chase scenarios, where players need to run away from impending death, choosing the right path. They are not particularly long but definitely well made and involving, and again a nice change of pace. One particular sequence consists instead in a "boss fight" where players need to perform quick time events in order to deflect and dodge enemy attacks in order to advance and repel a vicious enemy.
🔩 Performance Analysis
PC Specs: RTX2080Ti, Ryzen 3900X, 32GB RAM DDR4
The game does not present any technical, performance or stability issue to note. No bugs to report. Using high-end hardware well within the recommended specifications, the game runs smoothly without particular issues. An option to individually remove DoF, Bloom and other post-processing effects would be good, as it is not possible currently, Bloom especially can be exaggerated and annoying. Given the excellent graphics quality and good environment detail, this is a game that would need at least a mid-range machine to run well, low-end or older machines probably will run into bad performance.
Final Thoughts
Moons of Madness is definitely a solid narrative adventure that merges lovecraftian horror with high-tech space sci-fi in a well done manner. Fans of both horror and sci-fi games definitely should consider this game.
This product was reviewed using a free key provided by the Developers
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Moons of Madness
Moons of Madness is a narrative driven sci-fi walking simulator with lovecraftian horror elements and rather simple puzzles. The story is engaging and it's a great game for 1-2 evenings in my opinion (an average playthrough should be around 5 hours).
You wake up on Mars after a nightmare and the day begins. On the same day, you are expecting the arrival of another spaceship. As a professional moron I started testing interactions so my character's breafast was 2 cookies and ~20 cups of coffee. After a hearty breakfast, you go to repair solar panels and you start to discover a lot of weird things at the base.
Moons of Madness is a high quality project and a very polished one. A really nice visuals, almost perfect interface, very polished gameplay, great voiceovers and solid story. It was interesting to explore base and to read notes/letters. Horror part didn't work out for me at all, even though I played in a completely dark room - I was scared exactly zero times per game. It happened mostly because I knew exactly what to expect in every moment due to "game design limits" I'd say. For me it's hard to be scared when I know for sure that nothing should happen to my character right now and I can stay in front of a monster with pokerface.
If we talk about the negative aspects of the game, then they are practically nonexistent. The game is not an outstanding horror (and indeed there is little horror here), as a story game it is also not too strong, puzzles are more like fillers, but all together they work well. If you recall those 20 cups of coffee I mentioned earlier, then it is worth mentioning an absolutely rail gameplay and the lack of some small gameplay details/interactions. Almost certainly there was some missed horror potential too.
And yeah, one thing really made me angry - when my character got wasted a couple times after jumping from 5 meters height. Mars gravity is 38% of Earth’s, come on.
Moons of Madness is a very good game that didn't try to be an outstanding one from my point of view. The game was made according to certain industry standards, just like high-budget Hollywood blockbusters are made, from which you can always expect some kind of minimum high level of quality but at the same time they do not pretend to be a masterpiece. Here is the same story. 8/10
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Foreword
You might want to check if completing Cyrano Story still results in a free key for Moons of Madness as this is how I obtained mine. The two are connected but completing the former is not required to understand the latter. It was a great opportunity to get my hands on this walking sim gem for free which is priced slightly higher than the average in its genre.
Madness on Mars
You know space is a really good setting for horror especially if you are alone. Just because you can communicate with your colleagues via radio you are still alone. The prologue already sees us exploring dark corridors only to realise not long after that this was just a dream. We play as Shane and our first buddy to talk to will be Declan. Instructions are given by him at the beginning and - as you guessed it - our job will be to solve some of the malfunctions present in this Martian facility.
Three things I liked, a lot: a small device called biogage that Shane needs to find first. It goes on our wrist and shows us all the important objectives, inventory items, journal entries etc. Scanning our immediate surroundings allows us to connect to various systems wirelessly (necessary to proceed) and this also serves as a hint since this shows us where to go or what items can be interacted with.
Second: the rover. Often we have to go to another building and commuting between two locations requires this little vehicle. You put on your suit, (re)fill your oxygen level, go outside, enter in the back, undress (remember to change the atmosphere!), drive, rinse and repeat. These short voyages also help us transition from one chapter to another.
The third and most important thing is: coffee. I am an addict and I loved the fact that brewing and drinking coffee is an option here. Need extra caffeine? Refill your cup in the kitchen as you'll have no more opportunities to do so later on! And this is also a thing where the game shines: the animation is very detailed. This includes everything Shane interacts with. Doors don't just slide open but Shane bends a little and uses their lever. Pieces of paper he holds close enough so that you can read them. Computer displays are also wide enough so that you can go through all e-mails. Attention to details is just superb in this game!
Cthulhu et al.
This is a Lovecraftian horror for sure. You very early on realise it. Fans of him will rejoice, definitely! As we make progress we face more complicated problems that require more complex solutions. The game has some very interesting puzzles and it wouldn't be horror without some chasing sequences. As calm as Shane's journey begins you'll be suprised to see how crazy it turns out to be by the very end.
Graphically, MoM looks great but perhaps it's a bit heavy on the effects. You can set some of these lower which also gives you some extra, well-deserved FPS (without you noticing anything). Back to the puzzles: some are a bit difficult but the game always gives you hints as to where to look for the solution.
In 8 hours you fulfill Shane's destiny and as an added surprise you get to experience two endings. Veni, vidi, vici as they say: MoM won me over from the very first minute I set foot on Mars!

Overall Score: 8.7 / 10

　
Quality
　　
9.3/10
　　
　　　Quality indie title (Norway)
　
Performance10/10Smooth as butter; forgivable micro lags
during a very short section of the game;
@ 60 Hz; 1080p + Very High, 4k + High;
(more technical details below the table)
Utility 9/10No bugs or glitches experienced; plenty
of settings; sometimes poor checkpoint
placement; minor translation mistakes
Controls 9/10Simple, intuitive controls; full controller
support but I personally recommend to
use kb+m for better FPP immersion; no
mouse support for the main and option
menus (might be just a temporary bug)
　
Gameplay
　　
8.3/10
　　
　　Short sci-fi horror walking sim
　
Challenge 7/10It's obviously meant to be a storydriven
game, yet keeps things interesting with
short puzzles & stealth or chase scenes;
some cheap instant deaths; no difficulty
settings; pointless, boring achievements
Content 6/10~7+ hours for a full, blind playthrough if
you thoroughly read all documents and
take your time to enjoy the story; no re-
play value besides a deep, timeless plot
or selfchosen goals (e.g. speedrunning)
Diversity10/10Diverse storytelling presented via flash-
backs, dreams, written documents and
audio communication; versatile mix of
puzzles, action and exploration; enviro-
mental changes; well timed plot twists
Immersion10/10The gameplay is perfectly merged into
the story & enviroment; straightforward
storytelling; believable sci-fi setting; no
side quests, collectables or other things
that could distract the player from prog-
ressing the story and the main mission
　
Design
　　
8.6/10
　　
　 　Focus on story and immersion
　

Visuals 9/10Well polished, aesthetic visuals overall;
thoughtful level design; neat details; no
excessively repetitive prop usage; some
minor, excusable visual flaws, whereas
that is already perfectionistic nitpicking
Sound 8/10High quality voiceovers (in English only);
good, yet somewhat too repetitive SFX;
subtle, well matching OST + BG sounds
Texts 9/10Captivating, complex sci-fi horror story;
few, but realistic, immersive dialogues,
which are not interactive though; many
text documents in various writing styles
Mapping 8/10Small, dense game world that consists
of linear levels due to scripted pathing;
story-driven backtracking is fun thanks
to changing enviroments and because
there's always a good reason to do so
Interface 9/10Immersive in-game UI elements in the
form of a PDA on the forearm or space
suit HUD; simple, well designed menus
Tested with:
1080p (cloned) / 4k; 60 Hz; Vsync: ON
custom FPS limit (30, 60, 120, 144 Hz)
Low, Medium, High (4k), Very High (HD)
OS: Windows 10 Professional, 64-Bit
i7-7700K, 4 x 4.2 GHz; 16 GB DDR4
GTX 1080 (8GB GDDR5X); 840 EVO
Xbox 360, Xbox One & PS4 controller
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I got Moons of Madness for free when I won it for completing the Alice and Smith ARG, Cyrano Story, like 17 times in a row. So I did get it for free but I also worked for it.
I'd class this as a horror walking sim with some puzzle elements. Puzzles vary in difficulty and the game is very linear but has a strong Lovecraftian storyline. It is a bit steep for me considering the playtime if I was to have bought this. So I definitely would suggest getting this on sale. With all that out the way lets unravel the slippery tentacles of the game and explore the infundibulum.
_____________
PROS
+ slow burn horror without (too many) jumpscares. Yes there are a couple of jumpscares but the game doesn't rely on these cheap shots. The base on Mars that you and your crew are on is creeptastic in places and the ambient sounds and dripping of ichor is plenty to keep a coward like me on edge.
+ humdrum. I love it when a game balances tedium and can keep it just fun enough. I really felt like The Martian and did not mind at all filling up my suit with oxygen, opening and closing airlocks, autopiloting a Mars rover, adjusting solar panels, switching out power cells. Sure it was a bit mundane but it was being mundane on Mars, which is awesome.
+ puzzles. You are not hand held at all when it comes to puzzles and I appreciate that. I really enjoyed figuring out through a bit of trial and error at what all the flashing lights did. You are after all pretty much the janitor with the lowest possible security clearance on this mission when compared with the other scientists.
+ Cthulhu feel. The slow decent into madness was well played in this one. You get flashes of mental pain as you witness the insanity going on in the base. You blur the lines of fantasy and reality. There are things you should not even look at.
+ and the award for best Production Logo goes to......Funcom. Seriously. That's a great one. The whole animation is a treat to watch.
_______________
CONS
- weird decisions. Shane, the character you control, makes some pretty weird decisions at some points which you don't really have any say in.
- hollow characters. I never got into or felt much for any of the other characters. Sure by the end I understood them and got their motivations and all but they just weren't important to me and for a game all about story, this is quite an important thing to be lacking.
___________________
So a fair 8 out of 10 tentacles for Moons of Madness. Gets the job done but it isn't for anyone who wants to run and gun their way out of a situation. You are weak you are mostly powerless and outnumbered.....just the way I like it.

You like the story and especially the written elements in The Secret World?
That game is for you.
You like well crafted ambiances and decent story production?
That game is also for you.
You like a lovecraftian creation where the authors won't rub your face with obvious references to a better material than theirs?
That game is also for you.
You like solid survival gameplay and/or challenging puzzles and/or "classic horror" (with lots of jumpscares and/or horrible/gory things all the time)?
That game is NOT for you.
You like replayability?
That game is NOT for you.
Is that game a walking simulator?
No, in the sense as you can die, while the gameplay is exploration there are "realistic" action phases (you're not an action hero, you don't have weapons, so you can only hide, sneak and run away, the few fights you get into are QTE. It's not "good" gameplay but it's not terrible either, it's "meh". Those phase are short, varied and logic enough due to the events progression that despite being a bit clunky, they don't overstay their welcome).
Do you really need no prior knowledge of The Secret World?
Yes and no, clearly quite a few things that are gonna pass you by (not anything major, pertaining to the main character or the overall story but if you have lingering questions that go "huh, what was that?" it's probably gonna be it)... but I don't think I should advise people to go finish an MMO for playing that game. Or any game for that matter.
That game is a 5-6h park ride. It's not challenging, it's not really scary either, but it's a nice little adventure. It's not flawless as far as pacing/movements goes but it's still solid craftmanship on a solid narration.
Is it worth the price it's at?
That's a very good and very subjective question.
For me yes (obviously) but I'm a big fan of The Secret World, so I'm clearly biased in that regard.