The Stone of Madness was provided by Tripwire Interactive for review. Thank you!
I first tried out The Stone of Madness at Gamescom last year, and I was pretty stunned by the gameplay loop. It's a stealth strategy game at heart, but some roguelike elements, paired with complex levels, helped it stand out in my mind. I was excited to see what developer The Game Kitchen would come up with for the full release and how these mechanics worked and evolved throughout the game. And while there are some frustrating bugs here and there, it ends up being a fantastic strategy game that really made me scratch my head (in a good way).
The story and overall charm of The Stone of Madness are only accentuated by its aesthetic, which is inspired by 18th-century artist Francisco De Goya. It makes the entire experience feel more unique with a very historical Spanish feel to it. It blends seamlessly with this type of game, and even the cutscenes, which are fully animated and static portraits, accentuate this vibe. My only complaint about the visuals is some of the UI and the text-only discussion scenes feel a bit dated or rigid; it all works really well.
With so many games being released, The Stone of Madness stands out. The haunting art style meshes exceptionally well with the darker story with heavy religious themes. It was intriguing to watch as our five unfairly imprisoned protagonists, who all feel wholly unique from each other, went out into the levels and discovered what was truly happening at this creepy monastery and the significance of the stone. I had no doubt that The Game Kitchen would be able to create a captivating, haunting atmosphere, as they have done with Blasphemous 1 and 2, but it is really on full display with this title.
I really enjoyed the story and appreciate that there are two campaigns to experience, depending on who the stone is given to, but I feel like it would have benefitted a lot from voice acting. There are some animated cutscenes with voice acting, some in-game scenes with speech bubbles and distant voices, and then text-only static scenes with no voice acting. The static scenes were okay but a little cumbersome to get through, but overall, I would have loved to hear their voices.
The gameplay loop primarily revolves around going to different levels to complete a set of objectives. However, there are multiple ways to achieve your goals, depending on the characters you bring with you. Each level has two phases: the day and night phase. During the day phase, you will choose your team and go out to sneak around guards, gather materials, discover and investigate clues, move objects, and plan your next move. The night phase brings you back to your shared prison cell, where you will craft new items you need, heal up, study books to upgrade your characters and prepare for the next day.
While you do have to sneak around and avoid guards, managing your abilities, how you use them, and making sure you don't go insane end up taking precedence. All of your characters have abilities that match their personalities. Alfredo, the priest, can distract people by giving sermons and investigating clues with his oil lamp, while Eduardo, a mute, giant man who has been imprisoned the longest, can lift and push large items.
While their abilities will be very important, you will also have to keep track of their phobias. Each character fears something specific that will impact their abilities and decrease their sanity. For example, Alfredo fears dead or unconscious bodies, while Eduardo is afraid of the dark. Luckily, Alfredo can carry a light, so you can keep them together to ensure Eduardo's sanity doesn't decrease. It adds an extra challenge to the already challenging levels but is still fairly easy to understand.
If you can't find the corresponding items you need, or if you just need a quick break to regroup and plan, you can end the day phase and head into the night. You can stay in the day phase for a little longer if you choose, which could result in less security, but there are ghosts that roam around that you can't get away from. It's risky but could be worthwhile.
During the night phase, you can use each person's nighttime abilities to craft new items, heal up, bring your sanity back, and plan what you will do next. Everyone can do different tasks, but they all have a limit on how many they can do.
I love the way The Stone of Madness' day and night phases work with each other, and it emphasizes a roguelike tone. Investigate and gather materials during the day, craft, heal, and plan at night, then go back and execute those plans to achieve your goals. The consistent going back and forth never gets old, and I really enjoyed how I was able to utilize each phase to complement each other. With a skill tree that can boost your team's abilities a bit, I found myself experimenting and changing up my strategies as I discovered what I had to do.
However, I did find a couple of issues. Controlling characters in the day phase can be a little finicky. It didn't always feel great moving around, and I did get confused when I was found when I had ducked behind a barrier. There were also a couple of times I was caught by a guard when I was sure I had pressed the button to knock them out before they got me. It was a bit of a nuisance, but it didn't happen enough to detract my fun.
On its surface, The Stone of Madness doesn't look like it would be that difficult to run. I thought it would be something akin to other 2D or 2.5D games that don't seem to use 3D assets. However, I was mistaken. At first, the game drained a lot more battery than I expected, ranging from 10W - 14W, but not long after, I encountered some levels that would be pushing the framerate and RAM more. Some levels would drop the framerate down to 45 FPS, while the RAM could hit as high as 11GB usage.
While the next course of action would be to limit the framerate to 45 FPS. It didn't really help with lowering battery drain either, and the game only has one quality setting to lower textures, which doesn't help with either the lower framerate or battery drain. It does have some stuttery camera panning as well, but this was fixed with V-Sync in-game turned on. There was still some slight stuttering when running around, but it was bareable.
With this in mind, I would say the best way to play is at a 45 FPS/90Hz lock with no TDP limit. Putting a limit brought down the framerate more than I would have liked, and the battery drain wasn't as impacted as I wanted, but it kept the game mostly stable while still feeling smooth. Based on how the game looks, these are more concessions than I would have liked to make, but it is still playable and enjoyable this way:
Accessibility-wise, you can change the font to be more legible, make it larger, increase the HUD size, and show skill controls. Outside of that, you can change text and audio language and volume, toggle rumble strength, and show tutorials and current objectives. So, if you want to make things harder for yourself, you can turn those off to guess what you have to do next.
The game does support 16:10 resolutions, though you may have to change it to 1280x800 in the settings manually, and it has cloud saves and controller support. There are no HDR settings.
The Stone of Madness is a fantastic real-time strategy game with a fantastic gameplay loop. It effectively combines strategy mechanics with roguelike elements to create an engaging experience I wouldn't want to get away from. I like how distinct the five protagonists are, both in terms of their abilities and fears and the amount of planning and moving parts required to get through each level. The controls can be a little finicky here and there, and I wish there was voice acting to spice up the intriguing story, but the gameplay, intriguing 18th-century visual style, and premise make up for these.
I do wish it was a bit more optimized on the Steam Deck. I did expect it to run better, but at the very least, it is still playable and enjoyable. This type of game is perfect for portable play, so I wanted the battery to last a little longer, but it's better than not being able to play it on the Deck at all!
Overall, this is a fantastic game worth experiencing, whether you play on a Steam Deck or not.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
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The Stone of Madness is a fantastic real-time strategy game with light roguelike elements, but it could do with a little better optimization on Steam Deck.
