The Stone Of Madness gets new story trailer
The Spanish monastery in question is located high up in the Pyrenees, and inevitably reminds me of Umberto Eco homageThe Abbey Of Crime. As with that Abbey, you’ll experience it by day and by night, taking charge of five characters with different skillsets as you probe the monastery’s secrets and search for an escape route. Time flows continuously, and the hour at hand determines the challenges and opportunities in store. The monastery doubles as a “madhouse” and an inquisitorial prison, which means it’s full of unsympathetic guards, but it’s much worse after curfew, which is when the resident ghosts come out.
The five prisoners form a Commandos-style squad. You’ll need to pool their bespoke abilities to prevail. Agnes, for example, is a witch with an arsenal of spells and other occult devices. Amelia is a young thief who can pickpocket and place traps. Alfredo is a disgraced priest who can give eloquent sermons to draw a crowd, opening up gaps in the area surveillance. Leonora seems pretty deft with a blade. There’s equipment and upgrades to factor in, too. While the aesthetic and premise suggest a more story-driven experience, this feels like a proper tactical sandbox.
The protagonists aren’t unfazable drones, however. Each possesses “a fully realized set of traumas and phobias” that seemingly correspond to specific areas and encounters, together with a sanity bar. Deplete a character’s sanity, and they may lapse into fullblown “paranoia, dementia, or bouts of violence, fundamentally changing how the afflicted character is played.“The Steam blurbrecommends that you avoid roaming around at night, because the monastery’s parade of spooks will quickly erode your team’s morale, but sometimes, of course, “the risk is worth the reward”.
