The Stone of Madness is a real-time tactical stealth game set in an 18th-century Spanish Monastery. Located in the Pyrenees, this time-worn Jesuit monastery is home to a madhouse and an inquisitorial prison. Five prisoners - plagued by cruel punishment, madness, and despair - pool their skills and resources to face their phobias, stave off insanity, uncover the mysteries of the Monastery, and find a way to escape...

Sneak past guards and gather material that will help you move forward

In The Stone of Madness you take control of a group of prisoners as they attempt to escape their prison. However, escaping such a well-guarded monastery is no easy task, but Agnes, Leonora, Eduardo, Amelia, and Alfredo, between them, have the skills to pull it off.

You start the game with just the one character and the early stages see you learning the basics of the game, whilst slowly freeing each of the other four members of your group. This allows you to easily get to grips with each character's skills so that once you have freed them all you can quickly weigh up which of them will be suitable to tackle future obstacles and challenges.

You must control all five characters, using use their unique upgradable skills to cast spells, assassinate targets, distract enemies, stun evil spirits, explore hard-to-reach areas, and more. Explore your surroundings and combine the characters’ abilities to find clues and tools scattered throughout the monastery. Be careful though, if you’re caught being somewhere you shouldn’t be, the guards will not be kind.

Each playable character has their own set of traumas and phobias. Triggering these traits depletes a character’s sanity, ultimately triggering a traumatic event with negative effects such as paranoia, dementia, or bouts of violence; fundamentally changing how the afflicted character is played.

Control of a group of prisoners as they attempt to escape their prison

The game is, first and foremost, a stealth game. The main aim is to sneak past guards and gather material that will help you progress even further. During the day, guards are your main concern, but in the night hours, paranormal beasties are your main problem.

The paranormal inhabitants of the Monastery pose a threat to each characters’ sanity. Each character has their own phobias which you'll need to discover and then manage to ensure that you don't wind up accidentally getting caught as you creep around.

It's a challenging, engaging game. A little more story would have helped set the scene a little, but as stealth games go this is an enjoyable offering.

7

Nick Smithson