The Stone of Madness Preview: The Game Kitchen's next work is more The Great Escape than Blasphemous

Spanish indie studio The Game Kitchen has become quite synonymous over the past few years thanks to their fantastic Metroidvanias, Blasphemous 1 and 2. The team has proved that they have a knack for creating challenging yet compelling adventures, but since the Blasphemous games are part of the same series the question is whether The Game Kitchen can excel elsewhere. The developer is working on a virtual reality board game title known as All on Board but also something else, a project I first learnt about during my time in Cologne for Gamescom. It's called The Stone of Madness and while it feels very authentically The Game Kitchen, it also reminded more of The Great Escape meets Pentiment than Blasphemous.

The Stone of Madness is set in an 18th-century Spanish monastery, a facility that serves as a mental asylum... or so it claims. The story follows five very different characters as they attempt to either escape the monastery or uncover its dark secrets and bring them into the light of day. The choice of which narrative you follow is up to you but once you start down the path of one you're locked into it and will have to restart the game to experience the other. While The Game Kitchen never explicitly told me how the two campaigns differ, you can expect slightly different narrative structures and events and puzzles leading to new major developments.

But anyway, back to the gameplay. The Stone of Madness plays from an isometric perspective and allows you to explore a strikingly animated world that feels like an 18th-century painting. Essentially, picture Pentiment if it played like Disco Elysium. With this in mind you guide the characters around the monastery, avoiding guards when you're in restricted places and using unique but straightforward skills to conquer and overcome challenges set out in front of you. Now, what are those challenges you may ask? Each of the five protagonists are in the monastery for one reason or another. Leonora, for example, carries a bat that she can use to eliminate unsuspecting guards; however she is also terrified of fire and cannot get near lit braziers. Eduardo on the other hand is a big fella and can use his strength to pick up big objects like a wooden plank to create a bridge across gaps, but the main issue is that he's deathly afraid of the dark and cannot enter areas that are not touched by the light. With just these two in mind, you can see how the character dynamic will affect gameplay, as there will be places where Leonora and Eduardo cannot go together, meaning you'll need to use one of the other conflicting characters instead.

As for what the puzzle solving and challenges will offer, a lot of the tasks revolve around reaching new areas by putting each character's skills to the test. The Stone of Madness uses a day-by-day feature where you can only use three of the five characters each day, so you have to determine who you will need for each day before setting out, and then utilising them to steal keys to open locked doors, find documents and information revealing the monastery's true nature, and gather items and tools that could be useful later down the line. It's a rather familiar setup that is almost Metroidvania in style as the whole design is about gathering intel and objects to be able to reach new places and uncover new sections of the story. But at the same time, it seems to be taking strides to focus more on narrative and storytelling in a way that Metroidvanias tend to struggle.

The main question surrounding The Stone of Madness will be how the puzzles and narrative structure is put in place. If it's too linear or rigid and leads to frustrating encounters and challenges then it will likely face many issues that the Metroidvania genre also faces. However, if the pieces are in place for players to explore and tackle challenges in the ways that suit them then The Stone of Madness could be on track to be an adventure of the same calibre and standard as that of Pentiment. As I only had a very brief taste of the game at Gamescom it was very challenging to tell where it will sit on this spectrum but there were a few things that were as clear as day.

The art direction is brilliant and highly detailed with that great The Game Kitchen authentic Spanish flair. The characters feel unique and compelling, and the overall plot and premise has fantastic bones. Oh and the gameplay, while touted as a tactical stealth strategy game, flows well and lacks the slow-pacing and stiffness of this category. There's definitely a lot of potential with this game and it's for these reasons that I'm excited to see more about The Stone of Madness and play it too. Either way, with launch planned for PC and consoles next year, hopefully it won't be too long until that day arrives.