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The Stone of Madness

Face Your Fears (Gamescom) - The Stone of Madness Interview with The Game Kitchen

We spoke with lead level designer Enrique Colinet to learn more about the next major game to come from the Spanish developer, which sees five unique individuals coming together to escape an 18th century monastery.

Audio transcription

"Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Gamereactor.
As you can probably infer by, well, this wonderful bit of artwork behind me, I'm currently with Enrique from The Game Kitchen to talk about your upcoming work, which is The Stone of Madness."

"Now, you guys have become really well-known for these sort of quite religiously inspired games, and I would say that The Stone of Madness falls into that bill again.
So tell us a little bit about it.
It's funny because when we started working on this game, when Michael and me joined the team, we weren't thinking on the religious term."

"We were thinking on the genre, like, this feels different to what we have done before.
And we were really, really eager to start working on something so different, so satisfying.
So it's so, I don't know.
It's just something that really inspired us to do something different, like really wanted to do something similar."

"Of course.
Yeah, carry on.
No, no, it's just that the religious thing is not something that was driving us, you know.
No, of course. I only bring it up because, obviously, Blasphemous, The Game Kitchen has become so well-known for it."

"And I also think as well that the artwork that you guys do and the art directions that you guys make is so, well, not unusual, it's so different.
And I think that that's represented again in The Stone of Madness.
So that's where I sort of brought that religious sort of comparison from it."

"But again, yeah, this is a very different game to Blasphemous.
It's almost a little bit like, I guess, Pentiment mixed with a little bit of Disco Elysium, all these different sort of games that come into the way that you've set things up.
So tell us about how this game works."

"What are players going to be doing in The Stone of Madness?
Okay, so you will be managing a group of five inmates that are locked in this monastery in Spain in the 18th century.
And there is something suspicious and weird going on."

"There's a whole plot about it.
And there will be two campaigns.
One of them is centered on what's going on in the monastery.
The other one is more focused on trying to escape."

"So there are two very different routes that you can take, two very different escape plans.
And it's up to you which one you choose after you complete the prologue.
So once you know what's going on there and you know all the characters, you decide how to proceed."

"That's really cool because people will have a very different first impression of the game.
Now there are multiple people in this back bit of artwork we've got here.
Now tell me about who these people are and how they differ and how they impact the story.
So we have a group of very unconventional heroes."

"We have Alfredo who is the investigator.
He's a priest who was locked in that monastery because he was digging too much on what was going on there.
He's a wise man.
He's the one who knows how to talk properly."

"He knows to read.
He's a sage, you can say.
Yes.
Then you have Eduardo who is kind of like the opposite.
He doesn't know how to talk."

"He's mute.
He has been locked in that monastery for a long time in the madhouse.
He can lift big things but he's actually like a child because he's scared of darkness, for example.
And Alfredo can help him with the light, for example."

"Then we have Leonora who we like to call her the green bird.
She's the one who likes to get into action and use weapons to hit guards and to incapacitate enemies.
Then we have very, very unconventional, super unconventional characters in this genre which is a kid, Amelia.
She can fit into really small places, tunnels, fences, and she's a child in a monastery."

"So she will have different enemies than the rest of the team.
For example, the nuns and the monks will behave differently to her because she's not a threat like the other ones.
But it's funny that they react differently to the other guys because they cannot get violent to a kid, for example.
And the last one is Agnes who is the old woman."

"She believes she's a witch but maybe she is.
This is why she's locked in there and she actually can perform exes to guards.
So, for example, if you know that a guard might catch you, you can cast an ex to that guard and that guard will trip over for unknown reasons.
And it's interesting because you mentioned the character that can, let's say, assassinate guards."

"Or, as you said, better words, incapacitate.
While with similar sort of games where you have to sort of move around enemies, you might want to go out of your way and just incapacitate everyone that you come across.
There's obviously a catch, right?
You can, but there's going to be a reason why you shouldn't."

"Yeah, we were really focused on making this game appealing for the absence of huge punishment.
Like, there's no game over in this game.
You have to face the consequences.
So, of course, if you kill guards and you kill all of them, at some point it will feel weird."

"So, when you start killing everyone, there's only one character that is capable of killing.
It's Leonora.
But Leonora doesn't like killing and she actually suffers every time she performs some kind of violent action over an enemy.
So, if you try to kill everyone, Leonora will suffer a lot and that character will become more and more difficult to use because she will unlock shocks."

"That's a thing that makes this game stand out in the genre.
You not only have skills, every character has different fears that they have to face and fears that the other characters can't help each other to overcome.
So, Eduardo, I mentioned before, he's afraid of darkness."

"So, another character can help him, like lighting rooms, for example.
If there is an act of violence, you can drag the body so Alfredo, who is the religious guy, doesn't see that violence and become more shocked.
Amelia, she's scared of statues and gargoyles and the whole place is filled with those things.
So, you can destroy them or you can maybe bless them with Alfredo."

"So, it's really cool how this creates a synergy between these characters.
It's not only about getting rid of enemies, it's also getting rid of what makes the characters suffer in that location, in that place.
Now, tell me about the way that you designed this monastery and the way that you used art to really convey this feeling of being in it."

"It stuck in quite a horrible place in the late 1700s.
Now, you guys are a Spanish developer and it's clearly very important that you represent Spain like that.
So, tell us about the art direction, the way that you did this authentically.
That's a really hard question. I was not super involved in that part."

"The Game Kitchen got really into this. I mean, it's our trend.
It's the thing that we enjoy the most, like selling Spanish culture, Spanish iconography, music.
So, it's becoming more natural.
We work in collaboration with Techwear Studio, who were the ones that led the original idea."

"So, there was a lot of work put by these guys at the beginning until we jumped and started working with them.
So, I don't know how to proceed exactly with this question because it's pretty tricky.
But yeah, of course, at some point it becomes natural when you are touching themes that are so ours.
It becomes easier."

"There are certain influences here that we share with Blasenor, for example, the painting of Goya.
There's a lot of references to Goya here.
The music, people will listen that it has some flamenco touches.
So, things like that."

"It's just something that we're trying to sell that the Spanish culture is actually something that can be pretty appealing.
And it's happening lately with many games that have been released.
Of course, we want to preserve this trend in our company. I don't know until when.
But we're super happy that, again, we are making a game so based on our culture."

"So, as a penultimate question then.
When The Stone of Madness does eventually debut, what's the one thing that you're really excited for players to experience for themselves?
You know, I'm going to answer something that scares me.
The same thing that I'm going to say."

"I really want to see people experimenting with the game.
And you know how scary that can be for designers.
I want to see how people solve certain situations in a way we didn't expect people to solve.
Because we are embracing that things can go wrong."

"And that's cool, actually.
That's pretty cool.
But we don't know.
The objectives in this game are actually pretty simple."

"Get here, talk to this person, get that object.
But there are so many ways to do that.
And so many things that can go wrong.
That I'm really curious about that."

"Alright, as a final question then.
The Stone of Madness.
When's it coming out and what platforms?
So, Stone of Madness is coming next year, early 2025."

"And it's coming to PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series and Switch.
Well there you have it.
For the time being though, stay tuned for your local Game Reactor region for more on the Stone of Madness.
Which no doubt we'll be telling you a lot more about."

"Because, well, I for one can't wait to hear more about it myself.
Thank you all for watching and we'll see you all on the next Game Reactor interview."

Gamescom

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