Watch twelve minutes of Moons Of Madness spacey spookytimes
Space Madness 2: Moon Problems
In space, no one can hear you scream "Oh, come on, that flashlight is utter rubbish." Thankfully I said that on Earth, in response to Rock Pocket Games's slab of new Moons Of Madness footage. It's a decent looking slice of sci-fi horror - a blend of Martian isolation and Lovecraft-inspired weirdness - but I really cannot let that flashlight go. You can buy better LED ones on Earth for a fiver. They are somehow capable of emitting photons that travel more than six feet. Take an extended look at the game's opening exploration and puzzlings below, and try not to get annoyed like me.
I'll let you watch it before coming back to read my thoughts here...
Okay, you done? Right, so, it looks like they're going the traditional horror-point-and-click adventure route here, only in first person, with a rubbish flashlight that I shan't mention again. It's heartening that the player in the video picks up a crowbar, but instead of swinging it around like hyperactive science-monkey Gordon Freeman, they use it as an inventory puzzle item. Another thing I notice is that there are timed windows for reacting to radio communications. What happens if you ignore your annoying co-worker on the space radio? I dunno, but want to find out.
Beyond that, we see a lot of Martian station corridors - clean and spartan, less oppressive than the ones in Doom 3, but not too different in design. The computer screens you can interact with look similar too, though the personal wrist-computer used for spacey maintenance catches my eye. There's scanning and interactions using it, and I'm hoping this means we get to do some proper high-stakes engineering once it all inevitably goes to tentacle-town. At least, being set around Mars, we probably won't see any Deep Ones. I hope. Fishmen can stay on Earth, thank you very much.
Moons Of Madness launches this Halloween (October 31st), and you can see a little more on its official page, and on Steam.