You play as Shane Newehart, an engineer working on Mars. The game opens, as they often do, with him having a nightmare that teases what’s to come before you go about his daily life for a couple of hours. Naturally, some things-that-should-not-be show up and everything goes sideways. It may be familiar in a lot of ways, but Moons of Madness‘ story is very strong. The writing and dialogue are both excellent, and the plot kept me invested for its entire runtime. The best thing about it, though, is how hard it leans into science fiction, mixing familiar tropes with mathematics, chemistry, and botany.

These details go a long way towards giving the game an identity of its own.

So, whenever this type of game comes around, the inevitable question pops up: is it a regular game or a walking simulator? And, as per usual, the answer is “yes.” Moons of Madness is both an adventure game at times and a walking simulator at others. Shane generally has some specific tasks to accomplish, and these require more than just walking from place to place.įor the most part, I’d say it leans a bit more on the former than the latter. During the game’s first act, for instance, he has to go and recalibrate some solar arrays, as he’s an engineer.

This involves him finding the airlock, putting his helmet on, filling up on oxygen, depressurizing the airlock, and then stepping out onto the surface of Mars. He then boards the base’s rover and sets off for his destination. Since he is on Mars, these airlock shenanigans are a pretty common occurrence.

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