Madison Review (Stillhet)
TLDR is spoiler free, full review has gameplay spoilers & minor story spoilers.
TLDR:
MADiSON is a well paced, beautifully crafted, and terrifying horror game with an intriguing story and fun puzzle solving to boot. I highly recommend this game to horror veterans and people new to the genre alike. It's short, around 4-6 hours depending on how good you are with the puzzles, and some may be a little disappointed in the linearity of the gameplay, but the price of admission is well worth it to support these indie developers (team of only 2 who did the main programming & story) for the creation of one of the scarier and most polished indie horror games I've ever played.
9.25/10
The visuals of this game are beautiful, and the overall aesthetic is very creepy. The visuals actually somewhat remind me of Visage, but with the color grading and gross feel of Resident Evil 7 Biohazard. There's not too much to say here, other than the visuals do their job very well.
The sound and music is where I somewhat run into a problem with this game. Spoilers below,
The game's sound is overall pretty good. Nothing incredible or anything, but it does it's job. Where I have a problem is its used of randomly generated atmospheric sounds. These are used in a lot of horror games to set the atmosphere and keep you on your toes. Creeking doors, doors being shut, something falling of a counter, footsteps, wood creeks, ect. These are used to make you think that something could be near, and in combination with a stalker type enemy, can set parranoia that a monster or threat is near you. The problem is that these sounds happen so often, and sometimes in places where that sound would be impossible to be near, that you quickly learn that these sounds don't actually mean anything. For instance, there's only one part of the house where there's a refrigerator, and I was on the complete other side of the house, and heard a refrigerator slam shut right next to me, in the direction of just a wall. Things like these can quickly train the player to ignore these and that invalidates the purpose of these sounds being here.
As for the music, it's good. It's VERY low key, you rarely notice it, but that's fine. It does its job, though sometimes the looping is very noticeable. Not much to say here.
The gameplay is mainly puzzle based, with on rails jumpscares carrying most of the weight for the horror. This is a different type of horror game to something like Visage, which is more atmosphere and moment-to-moment gameplay based. They share similar puzzlesolving, but there isn't really active threats or stalker enemies like in Visage. The puzzlesolving is fun and not too hard, and the progression of the game feels very natural. It's overall paced very well, and its progression makes natural sense. I never felt like any one section was dragged out or too long. My final playtime came in at around 5 hours, which felt just right.
The story of MADiSON is an intriguing one, and the use of environmental storytelling is expertly done. You're presented with the basics of the story pretty early on, but then explore individual parts of both sides of the game's story through its gameplay. It's a great example of show don't tell done well. The ending is somewhat abrupt, but feels right given the games tone and how the story turns out. Overall a very solid story that motivated me to keep playing.
Overall, MADiSON is a fantastic indie horror game that's completely worth supporting. It has fun and engaging gameplay, great visuals, fantastic jumpscares, good atmosphere, and a great story. It's only somewhat drawn down by more simplistic moment to moment gameplay, overuse of sound effects, and a somewhat amaturish looking UI. Highly recommend picking this up. Support these devs.
9.25/10