[h1]Overview:[/h1]
'[i]Depths of Madness[/i]' is a first person horror survival puzzle game where you play as an unnamed individual trapped on what I assume is a submarine or underwater lab running around collecting keycards trying to escape alive. As I guessed, the game isn't great and is extremely finicky to play for reasons I'll get into later. The plot (if you can even call it that) is barely existent as most of it is told through SD cards that can be found scattered around the map that detail the events that transpired within the station and what came to be of it's inhabitants. Although '[i]Depths of Madness[/i]' attempts to be scary, it doesn't only do an extremely poor job at it but it also does an extremely poor job at being suspenseful. Many of the SD cards contain audio of varying qualities to which some are hard to understand due to being so damn quiet. '[i]Depths of Madness[/i]' is one of many glitchy and buggy games littered on [i]Steam[/i] with a QA team that mostly sleeps during work hours.
[h1]Gameplay:[/h1]
Plays like your typical low budget first person indie horror game consisting of mindlessly running around trying to find things to pick up while also avoiding a monster. The main gist of the game is trying to find colored keycards that open locked doors that must be opened with keycards of the corresponding color. Luckily, all you need is one of each colored keycard to open all the doors. That being said though, it's still a maze and a half to explore and you can easily get lost around the submarine as most of the hallways look practically the same.
Controls also include ones that should aid the player with staying alive such as leaning and crouching. However, something I noticed was that if you lean into a wall, you'll be able to clearly see outside the map and other hallways and rooms inside the facility. Not only that but if you walk up to a door that doesn't open, it'll just jitter around like it's trying to open and you can actually fit yourself between the small opening while it's trying to do so. I actually got a bit too carried away and did this on a door that lead to nowhere and ended up falling into the black abyss of nothingness. I guess you could say that's my fault but how about just have an invisible wall?
The horror aspect is extremely weak and doesn't present itself until way later in the game. I'm honestly not sure when the monster shows up but it definitely caught me by surprise albeit not in a good way. It's pretty much a floating Kraken-like monster that hovers slowly towards the player in a very nonthreatening manner and if it catches you, the screen just fades to black. That's it, no death animation or jumpscare or anything of the sorts. It's extremely underwhelming and not only does the horror aspect let you down, but even worse things come after.
Now one of my complaints with the game is that the mechanics are inconsistent and extremely finicky to get to function. Just simply bringing up the menu becomes a task because it doesn't always show up when you press the "ESC" key. Not only that but it's bound to the playermodel meaning that when you bring it up, the character model will raise their arm revealing a pause menu interface. That sounds pretty cool on the surface but it's novelty quickly vanishes when you realize that you can only see the menu when you're looking straight forward. I'm not kidding, if you're looking down or up and bring up the pause menu, you will [b]not[/b] see anything and will not be able to click on the resume, settings, or quit button. I legitimately thought I screwed myself over but thankfully if you smash that "ESC" key enough, your character will eventually put their ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ arm down.
But the worst thing about the game is that there's no save feature and dying soft locks the game. Oh yeah, you thought you could restart from a checkpoint or even the beginning after you die? That's wishful thinking because what instead happens is that you get caught by the monster, the screen fades to black and then, you're stuck in limbo. The game doesn't load a checkpoint, it doesn't restart from the beginning, it doesn't even throw you back to the main menu which in itself is cruel. It just gives you the middle finger salute and bids you ado. The only thing you can do is Alt+Tab and kill the process. Now [b]that[/b], is pathetic. And since dying soft locks the game and there's no way to save it, I honestly couldn't bring myself to try again.
'[i]Depths of Madness[/i]' just isn't a good game from top to bottom and needs so much polish to even be considered a mediocre one. Despite it's attempts to offer a unique experience, it just comes off as a cheap, unfinished and unpolished game that did most of what it set out to do wrong. The only thing the game did [i]right[/i] was the title because this game sure did drive me mad.
[h1]Controls:[/h1]
Now despite all the backlash I gave the developers, there [i]is[/i] a redeeming factor to some extent and that is how they presented the controls. Starting the game queues up a rather amusing animation of an overly happy blue person telling you how to play the game and the tutorial even ends in fireworks! Aside from that, you get the standard controls for a horror game which consists of leaning and crouching. The overall feel of playing isn't good but the animated tutorial is enough for me to at least give the developers one point.
[h1]Graphics:[/h1]
Yeah, unfortunately the whole futuristic space station looking laboratory niche is getting old. It doesn't look any better than most [i]Unity[/i] asset flips and honestly could be one as well aside from the few things the developers threw in themselves such as the voice acting but that has nothing to do with the models and assets being used. Shaders are almost nonexistent and lighting needs a lot of work. It's hard to feel scared in an environment brighter than a sidewalk on a summer day and the world itself feels so empty and void of anything. Don't feel scared to throw some random props here and there as long as they pertain to the setting they're being placed in. The absence of any environmental depth makes rooms look far bigger than they need to be and just wastes more time for people playing the game cause they have to walk longer distances for literally no reason.
[h1]Audio:[/h1]
Also not good but something I can commend the developers for is that they actually were able to get people to voice act for the SD cards found throughout the map. Everything else however, you can probably guess.
[h1]Conclusion/TL;DR:[/h1]
'[i]Depths of Madness[/i]' is a first person horror survival game where you spend most of the time running around an empty underwater science lab looking for keycards to open doors that lead to more empty hallways and rooms. Horror aspect is extremely weak and contains no jumpscares of suspenseful elements that would remotely make the player feel on edge. The monster is extremely slow, is not scary in the least bit and actually [b]soft locks[/b] the game when it kills you. General controls and gameplay attempts to be unique but ends up being buggy, glitchy and assures no quality control was done throughout the entirety of the title.
