Today marks the release of The Game Kitchen’s The Stone Of Madness, an isometric tactical stealth game set in an 18th-century monastery. Describing it simply as an “isometric tactical stealth game” doesn’t do justice to the harrowing journey of various lost souls navigating a maze of hellish Catholic art while avoiding guards and ghouls.
Similar to Commandos, you lead a group of characters with diverse skills, strengths, and weaknesses. However, in contrast to Commandos, your characters have sanity bars and a range of narrative-driven quirks and phobias. Lewis Gordon’s review on Eurogamer paints a compelling picture of the game, despite its somewhat unfinished plot and challenging controls.
My interest in The Stone Of Madness is twofold: first, because it hails from the Spanish studio behind the acclaimed Blasphemous, a chilling exploration of religious horror; and second, because I’ve been contemplating the historical significance of monastic orders in shaping modern European concepts of time. Philosopher Michel Foucault posited that the meticulous daily rituals of monks laid the groundwork for contemporary timekeeping practices. He described monasteries as “the specialists of time, the great technicians of rhythm and regular activities,” illustrating how they influenced secular society through schools, poorhouses, and eventually industrial workplaces that retained a religious essence.
Foucault’s notion of “monastic time” and its influence on structured activities can also be observed in video games, particularly in The Stone Of Madness. The game’s challenges revolve around a detailed day-night cycle, requiring strategic character deployment based on the time of day. This concept draws inspiration from an older Spanish game, The Abbey Of Crime, loosely based on Umberto Eco’s enigmatic novel, The Name Of The Rose.
This exploration of monastic time prompts me to contemplate its applicability to non-monastic games, offering an alternative perspective to the prevalent “game as a job” ethos seen in live service titles. I hope to delve deeper into this topic in the coming weeks. For now, The Stone Of Madness seems like a promising venture, with a Steam demo currently available.
