Sometimes it’s fun to just see what the heck is out there. With all sorts of games being developed all the time, occasionally something pops up that’s never been done before. It might be something spectacular like Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice. It might be Portal. Or it might be Source of Madness from Swedish developer Carry Castle and publisher Thunderful Games.
Source of Madness is unique because it takes a known formula and shifts it in a new and unexpected way. In Source, you play a religious acolyte (cultist?) and your goal is to fight your way across the land and discover the source of the horrific monsters plaguing humans. The plot isn’t incredibly deep but there are a fair number of fellow acolytes and religious leaders to talk to, the occasional random shopkeeper, and a few other folks about. The main focus here isn’t plot however.
This is a roguelike, where wandering out into the land means death and respawning for incremental gains over the gameplay loop through procedurally generated levels. Yes, it’s been done before and no, this isn’t what sets Source of Madness apart. What are different here are your foes. Source takes a familiar concept and feeds it…into an AI. The AI generates it’s idea of monsters and landscapes based on parameters set by Carry Castle, then tweaks them loop upon loop in response to your gameplay. Weird, right?
It’s a pretty wild concept letting the AI design the monsters and modify them at will every time through and since these aren’t things created by a human mind, they feel legitimately alien and strange. The entire level design and monster design feels subtly off in a weirdly uncomfortable way and that’s absolutely perfect for the concept of Source of Madness. An inhuman mind designing inhuman monsters that are plaguing humans is simply excellent. And since you never see the same thing twice, you never quite know what to expect. Most of the monsters are at least somewhat similar but some are utterly terrifying and none of them is quite what you’d expect. If you think John Carpenter’s The Thing meets The Blob you’re kind of on the right track. Don’t expect much in the way of symmetry and intuitive design here!
For all the creativity and pure weirdness Source of Madness brings to the table, it’s also got its share of weak points. For starters, the loop is a bit tough, with the progress being painfully slow and not always satisfying. Sometimes you only last a few minutes and bring nothing new back, other times you could play for an hour and just not do that well. To be fair though, this is a Steam Early Access title and it is still very much a work in progress. Currently, only the first act of the game is complete with two more acts to follow and significant expansions coming. But the loop isn’t the only thing that’s a bit odd in Source of Madness.
Playing through the game, you’ll immediately notice that the controls are a bit floaty. While the game is fully compatible with an Xbox One controller on Steam, it makes no difference because combat feels weird no matter what. Jumps are fine but actual attacks seem to land intermittently on the enemies, hits randomly send you flying in the air like a hit from a Skyrim Giant before the bugfixes, and you might kill an enemy in 1 to 2 hits one time and barely scratch them the next. While the enemies are weird, the gameplay itself is inconsistent, leaving you confused from run to run what works the best. Part of this is simply polish that may come with further updates, but the platforming definitely leaves a bit to be desired and tighter controls would be significantly more useful. Because the AL designs the levels, they always end up a bit odd, sometimes with jumps that are hard to make, other times with weird death water that was safe last loop but slaughters you in seconds this time. It’s not that Source of Madness isn’t fun, it absolutely is, but it’s also sometimes frustratingly random.
Naturally, the monsters in Source are suitably horrifying, but the buildings and backgrounds are equally weird and wonderful. The visuals feel kind of like an AI took an old parchment drawing of everything and incorporated that style into the entire world. Your home base is creepy and weird too, with random staircases taking you all sorts of places you have no business being, not all of which have an apparent purpose. There are altars and strange objects everywhere and you never quite have an idea of where to go and what to do. The soundtrack for Source of Madness is excellent too, slowly creeping up your spine followed by weird slithery noises that suck at the animal brain stem of your mind. It’s engrossing and disturbing and absolutely excellent.
But the one thing that Source of Madness doesn’t do is hold your hand. Where do you go? Figure it out, no one is directing you. What do you do? Kill stuff. Survive. If you don’t find the door to the outside of the temple immediately it might take you a good 20 minutes because the place is so big and nothing really tells you where to go or quite what to do. Eventually you’ll start to progress, but every time you die and bring your blood back to upgrade the loop, you find that everything is exceedingly expensive and it will definitely a lot of gameplay loops to build up to that marginally upgraded item or activate an additional dash.
For all its oddball weirdness, strange physics, and unpredictable level design, the Early Access version of Source of Madness is surprisingly fun. It’s a weird, slightly offbeat game with a dark flavor and a ton of personality and there’s definitely potential here. You won’t spend forever playing the early access, but it definitely takes a while to really start making progress and it’s a fun ride along the way. With the additions and refinements that are sure to come, Source of Madness has a ways to go but significant promise. This is a title to watch out for and the inclusion of AI design is a unique and interesting addition to the gaming landscape!
This review is based on a digital copy of Source of Madness provided by the publisher. It was played on a gaming PC using an I7-8700K with 16 GB of DDR4-3000 RAM, and an Asus GeForce GTX 1080 ROG Strix graphics card. Source of Madness is exclusive to Steam at this time.