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Source of Madness | Official Gameplay Trailer

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman


As showcased during Guerrilla Collective 2021, take a look at the latest trailer for Source of Madness for a look at combat, story, and the gritty world you'll explore in this side-scrolling dark action roguelite. Source of Madness is set in a twisted Lovecraftian inspired world powered by procedural generation and AI machine learning. In the game, you'll take on the role of a new acolyte and must uncover the cosmic secrets of the Loam Lands and The Tower of Madness, the moon's mysterious Citadel.

I like the music.
 

GymWolf

Member
Ok so played for like 90+ min and i love it.

BUT, it's not for everyone, it has a lot of physics based stuff that as you know, can get in the middle of perfect pixel gameplay, you have some trees that bend with physics and can trap you if an enemy step on them and you are underneath, the body of the largest enemies endure on the ground for a bit and they can trap you if other enemies are pushing against you (and in general enemies love to sandwitch you to block your ass), combat can be a bit of a mess in that way, but you have the teleport dash (with cooldown that can be improved by some equips) that you can use in any direction to escape any of these situations i described, you can't spam the teleport so you have to be strategic and aware of your positioning during battle, never get surrounded or trapped against the enviroment, the character has a doble jump from the start that helps a lot in dicey situations but if you are trapped by something solid you need to use the teleport, i already unlocked a second dash (ala hades) and i had a legendary piece of equip that granted me an additional one, loot is basically like diablo with random effects and different level of rarity.
The combat is a bit slower than your average dead cells\hades, at least in the first area with a non-developed character, i expect faster gameplay when you unlock everything.


You collect blood between runs and you can spend it in 2 distinct trees, one that amplify your arsenal of things that you can find (ala dead cells) and one for more traditional power up like the second dash or finding more money or new archetypes of wizards to chose etc. (you can spend money in the shops during a run to buy random loot).

Enemies are what i loved most, since their shape is mostly random with some base archetypes, their attack, patterns and movements are random aswell, so again, if you are the type of guy who wants predictability first, this is not your kind of game, i personally love being surpised by enemies, and it is not always in their favour, for example sometimes they are so big that you can use the environment to cheese them, sometimes they jump at you from surprising distance (even the giant ones and it is pretty hilarious), sometimes they fire projectiles at you from strange place because they have messed up limbs positioning, onestly this shit is super original and refreshing but not for everyone, you have 2 hours try on steam and they are well enough to know if it is your type of game.
their animation system and unpredictability remember me a bit of rain world.


You can cut their random limbs to reduce their movements\attack options (pretty neat) and i'm pretty sure that i killed a couple of enemies by destroying part of the scenery that crumbled on them, so like i said, physics and unpredictability during combat, the game also has some nice gore\ragdoll when enemies dies or when you cut their limbs\parts.

Controls are a bit floaty, but they are not bad, you need to get used a bit, you can move in one direction with a stick and aim 360° with the other stick, you can equip 2 different attack that you can use with the triggers, so you can like walk in one direction and spamming your melee in the other direction against enemies that follows you or with ranged stuff you can jump in the air and rain a barrage of fire underneath you, X or square for the estus flask, lb and rb for traps and gadget that you can equip with a cooldown and circle or B for the teleport dash.

The game is magic based and mostly ranged stuff, i only discovered one type of melee attack for now, almost any magic has like 2-3 light attack and a final attack that deal more damage and sometimes is slower OR a charge mechanic where you shot more projectiles if you keep the button pressed for a longer time, and you have different elements like arcane, ice, thunder, fire, venom etc.


The locations are mixed handmade\ai generated so you always see some new weird shit with eyes, tentacles, meat structures and shit, very atmospheric, readability of where you can go or jump get fucked a bit by this art choice but after a while you get the patterns down and it gets easier, like i said many times, if you search a game where you can always read the situation perfectly at any given moment, this is not a game for you, and i think that it is on purpose, they try to simulate the visual confusion that a lovecraftian world would look like.


Maybe wait for the official release to see if they are gonna fix some flaws in a couple of weeks from now, but if you have the itch right now, the game seems almost complete and perfectly playable (and relatively full of content).

I think that the first hour when you are still getting the gist of the game is the worse, but it gets far better the more you play and learn, with steam you have 2 hours try and they are enough imo.
 
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GymWolf

Member
4 hours in, i'm really loving the game.

If you wanna watch some gameplay, search something older than 1 april 2022, they released a big patch that day with a lot of improvements for enemy movements and readability.
 
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GymWolf

Member
So uh just wanted to say that i'm already at like 11-12 hours with this thing, very addicting.

I unlocked the spider web and now i'm gluing mofos between them or on the ground, super fun.
 

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman


On the whole, Source of Madness doesn’t provide enough of the benefits of a roguelite to stand out from a crowded field of its peers. While it has some good ideas to take influence from other games and media to build in a new take on procedural generation, it doesn’t nail the core gameplay, nor does it really capitalize on the strengths of its new ideas.

The act of playing Source of Madness is a lot less exciting than the ideas behind it, and while I think there are building blocks for the future, there isn’t enough of a reason to recommend it over other, better roguelites.
 
I'm enjoying this, played the demo on pc and picked it up on psn. It has a lot of rough edges, and the combat is messy but in a fun way.
It suffers from existing in a post-Noita world.
 
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