Oct 062023
Today’s game is a short indie horror game called The Recipe of Madness.
You arrive at a creepy house to conduct an interview, but find yourself locked inside with no sign of the interviewee anywhere. With no other choice, you begin to explore…
This is a short game with a handful of actions you can perform as you look around – you find a lighter early on, and using it to light candles is the most frequent form of interaction beyond opening doors.
There are a handful of puzzles to solve, as well as plenty of notes to find that help explain the ominous situation you find yourself in.
My one criticism is that it’s often unclear what your actions will do. After solving a puzzle or finding a key, I often had to run around to all the locked doors again to see what had changed. However, since it’s a fairly small gameplay area, that’s not too big of a problem. The entire game takes under an hour to complete even including time spent wandering. It’s also very dark (visually), even with a flashlight.
It’s creepy and atmospheric, with a handful of scares that made me jump. The Recipe of Madness might not be groundbreaking, but it was an enjoyable slice of horror as we get into the spooky season.
Doing things randomly and having to recheck to see what might have changed sounds like classic adventure game logic… At least the game is small and short enough to not be overwhelming when looking around!
Hah, yes. It wasn’t too much trial-and-error since there was generally only one thing you could do at a time, but it did tend to go along the lines of “All right, that probably unlocked a door somewhere, but which one?”
do you consider this game to be scary? i never really got into terror games/movies etc, recently i tried to play one named “nevermind” and i legitimately screamed out loud, something i hadnt done in… literally forever in my entire life
Hmm… I wouldn’t say it’s especially scary compared to other horror games, but it has a couple good jump scares.
Sometimes jump scares can be more scary than actual moments in the games, depending who you are I guess. Maybe if you’re a scardey cat like me D:
Everyone knows the true horror comes from all those candles you lit. They’re a fire hazard, you know!
Haha, yes. Although I think fire will be the least of the protagonist’s concerns now.
That being said, what IS the recipe for madness? How many cups of flour do I need? Do I need to go to the grocery store?
I think there actually is a note you find that lists the “recipe” for what the owner of the house has made.
Oddly enough I experienced the “not sure what that did” effect in Escape the Backgrounds. Half the things we did we ran around or backtracked to see what exactly opened up or changed.
Maybe it’s not quite to this effect but I usually hate that sort of thing if it happens too much :X
Yeah, that’s a frustrating feature that only really works when you have a very small, self-contained gameplay area. I prefer for things to be hinted at more clearly instead.