Ever since P.T. was shown and canceled it set a new standard for survival horror games. Silent Hill has always been the gold standard to live up to and many games have since. MADiSON is one of the first games I've played in the style of P.T. to actually be good and pull off the scares and atmospheres. While not inherently as frightening as P.T. or other horror games it definitely gets across a dark and haunting atmosphere with plenty of scares.

The game starts out really solid but also has foreshadowing of the game's main weakness. You start out in a dark room with just a TV on and your dad pounding on a door. You need to use the TV as a flashlight by spinning it around and finding a handle to a cupboard on the wall to get a hammer. You get to crawl your way into the rest of the house which acts as the main area you will be solving puzzles. Madison is all about puzzle solving as that's all you do. The first half of the game can be solved fairly easily. It's the same affair of examining everything you can and finding that one thing you can pick up and can use on something you remembered it would go to. A lot of finding and matching at the beginning. In between, there is the main gameplay mechanics which involved a Polaroid camera. A Camera Obscura isn't unusual in horror games. The entire Fatal Frame series is based around one, but here it's used to advance the story. There are Polaroids laying around objects you can photograph. When you do you can shake the photo to expose it. While most photos don't need this some need to be exposed to show a number for a combination lock.

I have to give the developers credit for the great layout of the house. This is a huge issue with a lot of horror games. Many require tons of backtracking through the same area and they grow as you unlock new areas. The house in Madison is well laid out with lots of landmarks to memorize where certain things are. I knew the main starting point with the "ritual area" was past the dining room. The basement was in the main hallway etc. The house is laid out like all horror games should be laid out. Make it memorable with easy landmarks because you trek through the house probably hundreds of times. Most of the rooms hold puzzle areas or transport you to new areas to solve puzzles. You also have an 8-item inventory limit and need to trek to your safe often to store and pick up items. Outside of occasional scripted events, not much happens in the house outside of sounds. There is one scene in a water-filled basement that was probably the scariest in the whole game. The developers really used audio to spook the crap out of you and draw out many fears people would have. Creepy static on radios with unclear voices is haunting.

When you're wandering around the house nothing happens in between puzzles. Just a lot of squeaking doors, wind blowing, slamming doors, etc. There's Luca's breathing that gets annoying as his deep sighs repeat often, but the house itself is just haunting. The sterile lighting, the ultra-realistic look to the house, and the head bobbing. If you played the P.T. demo you know what I'm talking about. This is the new-age horror style that needs to get perfected and Madison definitely sets a new bar. Here's where things take a bit of a dive. Halfway through when you get to the infamous candle puzzle area in the church many players may turn the game off. You must find four different candles in two different time periods and match those colors that are associated with religious imagery. You also have to navigate through four different mazes and if that candle's image isn't there you have to backtrack, go back to the other time period, navigate the same maze again, then repeat this three more times. The one thing the game doesn't tell you is that if you listen to the confessional too early a ghost stalks you and can kill you if you don't place the candle down before he shows up. Thankfully he only exists in one time period. I was able to place the first three candles before doing the last one, but many players won't know this.

Then there's the clock face puzzle. You must match clock faces that are shown on five different walls but the correct faces are spread out around the house. It's a lot of memorization and backtracking. And then there's the Blue Knees ghost puzzle that was incredibly frustrating at the very end. None of this spoils the story, but the last half of the game will really try players' patience. The game got so much right up until this point and it felt like filler to stretch a 2-hour game into 5. Horror game developers please listen. You don't need insanely mind-bending puzzles to be a good game. I know this is a trope, but please stop it. No one liked them 25 years ago and no one likes them now. We play horror games for the atmosphere, scares, and intense scenes, not puzzles.

In the end, the story itself is open to self-interpretation. It's not obvious or clear when the credits roll about what happens to Madison or Luca, but what is obvious are the possible reasons why the ending occurred the way it did. Props to the developers for making an open-ending without being cryptic or making no sense. The visuals are excellent and the production values are up there, but those later half puzzles really bring the game down quite a bit. If you can push past them you're in for a treat with this being one of the best horror games in recent years.

Em resumo, Madison apresenta uma boa experiência e cumpre com o propósito de entregar puro terror. Contudo, mesmo que o game não alcance todo o seu potencial em algumas escolhas narrativa, ainda assim, toda a ambientação e atmosfera compensam a jornada.

Porém, é preciso ter em mente que o jogo não é perfeito, tendo alguns problemas no gameplay, por exemplo, a interação de objetos. Como resultado, isto pode frustrar alguns jogadores e dependendo do cenário, atrapalhar a progressão. Por fim, mesmo não sendo perfeito, Madison entrega uma jornada aterrorizante e em simultâneo, agradará os fãs do gênero.

Started off okay: Great atmosphere, nice game design, neat little puzzles.

Unfortunately, it fell flat rather quickly. Different story lines scrambled together with no real connection between them, tied to locations that also... have nothing to do with each other.

The game soon managed to destroy the carefully crafted (and honestly, pretty scary!) atmosphere by turning into a jump scare simulator half-way through.

And I guess we should also talk about the protagonist. The voice acting just isn't very good. In fact, he sounds close to tears at any given moment, his comments are annoying and often of little value. The devs seemed to know this, too, since they included an option to mute him. Which is pretty funny, ngl.

This could have been great but in the end, "Madison" is just another forgettable indie horror title.

'Madison' frustrated more than it frightened. Some of the puzzles are very obtuse so you're left wondering, at times, what the game is even asking of you. Layer on top of that the game's many glitches that prevent your progression but let you continue playing. This is a terrible combination. Sometimes, I would solve the puzzle correctly and nothing would happen in response. So, I would wander the entire house trying to figure out what I was missing. Then, so convinced I did everything correct, I'd consult the internet and learn, yes, I was correct, and yes, the game was glitched. Luckily, a hard reset was all that was ever required to get the game moving again. But damn you can't have puzzles this obtuse AND progression-blocking glitches.

I didn't think 'PT' was a very good game, so I'm not all that thrilled with this trend in 'PT' knockoffs. But there are indeed some very effective jump scares in 'Madison.' Close to the end, they are so frequent and so jarring that I swear I worried for the health of my heart.

Juego que bebe hasta la arcada del legado que dejó la demo de PT y que, a mi parecer, consigue replicar con bastante éxito esa atmósfera de incertidumbre y desasosiego que impregnaba a la obra de Kojima. El problema es que falla en todo lo demás, sobre todo teniendo en cuenta que en la contraportada el juego se vende a si mismo como una obra de "terror psicológico".

Da lástima, porque el juego teniendo la increíble atmósfera que tiene y siendo tan ambiguo con sus puzzles que requieren de hacer backtracking constantemente, podría haber dado para crear diferentes situaciones terroríficas dentro de la misma casa que, aún y teniendo un escenario acotado, le hubiera dado una gran variedad al desarrollo. El problema es que el juego no pone de su parte en este aspecto, y a dicha orgasmenate puesta en escena le acompaña un festival de jumpscares tan perezosamente ejecutados que si pones la música de "Los coches chocones" de fondo, podría tratarse de un recorrido en el tren de la bruja de mi pueblo. Literal que no exagero, los fantasmas aparecen de la nada, sin animación ninguna, con un sonido fuerte a modo de jumpscare y el juego con eso pretende no perder tu atención mientras estás haciendo los puzzles, cosa que se traduce, más que en miedo, en hastío.

Y hablando de los puzzles, he visto gente que se ha quejado de la ambigüedad de estos, a mí sinceramente me ha parecido la parte fuerte del juego, se me han hecho muy divertidos de desentrañar y me han parecido muy coherentes respecto la premisa del juego, que podríamos decir que se trata en seguir la corriente y jugar al macabro juego de un demonio que te intenta romper. El problema es que esta ambigüedad mecánica es muy disonante con la narrativa del juego, que ESTÁ OBSESIONADA en sobreexponerte conceptos, por si acaso no los has entendido hasta el punto que el gilipollas del protagonista repite todo lo que está ocurriendo en pantalla como si fuera un personaje secundario de "Dragon Ball". Un problema del cual los desarrolladores son muy conscientes, ya que han incluido una opción para desactivar dichos comentarios JAJAJA. Oye, al menos hay que aplaudir que se hayan tomado la molestia de añadir esa opción, pero al final es un parche que su existencia hace todavía más patente si cabe un problema intrínseco a la narrativa del juego.

Además, fuera del tema del protagonista, al final la historia una vez la dilucidas (que realmente no es tan compleja y acabarás atando los cabos si o sí por el problema de sobreexposición que habíamos comentado) está muy fragmentada y se siente como tres historias segmentadas que no tienen mucho que ver en realidad. Vamos, que al final es contraproducente sobreexponer tanto la narrativa al jugador para que este acabe encontrando una historia tan descuidada y poco cohesiva entre sí. Creo que puestos a hacer una historia así de poco atada y perezosa, hubiera sido mejor tirar por una narrativa más ambigua y sencilla, que estuviera en segundo plano y que funcionara más como lore que como cualquier otra cosa, para así camuflar un poco lo fragmentada que está en realidad y de paso para ser un poco más coherente en conjunto con su apartado mecánico.

Y ya que estamos tocando el tema de las mecánicas, un problema en este ámbito que se hace muy evidente desde el vamos y que rompe el ritmo de juego constantemente: el límite de objetos en el inventario. No es solo que carezca de sentido porque esto no es un survival horror y no está centrado en la gestión de recursos para tu supervivencia, es que además, es una mecánica que no tiene otro fin que romper los huevos al jugador y entorpecer el ritmo del juego para alargarlo artificialmente. Por ejemplo, no es extraño encontrarte en medio de un puzzle interesantísimo el cual estás completamente concentrado en resolver para darte cuenta de que no te queda espacio en el inventario y tener que dejarlo a medias para volver al baúl a dejar los objetos que te sobran (con ochocientos jumpscares por el camino más perezosos que un andaluz un domingo por la mañana, por cierto) y al volver no acordarte ni lo que estabas haciendo y estar ya completamente fuera de onda. El juego creo que tiene bastantes aristas que pulir, pero creo que este fallo es el más sangrante de todos y por suerte, uno que no creo que sea tan difícil de arreglar añadiendo un inventario infinito.

Fuera de esto, me ha gustado bastante, me lo he pasado bastante bien con Madison. Su ambientación me ha tenido absorbido (excepto cuando el inventario me ha sacado de ella, pero bueno) y me ha gustado que los puzzles no te traten como si fueras gilipollas. También me ha parecido bastante interesante el final, ya que después de tanta sobreexposición innecesaria se atreve al final a hacer algo ambiguo pero a la vez coherente con las semillas narrativas que el juego ha ido plantando.
Vamos, que no todo es malo, es un juego competente y con bastante personalidad, se nota que está hecho con cariño por sus desarrolladores, que siendo solo dos personas, (y encima panas argentinos) considero que tienen un futuro brillante por delante en la industria, pero es eso, siendo una obra novel, hay aspectos que pulir por delante de cara a su siguiente proyecto.