(Just moments before the rover shut down, he was bickering with Orson about the musical merits of The Rolling Stones vs. Shane is a professional, stationed at the first research outpost on Mars, but he has a family life and a personality outside of being a scared horror game protagonist. “Being able to catch glimpses of Shane’s personal life while grappling with his rover’s technical issues, combined with the option to speak with Orson or ignore his transmissions, reminds me of Firewatch, with a little SOMA mixed in. After stumbling around the rover, opening cabinets and at one point finding a family photo of Shane’s, I figure out how to activate the arm-mounted scanning system Orson was talking about and identified the issue: faulty power distribution. As my character Shane Newehart’s rover comes creaking to a halt on the dusty surface of Mars, a voice over the radio - Shane’s research partner, Orson - tells me to scan it with something called a Biogage to locate the source of the problem. It’s possible to strike a balance between hopping from one scripted event to the next and trying to think straight enough to solve problems in the face of looming danger, and Moons of Madness seems to be on that path. More recent first-person horror games like Outlast 2 and Layers of Fear have largely ditched puzzles - a survival horror staple that I dearly miss - in favor of a haunted house-style approach. “What stands out to me almost immediately during my demo of Moons of Madness are the problem-solving elements.
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