During the second day of the Guerrilla Collective games showcase, Thunderful and Carry Castle showed off a reveal teaser trailer for Source of Madness.
This rogue-lite action-platformer is all about battling monsters in a Lovecraftian backdrop. The gameworld is dark and barren, with gnarled, bizarre structures and creatures throughout. Flames burn and bells toll in the distance. It's a very unsettling landscape and, thus, very appropriately a place for much madness - or the very source of it.
The interesting draw is that there will be "procedural monsters" - that is, there will be unique monsters on each playthrough, thanks to machine learning AI. In other words, the monsters could be learning how you play and adapt.
How will you fight them? With a myriad of magical spells, varying on attack ranges and patterns. There will also be some upgrades to bolster your character. You can use the blood of your enemies at magical altars to get new bonuses.
The world will also be procedural, changing on each run. So there will be plenty of freshness after each time you die, one of the key traits of a rogue-lite.
Source of Madness is coming to PC and Switch. You can play the alpha demo on GameJolt right now.
Still on the fence before you want to dive into the Source of Madness? Then check out the trailer below:
Quick Take
Procedural levels are one thing, but procedural monsters? That will be a very interesting element in Source of Madness, especially given how...frightening the enemies appear in the trailer. I do wonder how far they will go in adapting to your play-style versus only being randomly re-generated.
Ready to dive into a new Lovecraftian adventure of madness? Interested in checking out the alpha demo on GameJolt? Let us know in the comments below!
