It's tough to tell sometimes what tone Moons of Madness are going for, but there are bits scattered around the game that give you some clues. Some elements drive home what kind of game the developers wanted this to be. It's a small character moment that shows there's more depth to what's being presented than you might realize. Later, when you come across his journal, you find out that he's terrified that a witch is watching him. Another small story moment that I appreciated was when another character, Declan, joked about there being witches on Mars to Shane.

There are moments, for example, where Shane has learned something horrible or seen something traumatic, and his hands shake or interact with objects in a more panicked manner. Plus, it also means there's more room to pay attention to tiny details, specifically with the story and animation.

Since the game is only five hours long, keeping things simple was necessary to keep it from being too dense (whether the game succeeds is another story). Since there isn't any combat and gameplay is limited in most other capacities, it is easy to get a hold of what you need to do quickly. Occasionally, you have to sprint to get away from creatures that are chasing you, but as I'll get into in the next part, these are simple and short segues, mostly used to get you from one section to another. Most involve walking around looking for pieces and then correctly combining them to activate the next phase of the game. The developers combine the limited mechanics to create puzzles, which serve as the main interactivity point for the player. Moons of Madness is a deceptively simple game.

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