Cameras have a storied history in horror games from Outlast to DreadOut to the most popular example, Fatal Frame, there have been plenty of horror games that choose to deliver their scares through the narrow confines of a viewfinder. At first glance, Madison from Bloodious Games seems primed to set itself apart by making polaroids its primary scare delivery device. The ease of use inherent to polaroids translates well into equally easy game mechanics, which acts as an anchor for an otherwise unimpressive horror game.

Madison puts you in the shoes of Luca, a young man who finds himself in a post-P.T. videogame haunted house belonging to his grandparents, and spooky shenanigans ensue. Objects will materialise out of nowhere when you aren't looking, statues will switch poses when you're not looking, doors suddenly appearing when there were none, among other genre staples. Things get slightly more interesting when your camera starts playing into the scares, but not by a lot.

Very soon into your adventure, you start learning about a string of grisly ritual killings conducted by a witch named Madison Hale. The main thrust of the story is uncovering how Madison and these murders tie into your house and family. The core premise, while interesting, never grows beyond being an excuse to throw you into progressively bizarre hallucinations and scary set-pieces.

The house itself feels like one giant puzzle box, which Madison does its best to contextualise within the internal logic of its story. Like the best Resident Evil locations, the house feels distinctly lived-in, even when this get more zany and the game progresses. Pill bottles clutter the rooms in quantities suggesting conventional medication's failure to thwart whatever it was that was happening here, while more mystical speak to the family looking into more occult remedies.

While the house definitely feels lived-in, it rarely feels alive in the way that's required of a good haunted house. The air is abuzz with what I can only describe as stock creepy noises: creaking doors, buckets falling over, water droplets, crickets, you name it. This is particularly bad because Madison is one of those "walking simulator" horror games where you're rarely in actual immediate danger. So the atmosphere failing to conjure dread really hurts the game's overall vibe. Every once in a while, a monstrous apparition or a creepy face might shock you out of the blue while you're sneaking in the dark, but I'd hardly classify that as "psychological horror."

The only places where Madison really comes close to being something special, is whenever the camera is involved. At times you'll be forced to explore pitch dark rooms, relying only on the momentary flash of your camera to see what's around you. Every time you click the flash, there's a chance you might spot something dangerous or scary, only to then immediately be blinded by the dark again. In moments like this, I felt something resembling genuine dread, where the anticipation of a jump scare was as mortifying (if not more) than the scare itself.

Some puzzles require photographing specific objects to trigger environmental changes, as if the flash is burning away the veneer of mundanity from the environment. Objects of interest are marked to let you know to photograph them, but you can disable that hint system if you want (though I personally found the resulting trial-and-error more disruptive than fun).

More often than not, the puzzles in Madison are genuinely clever. Requiring you to use your camera along with a familiarity with the level design to find and use key objects and tools that slowly open up more of the house to you. They are also spread out evenly across the game to make sure you're never doing one thing for too long. The game lacks a helpful journal or recap feature, so you'll probably want to take notes if your memory isn't great. New routes and events trigger with very little knowledge once you hit certain invisible milestones.

There is an argument to be made that the confusion works to put you in the mindspace of the main character, but whether this is a clever bit of game design, or a total deal-breaker is something you have to make up your own mind on. The closest thing to a central theme in Madison is the constant push and pull between Luca's sanity and the unbridled chaos that Hale's action has unleashed on his family home. While Madison fails to coalesce into a satisfying exploration of that theme, it remains a mostly entertaining spooky puzzle game.

Madison is out now. Review code provided by the distributor.

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