Doesn’t even mention the game title: The Stone of Madness

The developers of the game Blasphemous (The Game Kitchen) are working on a new game (The Stones of Madness) which is visually inspired by the works of Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, commonly called Goya, who did a lot of paintings but is perhaps best known for his unpublished (until after his death) “Black Paintings”, the best known of which was post-humously titled “Saturn Devouring his Son.”

The game is in the genre of tactical stealth, similar to classics like the Commandos series or the recent Shadow Tactics. In this genre, you control a group of 1 to 5 units each with distinct abilities to overcome obstacles, most commonly enemy guards patrolling for intruders, which all characters can also avoid by using various stealth-game techniques (hiding in shadows/bushes/behind doors, climbing things, knocking guards out and so on).

The author of the piece feels that the plot and setting are reminiscent of author Umberto Eco’s work, in particular a work called “The Great Escape” which I actually can’t find so maybe it’s called something else in English. His most famous work, In the Name of the Rose, is set in an Italian monastery so maybe the author meant that one, or maybe Eco wrote a lot of abbey-based mysteries? (Eco is also well known around here for the essay Ur-Fascism, which provides the most commonly referenced definition of what fascism is.)

I think the Goya influence is pretty apparent in Blasphemous as well, but I think the devs are broadly inspired by the art and history of Spain, because they live there.