Started off okay: Great atmosphere, nice game design, neat little puzzles.

Unfortunately, it fell flat rather quickly. Different story lines scrambled together with no real connection between them, tied to locations that also... have nothing to do with each other.

The game soon managed to destroy the carefully crafted (and honestly, pretty scary!) atmosphere by turning into a jump scare simulator half-way through.

And I guess we should also talk about the protagonist. The voice acting just isn't very good. In fact, he sounds close to tears at any given moment, his comments are annoying and often of little value. The devs seemed to know this, too, since they included an option to mute him. Which is pretty funny, ngl.

This could have been great but in the end, "Madison" is just another forgettable indie horror title.

'Madison' frustrated more than it frightened. Some of the puzzles are very obtuse so you're left wondering, at times, what the game is even asking of you. Layer on top of that the game's many glitches that prevent your progression but let you continue playing. This is a terrible combination. Sometimes, I would solve the puzzle correctly and nothing would happen in response. So, I would wander the entire house trying to figure out what I was missing. Then, so convinced I did everything correct, I'd consult the internet and learn, yes, I was correct, and yes, the game was glitched. Luckily, a hard reset was all that was ever required to get the game moving again. But damn you can't have puzzles this obtuse AND progression-blocking glitches.

I didn't think 'PT' was a very good game, so I'm not all that thrilled with this trend in 'PT' knockoffs. But there are indeed some very effective jump scares in 'Madison.' Close to the end, they are so frequent and so jarring that I swear I worried for the health of my heart.