1. INSIDE shows a mastery of design that is rarely seen in any genre. There are a lot of "cute thing in a scary world" type platformers these days-- at least partly because of the success of Playdead's earlier game, LIMBO--but none of these create the mood and experience those games seek to quite so well as INSIDE.
2. You play as a small child. Your goal, as ever it is in gaming, is to head right towards some distant goal. Along the way, you are tormented by
vile dogs, cops and all manner of wretched and deadly machinery.
3. The ambiance is terribly bleak. Sound effects are sparse and music doesn't start until you start thinking there is going to be no music at all.
4. One way INSIDE pushes its mood is through repeatedly portraying the violence done to your small, child character. When your child is killed, your child is killed brutally. I figured this
would get gratuitous but I found these scenes never lost their impact to
me even toward the end of the game.
5. This gets me to what makes INSIDE special: it manages pacing exceptionally well so moments that are supposed to have an impact really do. Gameplay
is a mix of puzzle solving, bursts of action and a little bit of just
going from point to point. It plays these elements off each other,
building a compelling sense of tension and relief that pushes the game
forward constantly w/o feeling relentless, repetitive or exhausting.
6. The puzzles constitute the main portion of gameplay challenge and even
when you are in the more action and platforming oriented sections, there
is a typically a puzzle element to it. These are designed such that the
game is ever pushing you towards a solution w/o ever quite handing
it to you. It consistently feels satisfying while almost never getting
frustrating.
7. Controls are handled by the analog stick and two buttons, jump and action. This is never explained and doesn't have to be. It is as if the developers have played video games before.
8. Similarly, what plot this has is presented w/o any commentary--or any language at all. At first, you seem to be trying to escape but as INSIDE progresses, you get the impression more and more that you are actually breaking into something and thus the game's alluring but non-specific title is somewhat explained.
9. You get to remote control zombies in this. It's pretty cool.
10. There's a splash of color for effect here and there but, for the most part, this could practically be in black and white. The end result is something like David Lynch's dream scenario where gloomy interplay of shadows and light can be used to shocking effect.
11. I found the animations in this especially appealing. Those child-mauled-by-dog moments sure do look great w/ such smooth motion! I don't know what sort of techniques were used to make them but it reminded me quite a lot of rotoscoped animations from decades past. Think Prince of Persia or Another World.
12. The last segment of this game is enormously satisfying. I don't want to spoil it but I will say revenge is sweet.
13. Probably, one day, I will play a game that will make me regret saying this but I don't think INSIDE could be a better game. For the three or four hours it takes to play it, it is riveting scene by scene, puzzle by puzzle, moment by moment. Name for me another game that can do that. Hell, name a book or a movie that can do that. Comments are open on the blog. Have at it, nerds.
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