INDIKA

Review

On the surface, Indika is a third person adventure game in which you play a nun who hears the devil’s voice and is exiled from the monastery with the silly task of delivering a note to another monastery. Deep inside, Indika is an authorial drama that investigates society through religion and authoritarianism. The humanity depicted in Indika seems indifferent and constantly rooted in her convictions. Whether this is a social criticism related to current events, there is little room for any personal interpretation of Indika’s spiritual journey because it is quite self-explanatory after some thinking.

Set in an alternative version of Russia at the end of 19^th century, the game will let you live Indika’s journey through surreal landscapes and environmental puzzles to be solved. It actually feels more like a movie than a game, with obvious pros and cons. The story is narrated through multiple camera shots, even from some disturbing perspectives, but always with a brilliant artistic direction and a focus on Indika’s interior metamorphosis. There is a Narrator who constantly reveals and questions Indika’s inner thoughts and desires, but he can also communicate with her because he is the Devil himself. Their dialogues are a big part of the story, as Indika walks through multiple scenarios, sometimes alone, but most of the time in the company of another key character. While the writing is generally great, I was expecting the Devil to play a bigger role in the game. He is a recurrent presence, but he’s more a narrator than a tempting and malevolent figure. He has the power to change the surrounding environment in a more infernal version that blocks Indika’s path, so she must pray to return in the real world and understand how to reach the other side by swapping between both dimensions. Unfortunately, this type of puzzle-event only happened a couple of times and probably could have been better executed. Another thing that negatively affected the whole journey for me was the ending, which felt abrupt and kinda rushed. I enjoyed the moment just before the ending, which represented some sort of climax, but not the last seconds of it with the credits rolling. 

For me, when Indika tries to be more a game than a cinematographic experience, that’s when it fails. It seems like the developers thought really hard on how to make the game more than just a walking sim, adding some playful sections in-between the story cutscenes. These sections often require solving environmental puzzles in order to continue. Most of them are quite easy, but some can be a bit confusing because you can’t immediately figure out where you are supposed to go or what items can be used. They don’t provide any sort of satisfaction the way usual puzzle-solving does. Additionally, you can also find hidden collectibles such as religious items and you can light candles in front of the paintings of Jesus Christ and… Karl Marx. These actions reward you with points, but the game immediately makes it clear that they are pointless. You also have a skill tree, but it’s useless and doesn’t affect anything other than your time. This creates a fun, but weird, contrast with the serious and dark tone of the story, which is further enhanced by the 16-bit music and some flashbacks that are narrated through cute 2D-pixel graphics (featuring a younger Indika). It’s like the developers’ intention was to mock these common elements (skill trees, points, attributes) and gamification in general, which makes me think they were somehow forced to add these and make the game more “playful” (also more sellable), at least on the surface. There are also some “chase” sequences that feel forced and don’t play very well because Indika’s movements are generally rough, with poor animations that are very noticeable when climbing or falling.

Graphically speaking, the game looks really beautiful and photo-realistic. I particularly appreciate Indika’s facial expressions, which are rather impressive. The performance on PC could be better though, as there are frame drops here and there depending on the scenario, but the pre-release version I played didn’t have any sort of patch so hopefully things will be better on release date or the days after. I had one particular issue with the prologue, during which the game was using 94% of my CPU power for apparently no reason, but after this part it went back to normal usage for the rest of the game.

Overall, Indika is a short and linear experience that is definitely worth trying if you enjoy walking sims with some puzzle solving and brilliant cinematographic storytelling. It is intriguing, bizarre, but also obsessed with showing itself more as an arthouse movie than an actual videogame. Despite the flaws, I can’t say I got bored while “playing” Indika and that’s probably because I became fascinated by the storytelling more than anything else. It took me 7 hours to complete the game, while spending some time looking for collectibles (even if they are meaningless), so it can probably be completed in 5 or 6 hours for those only following the main path.

Review written by Sonic Punk for Zeepond.com

INDIKA Steam Store Page