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0 Exploring themes of religion, doubt, regret and the contrast between belief and the harsh realities of the world, Indika explores the tale of the titular young nun struggling against her metaphorical – and literal – demons in her head. Indika is a third person horror game with puzzle elements, developed by Odd Meter and published by 11 Bit Studios. Though it’s currently available on Steam for £20.99, it’s also available on PlayStation 5 and Xbox.
Breaking The Habit
As a disclaimer to those who may be affected, Indika displays and approaches themes some players may find uncomfortable or offensive. Some such dark themes include scenes of abuse and challenging religious ideas.
Gameplay
Indika’s gameplay come into two different parts. The present tense (which is most of the game) is in third person mode, with minor puzzle solving. Segments delving into her past are in a retro pixel art style with platforming. The past sections are relatively short and not too difficult. The game is linear, so besides wandering slightly off the path to find a collectable, it’s pretty straightforward. There are collectables in the levels which net you Points if you pick them up.
Points are used to buy upgrades in your Progress tree, which give you multipliers. However, as even stated within the game’s, the upgrades do nothing and serve no purpose. There are no in-game stats, so the player simply has to navigate levels to move on the next stage.
There are also short sections where the devil in her head dubbed “The Evil One” rants about the things that anger and upset Indika, turning the scenery red and warping it. Here, Indika must continuously pray and navigate her way forward, where the Evil One finally stops talking. However, there are very few of these segments.
The pixel segment of the game is even more straightforward, usually ending once you’ve reached your goal and watched the short cutscene that follows. The bulk of the game’s interest seems to lie in the dialogue, cutscenes and storytelling than gameplay mechanics.
Graphics & Audio
Though I feel that the bulk of what makes Indika is the cutscenes and dialogue, varying issues spoil much of it. The textures and lighting are decent enough, and sitting on benches allows the player to flip between different scenic shots. Also, the way Indika’s clothing textures react and move in synch with her looks great. The best visual part of Indika is the pixel segments. The art style is gorgeous and the colours vibrant. Unfortunately though, too much distracts from these good points.
The lack of shadowing and detail on character models makes many of the character looks a little too smooth and one dimensional. When jumping or running, I noticed the character models often visually stutter. There are a lot of other visual glitches, such as things clipping through other objects. The most glaring issue for me is the way some of dialogue and cutscenes played out.
The voice acting itself is brilliant. Indika and the Evil One’s voices are the best. However, the way the dialogue plays out takes away from the experience. The responses to certain lines of dialogue sounds like it doesn’t match. Some cutscenes seemed to end abruptly with no explanation, or move forward without a reason. One scene was an incredibly sweet one between Indika and another character, then suddenly the scene has changed to another one involving them with no explanation of how they got there. I’m unsure if this way an intentional artistic choice or an error, but I just found it jarring.
Longevity
If you’re looking for a long, time-consuming journey, Indika is not the place to go. I finished the game in 3.5 hours on my initial play through, even while exploring a little and finding collectables. It’s a noticeably brief game.
Final Thoughts
I would sum up my experience with Indika as confusing. Besides the overarching and obvious themes of self doubt, religious questioning and philosophy, I often felt unsure what was going on or what the game was trying to do or tell me. I also went into Indika thinking it was a horror game, but besides some of the potentially sensitive scenes in-game, it was more of a narrative-driven dark story with comedic elements. I don’t feel it’s quite filled with enough scary or frightening elements to warrant its horror label. The devil or “Evil One” was also another thing that got me interested in the game, but besides some short segments and the odd brief comments and lines from him, he was barely a factor.
The ending had me thinking, “where’s the rest of it?” and left me feeling like there was something I was missing, and left me feeling disappointed. While the premise and themes are interesting, I don’t believe it translated very well into a video game. While the pixel segments were visually brilliant and enjoyable, it felt out of place, and more like filler to bulk out the game. Indika is not a terrible game, but £20.99 seems too steep for a 2-3 hour game, mostly driven by dialogue and cutscenes.
I award Indika the Thumb Culture Silver Award. While it’s not strong gameplay wise and has a few issues, I still think this is an enjoyable experience for those interested in its themes and enjoy dark and short narrative games. However, I would definitely wait for a sale to pick it up.
Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this review.
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