Summary

  • I'm not going to spoil Indika for you.
  • Seriously, I'm not going to spoil it.
  • Just play it!

Most games are desperate to become movies, but I prefer the games that try really hard to be games. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Last of Us is a cinematic marvel and its mechanics are a great way of informing its brutal premise about cycles of violence, but I find it boring to play. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Doom Eternal, on the other hand, is so gamey it hurts. There are massive, glowing power-ups to buff your abilities, you can sh▨oot yourself out of cannons, and there’s a heavy metal soundtrack in the depths of hell. That’s gaming, baby.

Similarly, 2022’s 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Neon White is incredibly gamey. While there’s a strong narra🍷tive and characters, every level is a speedrun with leaderboards, intended to be deconstructed and analysed in order to find the best routes and time-saving tactics. It has no qualms about being a game, and embraces the fact it can do things th♐at movies can’t.

Neon White Bazooka Card Labelled "Dominion"

While Doom Eternal and Neon White battle it out for the prestigious title of ‘gamiest game ever to game’, new indie title Indika may have snuck around the back, hidden in a cardboard box, and taken the crown from under their noses. Heck, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Metal Gear is such a gamey game, too.

I won’t spoil Indika past the opening scene, but if you’ve seen any marketing for the game, you’ll know it’s a realistic 3D affair about nuns in snowy Russia. You’ll be surprised then, when the opening i🐭s 2D pixel art shapes. Your character must be directed into numerous power-ups like you’re playing a slow, enemyless shmup. It’s a bizarre way to start a game, and things just get gamier from there.

the pixel art opening of indika as a figure falls into golden shapes

You shoot into the 3D world and play on as the 🌞eponymous Indika, a trainee nun whom everyone else loves to hate. Your opening tasks are slow and monotonous, but incredibly gamey. You must fill a barrel with water from a well, slowly walking (there’s no option to run) between the two no fewer than five times, painstakingly cranking the handle to draw buckets of water each time. 🐻As all good video games should, Indika gives you points for this.

Points are displayed in a pixelated font in the top left of the screen, egregious against the ꦉminimal UI and realistic graphics of the rest of the game. When you level up, you can put your points into stats like Guilt or Grief. Gaming!

Indika gets stranger from here on out. I won’t spoil anything, but if you💎 make it to the Holy Communion and don’t play on, you’re a lost cause.

Drawing water from a well for ten minutes is boring. Even tying it to a fun, old-school scoreboard can’t hide that. But it’s very gamey. You’re physically pulling the bucket with your joystick. You’re walking it from place to place. This could have been a cutscene, but then the scene’s payoff, where your superior tips your full barrel onto the cold, stone floor, wouldn’t hit the same. Because you put the time into this mundane activity, you feel aggrieved when it’s all for nought. You wouldn’t feel the same had the water collecting been a cutscene to watch, heaven forbid, or skip. The excruciating pain of having to play through it yourself is something unique to video games and elevates Indika’s most boring scene to a level ♈above any movie.

I’m not saying this scene is better than every movie. It’s not. But it’s more interactive than 𝓀any movie. It embraces what makes video games video games. This is a medium built on interaction, and the best games use those interactions to make you feel something. Jumping into a health boost w🎃hile your HP bar is flashing red gives you a saved-by-the-bell elation, something that can only be matched by throwing a buzzer beater from half court (I assume).

Films try incredibly hard to involve you in their stories. Everything from dialogue to camera angles is chosen to draw you into their stories and give you a meaningful experience that you can connect to on some level. But there are limitations. Titanic never tries to make you feel like you were on the sinking sh🙈ip, but it makes you care about the fictཧional characters that are. Alien doesn’t try to make you feel like you’re aboard the Nostromo, but it ramps up the tension using tight shots, smokey shadows, and a screeching score to simulate the emotions of Ellen Ripley. You feel on edge because Ridley Scott has made you worry for the characters, not because you think you’re there.

indika level up tree showing her grief is level four

Games can be so much more transportative. You worry about being spotted while hiding in long grass in Horizon: Zero Dawn because you are doing the hiding. Sure, Aloy is the one on the screen, but you’re directing her♚. You chose the hiding spot, yo﷽u tell her when to pounce. When she dies, it’s your fault. That’s something movies can’t replicate.

I don’t mind games being more cinematic, but it doesn’t really appeal to me. I prefer The Last of Us as a TV show rather than a game because I don’t have to mess around with fighting endless goons between my story snippets. I like my games gamey, and if that means getting a high score by drawing water from a well, that’s what I’ll do. I’m not far enough into Indika to tell you whether it’s a masterpiece or not, but it’s unapologetically a game. 🦂What more can you ask for than that?

Next: The🐟 Lord Of The Rings: Hunt For Gollum Has Got Off To A🍷 Terrible Start