ROSALIND HOBBS

Playtest: PlayDead's INSIDE

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              Moody, eerie atmosphere…heightening anxiety…surprising obstacles…Playdead’s iPhone game, INSIDE, has all you would expect in an indie game.

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              Playdead’s INSIDE for IOS is a puzzle-like game where the player navigates the character, a young boy, through an eerie, mysterious, and dangerous world avoiding death and solving obstacles.

 

              When it comes to indie IOS games the most important characteristic I am looking for is beautiful graphics and an engaging storyline…INSIDE achieves this with shining colors…not literally. Using moody gray tones, high contrast shadows, fog, flashlights, spooky trees, and abandoned buildings the atmosphere of the game is impressively created. To top it off, the visuals are accompanied by amazing music and sound effects that complete the eerie style. The designers have done a great job maintaining artistic consistency throughout the game yet still making each scene unique enough that there’s diversity and a constant desire to see what comes next. The mysterious and ever-evolving storyline becomes, albeit slowly, clearer each second you play.

 

              This game not only provides an aesthetic experience but also simultaneously maintains a thrilling and tense gameplay experience that makes it hard to put down. The functions of the game is to navigate the young boy, using forwards, backwards, jump, and push controls, through a 2-D plane world while overcoming various obstacles. What keeps this game engaging is the constant anxiety of antagonist characters trying to catch the boy whether it’s a vehicle, men with flashlights, or a pack of attack dogs. This element requires that any player be fully aware while playing and keeping an eye on all the virtual surroundings. INSIDE entirely absorbs a player in the world and story it has created.

 

              The concept is undeniably brilliant, the execution, however, lacks in a few ways. While the simple navigation tools (forwards, backwards, up, and push) is admirable, the actual design of the controls are a bit frustrating and need to be better tuned. It is far too difficult to stop your character at a specific point on the path, being in the right position to push an item, or move in the direction you would like. Additionally, while the mysterious element of the game makes the gameplay interesting, not receiving a quick tutorial on actions that can be made is ultimately just bothersome. I had to google how to solve an obstacle before I learned that my character could push items. A quick tutorial won’t damage the mystery and it will make the gameplay much less frustrating.

 

              While the controls were a bit frustrating, it isn’t necessarily my biggest qualm with the game. What ultimately made me put the game down at one point was the inability to solve the puzzle obstacles. Many solutions were only discovered by chance and they don’t always follow logic. This made playing through the game quite frustrating and resulted in having to research the solutions to some of the puzzles. Additionally, for each obstacle, there seems to only exist one possible solution. Considering the way in which the game is designed, I believe multiple solutions can be created and would cater better to the various methods of thought players might have.

 

              Despite this frustration though, this is truly a beautiful and engaging game and I can easily say I would like to continue playing INSIDE…I will just be prepared to google solutions when need be and take my time when navigating controls. INSIDE provides all the many desirable elements in an indie game and deserves to be played by the masses.