Indica Review – A Chilling Journey With The Devil Himself

Yorgos Lanthimos, Ari Aster, Darren Aronofsky; Mikhail Bulgakov, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. Personalities whose creations are cited as inspirations by the developers of the independent, originally Russian team Odd Meter, which moved to Kazakhstan due to the political situation. I, on the other hand, heard names like Lewis Carroll and Luis Buñuel during the game. An interesting mix that certainly doesn’t slide into simple imitation, but rather develops its own world and ideas, making Indika a completely unique experience, complemented by surprisingly dense gameplay.

• Platform: PC (review version), later in May PS5, Xbox Series
• Publication date: 02.05.2024
• Developer: Odd meter
• Publisher: 11 Beat Studios
• Genre: logic adventure game
• Czech localization: No
• Multiplayer: No
• Data for download: 50 GB
• Play time: 5-6 hours
• Price: 25 euros (Steam)

Can the soul sin without the body?

One of my rather big concerns was whether Indica would drown in its abstractness and mystery and close off most potential players. I am happy to report that this is not the case. Some scenes and scenes have elements of fantasy, and the narrative sometimes veers into the symbolic and even surreal. It definitely deviates from experienced reality. After all, the early 19th century Russia here is admittedly alternative, and animals the size of buildings do not shock anyone. On the other hand, first of all, the game’s plot is quite precise and it is impossible to get lost in it.

It is the plot that is more of a tool for expressing an idea than a carrier of a larger meaning. Indika is a nun who is carried through life by the devil himself. The voice in her head tempts her and contradicts Christian teaching. When Indika is given the task of delivering a letter to another monastery, she learns about the possibility of her own participating narrator deprive. However, her journey through icy Russia forces her to question the nature of good and evil and to ponder the true nature of her obsession. What role does faith play in her life? And is there an answer to the reality of the world around her?

Moreover, Indika is not traveling alone. She is accompanied by an escaped prisoner, Ilya, who shares a goal with the main girl. In his case, an artifact that will heal his injured hand. The chemistry of both characters works great. This is due to the excellently written dialogue and impressive acting of Isabella Inchbald and Louis Boyer (the devil is voiced by Silas Carson, who is also excellent). Thanks to them, even unobtrusive black humor sounds good, or, on the contrary, several very powerful scenes. The Russian dubbing certainly has its merits, especially since the main character’s voice in English is much more pleasant and “innocent”, which creates a pleasant contrast with the demonic help.

The audiovisual presentation is also very good. First of all, the sound system is, dare I say it, perfect. So are the camera and editing. Here and there you will encounter jagged edges, a jumping texture or some glitch in the graphics, but for a small team this is a surprisingly beautiful game. Not to mention that minor flaws are successfully overcome by imaginative scenes or the choice of lighting and color.

A separate chapter is devoted to music, which ranges from drawn-out melancholic compositions to wild, tuneless creations. The first words of this text are the name of director Yorgos Lanthimos, and it was his recent “Poor Girl” that reminded me very much of the musical accompaniment of “Indica”.

“Think through” your path to the goal

While Indica’s story and narrative are a bit of a departure from the norm in the video game world, the gameplay is the epitome of a puzzle adventure. You’ll be faced with a series of environmental puzzles that are pleasantly challenging and varied. Overall, I’d rate the puzzles as fairly easy, but that doesn’t mean I got through them without a hitch. I even managed to stay away from some of them. In fact, I only had one unloaded jam.

In the demo, we moved the boxes and the ladder. I was a little afraid that everything would go wrong during the six or seven hours that Indica finally took me. The opposite is true. I moved the ladder twice in total, and the developers didn’t overdo it with the boxes either. In fact, they serve as a variety of puzzles, based, for example, on impressive transformations of the environment that you influence yourself. More than once, you will also have to sit behind the wheel or the lever of a forklift and several types of cranes. No puzzle is repeated unnecessarily.

Unlike the logic parts, I wasn’t so excited about the single escape route and the one that relies on clever movement and dodging. The controls in the game are good, but they’re not really made for such places. Also, the aforementioned escape is a trial-and-error pathfinding. But these are places two and together they won’t take more than a few minutes.

Then you get to experience the arcade gameplay in a few special pixel art sequences that serve as flashbacks to Indica’s past. They’re so central to the narrative, yet each one has its own unique gameplay. One time you’re racing, the next you’re platforming. It’s a nice, unexpected addition to the otherwise dark mood. The pixel art lends itself easily to the rest of the game. It shows the menu, as well as the XP collected. I’ll keep their meaning to myself.

Behind the nose, behind faith, behind sin

Finally, I should point out that Indika is a very linear game. So much so that, as a fan of linear experiences, I was caught off guard every time an obvious turn turned out to be a dead end after a few steps. Exploration options are minimal, limited to a single room or a short corridor off the main path. This is a bit of a shame, because the developers have placed a lot of collectibles in the game world. However, they have nowhere to hide them.

Indica is a completely unprecedented experience in terms of ideas and their transmission.

Overall, Indica is an absolutely unprecedented experience in terms of story, narrative, ideas and their transmission. As for the gameplay, it does not show any groundbreaking news, but what it does, it does with the utmost honesty, attention to detail, the right balance of difficulty and the absence of errors.

Last but not least, according to the authors, this is a form of reflection on the Orthodox Church and the long-term social situation in Russia, and the Polish publisher 11 Bit Studios donates part of the game’s proceeds to help children affected by the war in Ukraine. Although I perceive the game’s connection to current events as rather subconscious and very distant, the slightest coincidence of a video game with the real world is still quite exceptional and deserves to be pointed out at least like that, under the line.