Versus Steam: Game of the Year Award 2016: #3
As I mentioned before, picking between my top three was very difficult this year. In my hands I had a great narrative, great mechanics and one that had a little bit of both, so I waffled as to which was most important to me. To this game’s credit, I don’t think it can get much more perfect and its very cryptic delivery of story with tight mechanics was a treat to behold. I’m sure you’ve seen this one on a lot of lists but my Versus Steam Game of the Year Award #3 goes to…
Developed and Published by: Playdead (PC, PS4)
Inside might be perfect. Like seriously, I have no criticism whatsoever for it and all the criticism I have seen has been related to taste rather than actual flaws in the game. When Playdead hit the scene way back when with Limbo, the stark presentation and contrast of a small boy in a big scary world took on a life of its own, creating a lot of imitators though many lacked the heart Limbo had its core. Refining this formula, Inside is a vision that I would say is similar but ultimately more effective, giving a surprisingly crushing weight to the proceedings. I mentioned a while back that 2016 was not a great year for horror games and while I believe this to be true, Inside had me so disquieted and disturbed throughout its playtime that I could hardly stand it. Colors are a muted affair, existing but feeling rather flat, something reflected in the details on characters who seem often more like simulacra rather than actual people. The 2D perspective stretches endlessly giving both a sense of desolation and oddly claustrophobic feeling to anything that encroaches it, making us immediately aware of our frailty in the face of our ordeal. Many of my favorite sequences take place underwater, where a strange long haired creature lurks, desiring nothing more than to drown us. While we can trick it to get aware, its amorphous presence flits like a dart through the water immediately driving tension to such a large degree. So many times I felt like I was in immediate danger, which is rarely a feeling I get from a game, but Inside has managed to make me feel afraid for my player character, to want to succeed just in the nick of time so I can move out of the darkness and back towards the world of light, no matter how far away that might be.
I’d speculate as to the story, but as omni-present as it is, the actual details are obscure. From what I gather, some sort of… something has occured, leading to the authorities to try and corral the boy, as well as many lifeless husks of people which can be controlled by remote. While we see them studied, they also seem content to simply let them fester along with a number of other body horrors, culminating in an ending that is both weird, disturbing and oddly sweet in the satisfaction it gives. I am so curious as to what exactly has happened to this world, what calamity could have befallen it to allow for this seeming disregard and absence of human life. We start seemingly hunted by the government or some such people, but so quickly fall into a world of disease and mutation, little of it making apparent sense. Why are there so many lifeless bodies and why can we control them? Why are large areas flooded and filled with the long haired drowner? What does the ending mean exactly and what has befallen the rest of humanity? I’m no stranger to cryptic stories and this one really does push all my buttons in just the right places, driving a lot of inquiry in my mind while conceding the thematic concerns may be easier to understand than I think.
As you might expect, Inside is very similar to Limbo mechanically, though with a few of its own twists. As a physics puzzler, it's up to the player to more or less figure out how to progress out of an area, with most of our tools of pushing, pulling, running and jumping being handed to us at the outset. While at times this can be a simple chase, at other times it's a matter of navigating the verticality of an area to develop a way forward, to find switches and routes past danger or towards some new mechanic we can use. I mentioned the lifeless people before and at times in our journey we can come across these special helmets that allow us to control them, using their different heights or location or numbers to work past areas that would be too troublesome for a young boy to navigate. This reminded me a great deal of the Swapper in execution, these tight puzzles about being able to think on different planes but with the same movement restrictions being placed on each. In one sequence we’re even given full reign of a herd without being made to be stationary, making for an interesting take of corralling and moving the necessary number of them needed to further open up the level. Of course, secrets abound in Inside, making the exploration and use of the mechanics much richer since we can find a mish mash of previous ideas brought together in these areas. I remember one in particular requiring the use of fire, something I don’t remember before or after, so even within its depths, Inside was adding more to its repertoire. While I failed a number of times, this was almost always due to thinking as Inside does such a good job presenting its toolbox to you and it remains tight throughout the game.
Seriously, I’m expecting this and Doom to be on most game of the year lists. I’m curious where Playdead can really go from here, as they have created such an amazing niche for themselves with both story and mechanic and yet seem so endlessly creative in what they can actually do. Inside is a testament to the way games can be built to be better on the backs of their predecessors, leaving a haunting impression of the world in its wake and so many secrets to unravel within one’s own heart.
