INSIDE

Story (Spoilers Alert)

INSIDE, a game developed by Playdead, is an abstract complex story game about a child trying to escape from what looks like to be a faction of masked persons controlling other people, maybe of lower standards. At first you, as the player, will find yourself in a forest and make your way through to a science lab which you will eventually destroy and escape.

During your journey, you will encounter several, let us call them slaves so we can distinguish them from guards and masked persons, which you can control if you wear a special headset. You will use the slaves to assist you in your adventure and achieve your goals; at some point in the game they will be helping you from their own will without the headset.

There is also a particular scene in the game where you fall down and you find yourself in a line with slaves where you have to perform a drill to not get caught. While you are doing the drill, you can see guards and masked persons observing the slaves, like they are picking or selecting the best or the one they like most. You start to notice that these human slaves are treated as objects.

Drill (Inside, 2016)

Another scene shows a fork lifter picking up a cage full of slaves. Meanwhile two figures, who look like a father and child (both masked), are inspecting the product.

Fork Lift Scene (Inside, 2016)

Further on along the path you enter a science lab which is located deep in a lake where you will be abducted by an aquatic child who eventually drowns you; however, you find out that you can breathe underwater. Managing to make your way through all obstacles you enter in a huge like incubator where you find a blob made out of human parts.

When you enter the blob, you become one and start controlling it. You will use your strength to escape from the lab and finally being free where ray of sun hits your skin. The blob seems to die due to a great fall during her final attempt to escape.

Experience

The first thing that struck me was the start of the game. As soon as you run the game there is a short loading screen, then a forest is presented and the word Inside is displayed in red. Nothing more and nothing less.

Main Menu (Inside, 2016)

Usually in games there is a main menu, where as soon as you run the game, you are presented with a screen displaying: new game, options/settings, multiplayer, credits and more options offered to the player depending on the game. Instead in Inside as soon as you hit a key, a boy falls down into the scene and you are already playing. I felt that this introduction helped me to be more engaged in the game by reducing hypermediacy.

While playing, I noticed that sometimes in the path there is a yellow wire. It stood out a lot from other objects since it was almost the only saturated colour in the scene. It was for sure a diegetic (UI which is part of the scene (Andrews, 2016)) attractor for the player. I first discovered the secret after the farm area and since then I kept noticing other wires around. I initially thought that it was a long continuous wire that would lead to somewhere at the end of the game, but then I found another secret and it was all clear. The wire was an indication to a have better chance in spotting the route for the secret.

By following this wire, you would find a secret. Collecting all twelve secrets would open an alternative ending which I could not play since one of the secrets bugged and would not let me destroy it.

Discovering the secrets during gameplay and knowing that it does not take much time to beat the whole game, made me want to play the game again just after completion because I needed to know what the secret hide. This time it was just a sprint and just looking for the secrets. I noticed that the secrets are always aside from the main path and sometimes, to find the secret, it is not only hidden but you have to solve a small puzzle to arrive to it. This made the gameplay much more intriguing.

The abstractedness which characterizes the story requires the player to interpret its true meaning through its visuals. The game has a very effective way of communicating visually and everything in the scene was cautiously put and coloured to make sense in the game. The models are very simple, just basic shapes to give you a hint of what the object is. The characters are like chiselled in wood again to keep simplicity. There are no textures but plain solid colours and the colour pallet is carefully selected and creates and amazing harmony and experience. To complement these visual factors, they also made a lighting system which transmits to the player the experience of the environment around him including occasionally fog. To make the scene a whole they also payed attention to the background detail where you can see clouds, birds flying and other persons.

I was a bit disappointed regarding the puzzles which I found very easy to beat, but the game is still interesting enough to keep you engaged and stir your curiosity. The game play changes several times from walking, to unlimited breath to a gigantic destructive yet desperate creature trying to be free.

Another thing to be aware of while playing is that timing is crucial. Almost in all cases you escape just in time so it is essential to keep on running forward as fast as you can when you find yourself in danger. This rule does not apply much when encountering guards since usually you have to wait for them to pass along.

I also noticed some conditioning during the game. These included:

• When you are in the farm, you hear chicks cheeping and then you end up using the chick in order to continue through your path. Forward along the journey you hear some birds which the sound is very similar to those of the chick but as soon as you approach them, instead of walking towards you as the chicks did, they fly away.

• When you see dogs, run! Dogs are faster than you are and in order to escape them you have to take advantage of every second you have to your disposal.

• The puppet drill is a negative reinforce where you have to perform the drill in order to get back escaping without being caught.

While controlling the slaves, I felt that the game was promoting management all the time since without the slaves you would get stuck and unable to proceed further. You encounter this team work scenario several times along the game. Yet, sometimes the game becomes rather inhumane, especially in instances where you need to literally use these slaves to your advantage, not caring about them being hurt, or to help them out in return. One time you also use a dead slave to achieve your goal.

Another effect that I really liked and brought a lot of curiosity to me and to find out what was behind is that while running through a cave, you start hearing a hard-explosive pulsating sound. When you reach the end of the cave you find a huge door getting hit by these shock waves. Obviously, I did not know what was behind and my mind immediately started to imagine huge creatures that I will have to escape from.

Without doubt the game is carefully designed to keep you wanting more. Clearly it is full of Dopamine and Endorphins experiences. You continuously struggle to survive in this harsh environment where everyone is hunting you down.

Other Players’ Experience

Anthony Taormina describes the game by saying, “Its puzzle design is smart, the visuals are striking, the world is haunting and memorable, and it’s the perfect bite-sized experience” (Taormina, 2016).

First thing to mention is that the game is very similar to its predecessor game from Playdead named Limbo (2010) because you start as an unknown lost child in a forest. I did play Limbo but I would like to keep this article focused on Inside rather than drift on a different game which the similarity is only at how both games begin.

I agree with Taormina (2016) above when he mentions that players must have a cautious game play regarding puzzles and provides the example of a search light and a huge pipe hanging; every time the search light passes, you have to hide in the pipe’s shadow, and once it passes, you run toward a wheel which you would need to turn. You have to hide under the pipe and go back to turn the wheel several times. This puzzle tests the player’s patience.

Taormina (2016) also mentions that the game creates tension through its sound effects. As I mentioned before, the part when you encounter the huge door getting those pulses was absolutely a great experience and arose a lot of curiosity. The gaming experience is heightened by the sound effects and music used throughout and, in my opinion, is mostly predominant in this scene. Even after opening the door and find that destructive shock wave.

Another thing that Taormina mentions which I do not agree with is that the puzzles were not repetitive (Taormina, 2016). To be fair there are a couple of differences in the puzzles, but for most of the time, they include: controlling slaves, pressing pressure plates, going up using a propelled box and using floating things. The scene is always different but you almost immediately know what you have to do as soon as you enter an area which made me run through the whole game in a couple of hours.

Another player named Joe Sinicki (2016) says, “Inside is quite simply like nothing else I’ve ever played before and so many times during my roughly five hours with the game I became amazed at just what was happening and how easily the game took complete control of my emotions”.

He also starts by adding how it reminded him of Limbo when the game started. Then after a brief explanation of the game he adds that it’s a game best payed alone in a dark room with a good pair of headphones. I too played the game like that and alone in the dark, which indeed helped me focus only on the game, which made all the more an enjoyable experience.

I really like how Sinicki describes his feelings during the gameplay. “I was in awe, I was terrified, I was hopeful and I even hated the decisions I had to make” (Sinicki, 2016). I rarely have these feelings during gameplay since I tend to beat games by thinking as I was the developer. For example, when I am faced with a puzzle I tend to analyse the engine limitations, mechanics and art style to help me in solving the puzzle. This way I feel like solving the puzzle faster at the cost of losing involvement in the game since I am continuously reminding myself that it’s a game. But as Sinicki describes, the game is very well built in visuals and sounds, and the level of engagement is high and you do feel change in emotions while playing.

He also finds it refreshing that the game is short and you can finish it in a couple of hours (Sinicki, 2016). I also enjoyed the fact that the game is short and it is also encouraging to play several times to search for hidden things and secrets.

Overall, when playing Inside, the player is bound to go through an amazing journey of engagement, puzzles and emotions which keeps you engaged in this well-built journey.

References

Andrews, M., 2016. Game UI Discoveries: What Players Want. [Online] Available at: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4286/game_ui_discoveries_what_players_.php?print=1 [Accessed 11 December 2016].

mirror, 2016. Click the Colour and Not the Word. [Online] Available at: http://s3.mirror.co.uk/click-the-colour-and-not-the-word/index.html [Accessed 2 November 2016].

Playdead, 2016. Inside. [Online]

Available at: http://www.playdead.com/games/inside/

Sinicki, J., 2016. You should really experience Playdead's Inside - Blast. [Online] Available at: http://blastmagazine.com/2016/07/10/really-experience-playdeads-inside/ [Accessed 17 December 2016].

Taormina, A., 2016. Inside Review. [Online] Available at: https://gamerant.com/inside-review/ [Accessed 16 December 2016].