I own the game on Steam! This game tries to be different. It wants to be serious and leave cheap genre standards behind. It wants to confront the players with a more realistic scenario and give them a glimpse into the consequences of war. I am all for that! The problem is that the very game mechanics are extremely bland. The game kinda reminds me of time management games like "12 Labours of Hercules". Your characters are puppets and you have to look after their needs constantly. You have to constantly give orders for the most basic things and i could not find any means to schedule tasks (like you can in RimWorld). And if you fail to do so they simply sit around and don't even have interesting idle animations that would somehow enrich the setting. That's daytime. During nighttime you send scavenging parties to find stuff, there is a bit of fighting and you are constantly confronted with arbitrary limitations. Why can i only send x people to scavenge? I personally took care that everybody got rest during the day and now people are not ready to explore? Why? Not because they have something else to do in my base but because the game says so. These limitations feel so artificial and arbitrary to me that the whole setting disintegrates and i am left with a very basic management game. old rule holds true: if i want a really good story and meaningful insights i read a book.
If you expect a fully grown RPG here you will be disappointed. I went into this knowing nothing about older titles. And it was a pleasant surprise. The game plays more like an isometric Point&Click combined with tactical battles. These battles are - judging from my single playthrough - sufficiently challenging and they allow for different approaches. There is no open world to speak of. Sometimes you will be free to kinda roam the streets. Most of the time you will be teleported and dropped into a level. It's all very linear - and i am totally fine with that. The game stands its ground with storytelling. And THAT was what drew me in. The whole setting is ever so slightly different, the tone is sincere, and i never came to the point where i didn't want to read. Overall there is not a single element that totally stood out and left me in awe, but it is overall competent, mature writing and world building and i would actually consider reading a book set in this world. Relatively short and sweet.
Inside is a very atmospheric platformer. It's not very difficult. You will encounter a number of different, puzzle like situations that introduce new ways to overcome obstacles. All based on a very simple control scheme. It has incredible world building. It takes the dark tone and general "sudden death" approach from Limbo and surrounds it with a bleak and mysterious, yet rich and detailed dystopian world. And this world is out to get you. You will die many gruesome deaths. You might find yourself wondering WHY you are being killed. The game manages to interweave the setting and mysterious story with that deadly obstacle course you have to do. Why is that trap set up there? Why are ALL those traps placed where they are? Why are those people wearing masks? Is this "bring your kids to work day" in a death camp? Have others before you taken the same route? And why? The world sucked me in and i couldn't stop thinking about it for days. I gifted it to a couple of friends and even colleagues just so i could have someone to talk about what happened. Deaths in Limbo exhausted me over time and i never finished it. Here i got one of the richest rewards i can think of: new questions. Visually the game is simple yet stunning. Lighting and colors are used sparsely and to great effect. The same goes for the animations: they aren't flashy but fluid and highly effective. These elements combined contain a lot of cues to guide you through the levels, and you will be able to find all secrets without external help if you pay attention. There are tons of original ideas and the game's relatively short play time is exactly right for this kind of dense and rich content. I really like the pacing. The sound design will blow you away! The twists and turns near the end are among the most weird and creative things i have ever seen. Gregor Samsa and beyond levels of weird. And these twists bring new gameplay elements too! Imho this one is crossing the line into the realm of art.
