The Inner Darkness Reviews

I bought this on impulse and couldn't stop playing; I finished it in one sitting. This game is no longer than it needs to be, and the few platformer-puzzles are pretty challenging. Primarily, this game's strength is its strong atmosphere and fairly interesting narrative. I paid the full five dollars, and after playing I must strongly disagree with anyone who thinks this (or any similarly short but sufficiently novel game) doesn't deserve that, and I'm not even sorta made of money. I mean you've probably spent this amount on Taco Bell within the last week... This isn't a Wal-Mart commodity; let's do our part to support small-time artists when we like their stuff. Anyway, this game is great way to spend a few hours!

It was an alright game, but I didn't find myself enjoying it much. The story felt lackluster, and I probably won't play through it again any time soon. Pick it up if you want a small, decent platformer, but wait until there's a sale.

[h1]Expect a short yet interesting play, probably taking somewhere from 30 minutes to an hour for most.[/h1] Now, this game actually comes from a game jam entry for the GameMaker Community Game Jam #1, and that version of the game won 2nd place, which is something to be proud of. The game was previously known as 'The Dark Within', and this is a nicely extended and polished version of that game. Due to playing the older game jam version, I already knew the ending when I started playing this version, however, I still found it quite enjoyable, as there is a nice amount of new content added, action and puzzle, and the story is fleshed out even better. My only two gripes are: [olist] [*]The controls cannot be remapped and they felt awkward to me. [*]I have a 3 monitor setup and every time the game changes screens or something, my other two monitors do a quick split second refresh/flash. It's slightly jarring - not bad, but worth mentioning. [/olist] Aside from those minor things, the game has great atmosphere and the situation the guy is in is very intriguing. As you play, it gets you interested in the guy's situation and it gives you that feeling of satisfaction of unravelling a mystery.

I must give the game it's dues. It really uses as much of its limited mechanics as it can without ever really overstaying its welcome (as you can see, the whole thing took only slightly more than an hour to beat, playing suboptimally). Even a couple of core mechanics which I feared would become annoying never became so, they just added a slight illusion of urgency. The puzzles were on the easy side, with more than a few times me overthinking what they needed, but several did [i]feel[/i] clever enough (even if they were never particularly lateral). A few of them did easily screw you over due to movement rather than misunderstanding the core puzzle, but that was partially on me for rushing. The "purely" platforming sections is where things got a bit jankier at times, but nothing unsurmountable. The worst thing I can say about them is that sometimes the dimension switching had you collide into spikes you didn't know were there, a fortunately infrequent occurence in a world with little penalty for death thanks to the generous checkpoints. So anyways, what went wrong which pushed me, an usual review optimist, into negative recommendation territory? Well, the plot. Without spoiling anything specific, it's cliche in terms of indie game story, but that is not why. Various elements presented throughout felt unresolved (I guess they were symbolic?), and the climax (and subsequent ending one short room afterwards) came practically out of nowhere after a couple of setpiece rooms, the latter of which had a one-off gimmick which worked so-so (it felt good when it worked, but you had to figure out the slightly changed controls so that led to multiple deaths and repetition). It's not a [i]bad[/i] story per se, but for a story driven game my expectations were cut and I was left fundamentally unsatisfied with the conclusion of the whole experience. P.S. If you wonder why the previous two platformers I've reviewed this month, which I ostentibly criticized more, did get recommendations, it's because I feel they better fulfilled what they wanted to do and what they presented to the player, so my gut pointed me towards a positive. Or maybe they're just cute and that won me over? I'm unsure about the last point.

Nice art, a few decent puzzles, simple controls that feel pretty organic. I just can't recommend the game at the price tag. Pick it up if it's on sale and you want to spend an hour enjoying a unique little platformer.

It's a short game with some decent puzzle mechanics. There's not much of a story or any horror elements really. It's a mediocre platformer with a sudden spike in difficulty, I don't have much else to say. 4/10 not worth 5$ maybe get it on a sale

Interesting game but very basic and short for a 5 dollar price tag, Eversion is the same price and its about twice as long as this and more interesting, id suggest play that instead or buy this when its on sale.

Good game, always keeps the player moving forward and introducing new challenges just when I'm getting bored of the game. Dialogue is a bit bland, but overall does a good job of keeping the player intrigued. Downside, I beat the game in 40 minutes and it has no replay-ability. Overall I recommend it, but nowhere near it's current price tag. This feels like a free demo.

I just can't really recommend this game. It's a great concept, but it really feels like a demo shined off and put up on the store to make some extra cash. I mean, it is exactly that, and while that isn't a bad thing in itself, I really can't recommend this game for full price ($5). Maybe if it was twice as long (as in, an hour or two compared to 30 - 40 mins), maybe if it had a couple more mechanics, maybe if the developer did more with the theme, but in it's current state, I just can't suggest picking it up. I enjoyed it, I just wish there was more to it.

I may have a man-crush on the developer, Nauris Amatnieks. Of his games I've played -- There Was a Caveman, Moustache Mountain, this -- they've all been beautiful platformers, with solid, fun gameplay held back by mediocre level design, throwaway writing, and abysmal music. The Inner Darkness is no different. It's not a great game -- it barely scratches the surface of decent -- but it feels good to play and has a certain charm to it. You play a man with a gut injury, waking up in a strange, diseased world. You have one ability: Shifting the world around you between this world of disease, and a cured world. Some things change between these worlds -- spike traps and boxes appear and disappear, propelling 'fans' shift their air currents -- and you find yourself having to act quickly to solve some of these puzzles. The whole game lasts a brief ~40 minutes, and feels incomplete. E.g., there's also an odd, 20-second section with unique mechanics where you slide down a mountain, jumping over flesh mounds and even shifting between realities a single time. This part was so brief it felt like an abandoned afterthought. It's *good* though, making it all the more out of place. All the while your guy comments *non-stop* on the surreality of this new world (and his gored tum-tum), often with little evident proof-reading. The narrative is shallow and uninteresting, with a twist ending visible from the first minute of gameplay. And yet I still really enjoyed it. Nauris' games are rusty, but there's a lot of charm here, and he's showing pretty notable improvement between his games. And boy, he really goes all out on his art, which is worth supporting by itself. Follow the cute stinker on Twitter or Patreon (@namatnieks), where he posts a number of pixel art tutorials and asset packs and says silly things.