For months on social media, people have mentioned Indika as a unique title comparable to something from A24. A demo landed earlier this year and certainly left a lasting impression.
The subject matter isn’t something you want to dive into on a whim, and it’s mostly something I’d recommend playing if you’re mentally up to it.
Meet Indika
The protagonist, Indika, is a nun struggling with a demonic voice in her head. She embarks on a journey through a nightmarish representation of 19th-century Russia to deliver a letter. When we join her, we quickly learn she is a pariah within her covenant and that many nuns around her do not like her. We face the mundane with her for a while before being tasked with leaving the monastery compound to deliver a letter.
The story delves into several aspects of anguish, and it does so remarkably. The two main characters have nearly identical religious beliefs, and the plot highlights the subtle differences in their interpretations of the same faith. The game comprehensively explores different shades of Christianity and scrutinizes how diverse meanings are derived from identical texts, rituals, and prayers.
The developers also visually showcase Indika’s decaying mental state neatly. The world around the nun begins to deteriorate and carve away. As she is a nun, you can pray to return the world to some normalcy, give in to her inner demons, and continue allowing the world to decay around her.
Indika’s journey is undoubtedly enhanced by the vibrant flashbacks to her past, which are presented as retro minigames. These are a massive shift from the world you begin in. You must help Indika navigate these flashbacks and complete tasks like riding a bike with her father. The flashbacks are crucial in creating a maddening environment that Indika finds herself in and help push the story by understanding the woman before the nun.
Pray For Me
Each flashback fleshes out the path to Indika’s current situation as you see she’s dealt a terrible hand that has left her with a lot of trauma. On her way to deliver the letter, she meets Ilya, a convict convinced he can speak with God. The two characters explore the two sides of faith, with Ilya hoping to be saved from malady and Indika slowly seeing his side of faith.
I had wondered how a game of this calibre would translate to the medium, and it feels like it has more in common with Hellblade or A Plague’s Tale than anything else. There is much walking to deal with and interspersed between the various puzzles you’ll need to complete to move forward.
To sell the fact that Indika is an outlier title, an included skill tree that lets you add skill points for various attributes such as guilt and grief, you know, the basics of Christianity. The developers make it a point to inform you that the skill tree and its points are not worth a damn, and regardless of what you do, they have no effect or purpose. Indika appears to use experience points as currency; however, the game intentionally leaves ambiguities that prompt questions rather than provide clear answers. What surprised me is that as I reached the end in a nearly 6-hour playthrough, the retro minigames and even the obtuse skill tree served a purpose that magically tied into the ending.
As Indika, there are some fundamental gameplay elements like puzzle solving and moving through environments. The gameplay doesn’t feel far removed from a game of its calibre, with many environmental puzzles driving the story forward. Some of the puzzles are memorable, while others feel downright cookie-cutter.
Indika features impressive visuals, lighting, and pacing to tell a story. The game often employs wide-angle shots that feel like something out of a Kubrick film. The framing enhances the world and makes it feel like one is living in it. Many techniques used in films are wonderfully rendered in-game, often feeling like emboldened designers by the game director to push the boundaries of the narrative.
Verdict
Indika isn’t a light game by any means, so unless you’re prepared, I’d recommend revisiting it later. For those ready to give in to the madness, you’ll find a religious experience, which is something of a rarity these days in the industry. Indika puts a spotlight on Christianity in a specific way that I’ve never seen before. Thankfully, it mostly succeeds in its thoughtful premise and stays within its welcome.
[The publisher provided a copy of the game for review purposes.]
Reviewed on: PC
