I like games that focus on narratives: They bring a freshness to the most popular gameplay style, they usually bring a more complex and deeper story so that in the end the player stops for a long time to digest the experience.

INDIKA comes with a proposal within this genre with a story that takes place in an alternative Russia at the end of the 19th century.

INDIKA has beautiful graphics, but with sound inconsistencies

INDIKA is a strange experience to say the least and I’m not talking about the game’s story. But before addressing that topic, the game begins with the young holder of the game’s name. The player is also greeted by a narrator voice who begins to explain the young woman’s situation in the monastery and that she is not exactly the most beloved person in the place, as strange things happen around the protagonist.

Right from the start, it is very clear that the game took extra care with the graphics, where we can notice the details of the character’s clothing and how the movement is fluid and almost even natural. Not only that, the game takes place during a strong period of winter when snowflakes stick to clothes without looking too strange. The ambiance is also not far behind, which shows paths with a lot of snow and mud formed by melting, in this part the game makes no mistakes for the most part.

The game’s biggest problem comes from how the sound clashes with the rest of the game. As I explained previously, the game has realistic 3D graphics and for some reason they chose to use chiptune-style music, so we often have dramatic scenes that end up losing immersion due to the choice of style.

And not only that, the game has certain collectibles that guarantee points and the icons use the pixel art style. And there are also certain parts of the game that are a 2D game that tells INDIKA’s past. There’s no way not to be bothered by all this dissonance created by the developers.

And it’s a shame because the game has a good variety of scenarios, the main characters have well-done facial animation (you can even notice expressions in their eyes) and puzzles (although very simple).

Narrative for adults and not for all audiences

One of the things worth noting for anyone planning to broadcast the game on a livestream is that the game has scenes that are not appropriate for a young audience, however for the explicit part the game has a censorship option.

It is important to note that INDIKA does not have much extra content beyond its story, so it is an experience of around 5 hours, but it is not tiring as it develops very quickly, despite many things remaining unresolved at the end of the game.

Finally, the game has localization for several languages, despite some translation errors in some dialogues. It’s also worth remembering that it runs very well on the Steam Deck and has good compatibility with joysticks.

INDIKA

PC, PS5, Xbox Series (2024)

Performance

Streamability

Audience Engagement

Replayability

Summary

Indika has everything to be a sure recommendation for anyone who likes a good narrative game, but there are serious errors that take away the player’s immersion in the most important scenes. There is no way to understand the creators’ objective with the use of this dissonance, but although the pixel art is very well done, it is very out of place in this game.

2.3