This story accommodates discussions of sexual violence.
A number of scenes from INDIKA are seared into my mind. A palm-sized particular person crawls out of a nun’s mouth and runs down her arm, frenzied, in the midst of a Catholic ritual. A person is suspended within the air, his torso impaled on a strip of curling rebar, whereas a guitarist gently encourages him to die. Dozens of bus-sized fish dangle on rotating spits above a blazing silo. The mangled head of a feral canine flops repeatedly in opposition to the gears of a mill, neck limp and tongue lolling. The sudden glimpse of a demon: grey pores and skin, too many arms and joints bent the flawed manner, bug-like and hulking. Once I transfer, it strikes.
Again at house in entrance of my PC, my pores and skin prickles with goosebumps. INDIKA generates visceral reactions effortlessly and all the time with a tinge of shock. It’s a (largely) third-person narrative journey set in an alternate nineteenth century Russia, and it stars an ostracized nun, Indika, who has the satan’s voice in her head. From this basis, the sport gives a flurry of whimsical absurdity and uncooked human struggling, and whilst its visible and mechanical kinds shift from scene to scene, all the things comes collectively in a cohesive package deal. INDIKA is a masterful instance of maturity in video video games.
The satan is Indika’s fixed companion. As she travels from her convent to ship a letter in one other village, the voice in her head gleefully vocalizes her cruelest ideas and factors out the hypocrisies constructed into Catholicism, her chosen faith. The satan speaks like he’s narrating a kids’s e book, a Rumpelstiltskin glee dripping from each syllable as he tells Indika how weak, unloved and naive she is. Indika debates him and, at a number of factors, he splinters actuality round her, opening deep cracks within the surroundings, revealing new pathways and filling the world with a pink glow. Gamers can maintain down a button to wish, protecting his machinations at bay. To progress in these scenes, Indika has to shift between the satan’s actuality and her personal, inviting him in at particular moments to utilize his hellish platforms. Indika turns into extra comfy with the satan in her thoughts as the sport progresses, and the “press X to pray” moments are simply the primary examples of their uneasy alliance.
As a bit of spiritual criticism, INDIKA performs all of the hits. Its jokes in regards to the manipulation, hypocrisy and inflexible inhumanity of Catholicism are clear and sharp, although not notably revelatory. The satan’s laughing tone makes each line sound like a lullaby, and to my ears — an atheist who grew up Catholic and was extraordinarily confused by the gaudy, culty exclusion being preached each Sunday — INDIKA is soul-soothing. The sport by no means totally explains whether or not Indika is experiencing a psychotic break or is actually possessed by the satan on this world; all the things exists within the grey space the place each of those states meet. Psychosis or Devil, it’s all extremely actual to Indika.
INDIKA is underpinned by a delirious pressure between levity and agony, and the builders at Odd Meter bought the rhythm good. Indika’s actuality is a frozen hellscape stuffed with ache, betrayal and isolation, but it surely additionally has laugh-out-loud moments that really feel extra like a rom-com than a psychodrama a couple of unhappy nun. The sport additionally slips right into a lighter visible model because it delves into her previous, mining recollections out of pixelated platformers in sun-drenched environments. These distinction sharply in opposition to the 3D brutalism of the primary scenes, and so they’re extremely partaking, providing easy jumps with tough timings.
It is a recreation that requires an escape once in a while, and moments of reprieve are constructed into its development, completely positioned to ease the nervousness because it reaches a fever pitch.
A few quarter of the way in which via the sport, Indika encounters a blood-chilling scene: By way of the crack of a doorway, she sees and hears a person trying to rape a lady, scuffles and screams spilling into the hallway. Indika freezes, by accident makes a noise, after which hides in a closet because the assaulter turns his consideration towards the interruption. The satan taunts Indika — “Did you see the size of that thing?” and “Maybe you wanted to join them?” — as the person searches for her. The hazard of the state of affairs bursts via the display, heavy and white-hot.
That is horror.
Minutes later, Indika is driving a steampunk motorbike with a trailer filled with corpses down a winding path, an sudden pal perched on the our bodies behind her, throwing out cheeky one-liners. All of a sudden, it appears like the start of a buddy-cop film. The shift in tone is a large reduction, and this steadiness of extremes is one thing that INDIKA does with unimaginable deftness, time and time once more. The (first) sexual assault scene is fast and highly effective, displaying sufficient to drive house the depravity of the state of affairs with out turning into gratuitous. After I performed via it, I took a deep breath, collected myself, after which dove again into the sport, desperate to uncover extra of its commentary. The dealing with of this matter elevated my belief within the builders’ inventive instincts and their capability to disclose the character of true terror; it made me extra invested in the remainder of the sport.
Of all of the memorable visuals in INDIKA, one stays notably vibrant in my thoughts’s eye. Indika is kneeling in a jail cell and a guard enters alone, his intentions clear. He places his hand on the again of Indika’s head and actuality breaks prefer it usually does on this recreation — however this time it’s softer, slower and all-encompassing. The display turns into a pink pool, and within the middle, Indika and the satan float round one another like amoebae in a petri dish, quietly discussing the injustices of human existence. Indika dissociates whereas her physique experiences violence, and the scene lingers on the pink womb, offering area for gamers to soak up the state of affairs from a creative and philosophical distance. It’s genuine and highly effective. It’s oddly calming.
INDIKA stands out for these moments of sexual violence, every so delicately dealt with. The online game business particularly is constructed on a basis of bodily violence — weapons, warfare, blood and homicide — however there aren’t many video games that broach the topic of sexual abuse. That is largely for the perfect, as sexual violence is a subject that we’re nonetheless studying easy methods to speak about on a cultural scale. It’s the ugliest aspect of humanity, probably the most uncomfortable to deal with, but it’s pervasive. Sexual abuse is as worthy of compassionate dialogue as gun violence, however for a mess of societal and particular person causes, it’s a lot tougher to have a look at instantly.
Interactive media particularly is usually a highly effective vessel for immersion and revelatory storytelling. Sexual violence calls for empathy if it’s going to be included in any piece of leisure media, and that is notably true in video video games, the place gamers are appearing out the occasions, inserting themselves within the character’s footwear, getting misplaced of their second-to-second actions. There’s excessive threat in telling a narrative about sexual abuse in a online game, and it’s not solely about alienating or offending a portion of the viewers. The danger lies within the potential to actually retraumatize gamers. Mishandling a subject like rape might be damaging and perpetuate dangerous messages about energy, autonomy and self-worth in the actual world.
One of the best final result for creators who don’t know easy methods to method the subject is to go away it alone, and for probably the most half, online game builders have. The choice — including sexual violence to a recreation with out understanding the cruelty of the act, utilizing it for shock worth or lazily turning it into a degree of motivation for a separate character — will all the time be rather more upsetting.
For instance, Immortality. This is likely one of the few up to date video games that makes use of sexual violence as a plot level, and, to me, its lens feels lecherous slightly than poignant. Immortality employs real-life actors and places the abuse itself center-screen, utilizing the guise of edgy commentary to let the digital camera linger on prolonged scenes of softly lit molestation, the girl’s physique in higher focus than her ache. The sexual abuse in Immortality appears like voyeuristic fantasy.
INDIKA, however, facilities the particular person receiving the violence and divulges the true horror of the act. INDIKA demonstrates how a online game can inform a wierd and delightful story that includes sexual abuse, and proves it may be performed with out overwhelming the narrative or move. These scenes add layers of perception and emotional heft to Indika’s journey, revealing truths about her psyche and her world. It’s encouraging to see these themes explored so deftly in a bit of interactive artwork.
INDIKA shouldn’t be solely about sexual violence. The majority of the sport is stuffed with puzzles, platforming and witty wordplay from the satan, and most of it performs out in partaking and ridiculous methods. Loads of segments in INDIKA are downright jovial, with a warped humorousness that jogs my memory of Alice in Wonderland (or, extra appropriately, American McGee’s Alice). Nevertheless, it doesn’t draw back from the darkish realities of Indika’s world, the place rape is as pervasive as gun violence, warfare and spiritual oppression. The assault scenes — offered alongside working themes of dying, manipulation, isolation, disgrace, guilt and cruelty — solidify considered one of INDIKA’s core messages: With a world like this, how a lot worse can Hell actually be?
