Vidjama Gmaes Work

What an odd one.

Many moons ago way back in the year of actually this one, I reviewed Still Wakes The Deep, a walking sim set on a Scottish oil rig that is so Scottish it would put the Blarney stone to shame. Don’t believe me? Check it out right here.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve fallen out of love with horror walking simulators and a lot of that has to do with the combination of the two genres. Horror requires some level of tension and surprise, and that’s difficult when the game makes it abundantly clear when you are and are not in danger. I still enjoy walking simulators, I’m not one of those gamers.

Indika is a game about a nun. You play as Indika, a nun who gets booted out of the nun store and sent on a mission to deliver a letter. Indika is different from the other nuns and everyone at the convent seems to despise her and believe that she may be the vessel of the devil. And Indika believes it herself, to the extent that she actually hears Lucifer speaking to her from time to time. Early on her mission, she comes across Ilya, a soldier who believes he hears the voice of God.

Perhaps they can come together to form some kind of biblical Reece’s cup. Probably not.

This is a game that is about questioning faith, both for the characters and the players. Indika and Ilya are dealing with their own struggles and questioning the pointlessness of things, but you the player have your own. For example the game lets you collect points by finding things in the environment, and as you gain points you level up and gain perks that exist solely to give you more points.

And make no bones about it, the game shares the player’s doubts. What’s the point in going through every side room to find items to get points? A title card in the loading screen explains, absolutely nothing. And it might trick some people into thinking that it’s a double-agent trap and actually there’s a secret ending or some point to the points. But there isn’t.

Yet the two continue on their journey to find the kudets, a religious artifact said to heal sicknesses of the mind and body. For Ilya a healing of his rotted arm, for Indika a chance to stop talking to the devil and perhaps get back to a normal miserable life at the convent where everyone can hate her for normal things like putting her elbows on the table at dinner.

Indika has a lot of conversation. A lot of conversation. If you’re not a fan of long discussions of life and whether we have souls, why God does the shit he does, the meaning of life, philosophy, all that indie arthouse stuff, you’re probably going to get bored with Indika really fast. The game does have light puzzles including a few where the player can morph the environment simply by praying to overcome obstacles.

There’s a dedicated button to make the sign of the cross. The areas where the ground is ripped in half are the best the game has. On the other hand the platforming in the 16-bit mini games that occasionally show up to give backstory are the worst, and only frustrating part of the game. I blame Five Nights at Freddy’s for creating the trope of using retro games as a form of backstory exposition.

My only complaint with Indika is that the subtitles in the game are terrible. It’s pretty much the only thing that I would genuinely call half-assed in this game. For starters large chunks of dialogue are not subtitled at all, meaning if you have hearing problems you’re going to miss a fair amount of context. Indika has a tendency to just not subtitle characters if they aren’t the primary focus of the scene. Even if you don’t, subtitles are needed in a number of spots due to how poorly balanced the audio is from time to time.

Do I recommend Indika? Absolutely. Total time will probably net you four to five hours, which isn’t terrible for a $20 indie game. I rented my copy on PS5 from Gamefly #notsponsored.