I urge you to play it, both because it is a masterpiece of 2D platformer design, but also because it would be a crime to have what happens here ruined for you before you do. I am still thinking about Inside – what it means and what it says about humanity – and I am enjoying the debate with myself and my co-workers. Playing it a second time, even though I knew all of the puzzle solutions, gave me a chance to consider the early parts of the story and how they connect to the end of it more carefully. It’s almost dreamlike in that it can start in a logical, grounded place and somehow end up somewhere far more fantastical. Things happen in this game that are practically indescribable. No explanation is ever given for why the boy is alone in the woods at night, nor why he sneaks into the mysterious facility, or what he hopes to achieve there – much less who is trying to stop him. Play And Inside’s puzzles, both biological and environmental, serve as the vehicle that drives its storytelling. Camera work is also laudable the perspective only ever shifts slightly, but from scene to scene you’re always in the optimal viewing position for what’s happening on screen, and there’s always a visual reward anytime the camera moves closer in, pulls further out, or changes angle. Gray paints a lot of the scenery, but splashes of color – often red – are used as a bold contrast that draws your eye where the designers want it to go.
You can see him stumble after he jumps and sticks a running landing. You can hear the boy breathing hard after he’s been running for a while. I often stopped just to admire my surroundings, taking in the subtly detailed animations, moody lighting, boldly contrasting color palette, and even the eerily unsettling sound design. Everything appears to have had an artist’s full and undivided attention.
Every frame appears to have been meticulously crafted and polished several times over, from dust particles hovering in smoky air to raindrops splashing down in a bog to golden sunlight beaming onto your unnamed, red-shirted boy avatar through a window.
Even though it is mechanically a 2D puzzle-platformer, Inside is quite simply one of the most beautiful and subtly detailed games I’ve ever played. But if you need to be convinced, keep reading for more on this visually stunning, thought-provoking, and mysterious masterpiece. For that reason, it’s best if you take my word for it and go in completely blind to discover it for yourself. From there, it adds intrigue, wonder, and shock on top of those and never lets up. Sometimes it is all three at the exact same time. The first 10 minutes of Inside, the long-awaited Limbo follow-up from developer Playdead, swing between being beautiful, haunting, and terrifying. Update: Inside has been nominated for IGN's 2016 Game of the Year.
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