"Indika" Review

Publisher: 11 Bit Studios

Developer: Odd Meter

Platforms: Xbox Series X/S, Microsoft Windows, Playstation 5 (Reviewed)

Every once in a while there comes a game that just works, despite the fact that it really shouldn't. The earliest example I can think of is Undertale back in 2015, which went on to win Game of the Year from me. A slightly more recent example would be Dave the Diver, which won my heart in spite of a frankly stupid amount of unnecessary content and roguelike elements. Dave the Diver didn't quite make the GOTY cut. So being a legitimate surprise doesn't necessarily make a game the best in its year, but it does guarantee that I'll remember it for a long time. In 2024, by far the biggest surprise so far is Indika. If you were just to take a brief look at Indika, you'd probably come to the same conclusions that I did. At first glance, this game looks like its a walking simulator eurojank nightmare waiting to happen. On the other hand, if you were to just hear about the gameplay variety, you'd probably come to the same conclusions that I did when I heard about that variety. It would be easy to hear about the amount of different gameplay styles represented and expect the game to be schizophrenic or conflicting in tone. However, neither of these perspectives do Indika justice. So, as I go into detail about specifics, keep the following in mind: I can't remember the last time I've been as utterly fascinated by a game as I have with Indika.

In Indika, you play as a young woman by the same name. Indika is a well-meaning nun in an alternate 19th-century Russia who just isn't good at her job at all. Clumsy, aloof, and prone to hallucinating little men crawling out of older nun's mouths during communion, our protagonist feels like a fish out of water in her own cloister. And that's before we consider our narrator, who is a voice in Indika's head that she believes to be the voice of the devil. After making one mistake too many, one of the older sisters tasks Indika with delivering a letter to another cloister a short train ride away. On her way to the station, however, she finds that the trains have been derailed by ruffians. A couple small developments later, Indika finds herself teaming up with a wounded escaped convict who believes that god talks to him. Convinced that it's a miracle that his necrotic arm hasn't fallen off yet, this convict, Ilya, convinces Indika to go to his hometown to test the healing powers of a local relic. From there, we have our story! It's a classic sitcom scenario: a nun who believes she hears the voice of the devil teaming up with a criminal who believes he hears the voice of god. Absolutely classic!
Now, if I were speaking this review out loud, I probably wouldn't have gotten this far without you stopping me. I think you probably would've cut me off when I mentioned that Indika hallucinates little men crawling out of an older nun's mouth during communion. This is but one of several absurdist moments you'll experience in this game. These moments range from acid trip experiences to laugh out loud segments, and it all works together to lend credence to the general consensus that Indika is basically a slavic arthouse film translated into game format. For every macabre instance where we see that Ilya's arm is close to rotting off his body, we get a sequence like an incredibly low-speed chase on a bike and cart while a law enforcement officer gives chase mere feet behind (because the cart is just ever-so-slightly faster), screaming "stop right there!" as loudly and passionately as if it were a 60mph chase down a highway. The absurdism never dies down, but it's never so absurd as to render the stakes of the story irrelevant. Rather, the absurdism teams up with the overall bleak tone of the story to create one of the most memorable game atmospheres of the year. Rest assured that if you're like me and you can enjoy a ridiculous but nonetheless interesting story, you'll enjoy yourself here!

I can say you'll also enjoy yourself if you enjoy deep philosophical or theological discussions. As our protagonists travel, they occasionally don't see eye-to-eye on the big questions, and the discussions they have are as intriguing as they are unique. The same can be said for the debates between Indika and the voice in her head. One debate in particular stands out to me. As Indika climbs a seemingly endless staircase, she catastrophizes about possibly not being able to deliver the letter. When the voice asks her why, she mentions that it's a sin. The voice then wonders aloud what makes one sin more significant than another. He brings up such questions as "how many undelivered letters is equal to a robbery?" and such theories as "suppose a thousand undelivered letters equals a murder...if a postman drops his bag in the river, he's as guilty as a murderer!" The fact that I have a degree in this stuff means that not all of these questions are new, but a lot of them are, and I can't help but be fascinated by them!

So that's the story, characters, and setup. That's also the major driving force of the game, in case that wasn't obvious! But there is some gameplay to talk about. The vast majority of the game's runtime is spent just walking through scenery or running through obstacles, but there's also a handful of puzzles. These puzzles aren't super complicated, but they're just complicated enough to give a player pause for a little while, then make them feel clever for finding the solution. To give an example, one early game puzzle sees Indika able to call an elevator up and down. However, the elevator can't go down far enough for her to hop on because of a large obstacle jutting out of the wall. After some trial and error, the player will likely start to notice the elevator's counterweight. They might then intuit that by catching a ride on that counterweight, they might end up getting where they need to go. I think that's a pretty good representation of the difficulty level you can expect in these puzzles. But beyond the puzzles, there are some one-off minigames that come up as Indika reflects on her past. These are retro-style experiences in the vein of Pac Man, to give you an idea of what to expect. These would be inoffensive were it not for two issues: the fact that these minigames demand perfection in order to progress, and the fact that these minigames don't control nearly as well as they should for the level of perfection they demand. It's a negative footnote at most, but they did trend towards frustrating on more than one occasion.

Thankfully, that's where the negatives end, as the game fares well on the technical front. Solid character models, animations, textures, framerates, audio, and everything else you can imagine across the board. What's more, the levels are deceptive in their size. You'll look at an area and fully expect to get lost or go down an optional path for too long, but you 100% will get where you need to be going no matter what. I absolutely love it when level design does that. So, I have absolutely nothing negative to say on the tech front.

With that in mind, dear reader, let me once again reiterate that it's been a long time since I've been as fascinated by a game as I have been by Indika. Like just about every story-centric game that has come out this year, I'm going to say that whether or not you'll enjoy this game will depend on your tolerance for that kind of thing. There's gameplay to be found, but I'm not going to waste your time by saying it'll tide you over if you can't stand these slower-paced puzzle affairs. Instead, I'll say this: if you have even a passing interest in philosophy/theology, or if you just find the idea of playing through a slavic arthouse film interesting, you might find yourself as fascinated by this game as much as I was!

Let us review:

Flawed minigames - 0.5

The final score for Indika is...

9.5/10 - Near Masterpiece

Excellent work, Odd Meter, excellent work!