Indika review: A study in grey

You don't get games like Indika very often. It's the kind of game that, were it a book, it'd end up on a college required reading list - not necessarily for the strength of its story, which is strong, but for the level of craft that went into telling it. What Indika has to say is less important than how the game says it, and it sure does find some inventive ways to say it.

A nun and a criminal walk into a cathedral

Indika is a third-person narrative game with light puzzle elements, a walking simulator with some impressively rendered environments where you speak with one or two other characters and push stuff around. The puzzle elements are frequently annoying and add little to the experience, beyond showing how capable Indika is outside the convent. Tempting as it may be to think Indika should’ve been a visual novel to trim down the less enjoyable elements, though, I just don’t think it would’ve worked. The bleak environments devoid of color and the moments of silence play roles just as important as Indika’s internal monologues.

I came away from the demo preview thinking religious mysticism would play a larger role in Indika’s story, but it turns out the full game is more grounded. The narrative’s broad outline is that Indika, a Russian Orthodox nun, travels from her convent for the first time to deliver a letter and gets sidetracked by a convict who thinks God spoke to him in a cup.

There’s also an attempt at examining Indika’s troubled relationship with sexuality, though the game doesn’t give it the time or development it deserves. The result is puzzling and unpolished, noteworthy mainly for its lack of content warnings – two brief scenes of sexual assault and coercion happen in the beginning and at the end of the game, respectively – and for how at odds it is with the rest of Indika’s storytelling. 

Some good deeds should be punished

Indika is less concerned with the idea of spirituality and more with the ideas spirituality often plant in people – sometimes for better, often for worse – and at the heart of that concern is the point system. I jokingly called it the Jesus Points tracker in my preview, and it turns out, I was sort of right. Indika opens with a pixelated, retro-game version of the eponymous nun falling through the abyss and, if you catch on quickly enough, picking up large point icons before she crashes back into reality. You’re almost guaranteed not to have enough, and even if you do, the satisfaction and sense of accomplishment are short-lived.

The point count is, in usual video game fashion, always visible in your screen’s upper-left corner. Odd Meter shows how many points you have – and how many you still need to reach the next milestone. It doesn’t matter what you do. It’s never enough, and it never will be. Indika can’t good deeds herself into heaven or redemption, she won’t solve her problems through passive obedience alone, and equally important, following the rules and praying the right prayers won’t make anyone else love her. 

Odd Meter even tells you not to bother lighting candles or scouring huts and garbage for relics since it’s pointless, which is a nice little repackaging of the game’s themes. You’re curious what happens if you do the thing someone told you not to do, so you find out and form your own conclusions. 

Those sentiments are unoriginal, admittedly. Every critique of organized religion through the centuries includes some version of the idea that you can’t buy redemption or act your way into heaven, while questions of free will and debates over the nature of morality have popped up since people started writing their thoughts down. However, the level of thought and nuance built not just into just this particular aspect of the interface, but Indika’s storytelling as a whole, is unique and gives a certain emotional weight to the whole thing.

Of souls and sorrow

All of this could easily veer into trite platitudes, but Odd Meter strikes an impressive balance between open exposition and letting you draw your own conclusions. It’s less preachy than the usual critiques of organized religion and more personal than the allegorical literature that inspired it. The closest comparison you can make is that Indika is a Russian Orthodox His Dark Materials, and just as Lyra’s personality is the driving force behind Philip Pullman’s trilogy, so is Indika’s in Odd Meter’s game.

Odd Meter makes Indika a sympathetic character from the start, a reject and a misfit whose biggest crime is, apparently, just being different. Indika’s tale isn’t an underdog story, though. She quickly becomes a much more interesting character, with complicated emotions, questionable motivations, and a sense of morality that doesn’t always rest in the light. She’s a normal human, in other words, and even though that sounds like a basic concept for a character, it’s the most important fact in Indika’s story.

The way Indika handles Indika-the-nun's character growth might seem heavy-handed at first glance, a game so worried about ensuring you get the point that it has a devil spouting the major philosophical ideas underpinning Indika’s journey. There's something more clever at play here, though, and the point is that only the devil says these things. It’s not Odd Meter trying to hammer in an idea. Well, maybe it is to an extent, but what really matters is that these are Indika’s thoughts – not a real devil.

They point out hypocrisy, express Indika’s suppressed emotions, and call into question the dogma that shaped her life and mind since childhood. The devil also chimes in with intrusive thoughts and cruel criticisms, but these have the ring of Indika’s own thoughts, just expressed through a different medium so Indika can avoid admitting they are very much hers.

When she does stop pushing them away and shielding herself with faith, her world literally splits apart. That split makes for some of Indika’s more inventive puzzles, and the striking contrast between the devil’s endless torrent of words with Indika’s fervent, quiet prayer in these moments sells the idea of her internal torment as effectively, if not more, than any of the game’s dialogue.

Indika, the game and the nun, asks a lot of questions in the course of the game’s five-hour run, and it’s to Odd Meter’s credit that it never tries answering them. Secular and religious dogma, correct thinking, your beliefs, my beliefs – none of that matters. What matters is Indika learning to think and live and feel for herself, allowing and accepting ideas that frighten her and understanding nuance in everything and everyone. There’s a five-second sequence in the ending that encapsulates this idea perfectly, though I won’t spoil it here. It’s definitely worth experiencing for yourself.

That idea – understanding the world isn’t black and white – is also a basic concept, admittedly. Spend more than 10 minutes on the internet, though, and it’s quickly apparent that the idea hasn’t caught on yet. Indika’s message is just as applicable to everyone, now, as it is to a fictitious, 19th-century Russian nun.

Indika isn't an easy game to score. Tedious puzzles annoy in the moment, but they're easy to overlook in the broader scheme. Indika's underdeveloped theme stands out, but Odd Meter handles everything else so adeptly that it doesn't ruin the experience, even if it is slightly soured. As trite as it sounds, this really is one game you have to play for yourself and form your own conclusions - and that's probably just how Odd Meter wants it.

The publisher provided the copy of Indika used for this review. Indika is available now on PC via Steam.

Josh Broadwell

Contributing Editor

Josh is a freelance writer and reporter who specializes in guides, reviews, and whatever else he can convince someone to commission. You may have seen him on NPR, IGN, Polygon, or VG 24/7 or on Twitter, shouting about Trails. When he isn’t working, you’ll likely find him outside with his Belgian Malinois and Australian Shepherd or curled up with an RPG of some description.