Reviews

Inner World Review: An enjoyable game for everyone

Inner world is a point and click adventure game, released by Headup Games. I am a fan of this genre, going back a couple of decades, so I was looking forward to review this once I came across it. Fortunately, the game (largely) didn’t disappoint, with only a few technical flaws in an otherwise solid game.

The game is set in a world called Asposia. Oddly enough, the game is set on the inside of a sphere, as opposed to living on the outside, as we do on Earth. While this fact has very little impact on the story or gameplay, it does make for some interesting visual backdrops, where I could see cityscapes winding upwards into the distance. Asopsia is an interesesting place, in that fresh air isn’t endemic to their world, and needs the wind fountains to continually generate more for the citizens. There are three wind fountains in this world, with each being tended by a Wind Monk. At some point in the recent past, about fifteen years before the start of the game, the wind gods became displeased with the population, and began to arrive without warning, to turn citizens into stone by zapping them with laser-like beams from their eyes.

In playing the game, I assumed the role of an Asposian named Robert, who was raised by a curmudgeonly and widely disliked elder statesman, named Conroy. Conroy is one of three Wind Monks, only Conroy comes across heavy handed, and unwanted. Robert, the main protagonist, has a quirk that other Asposians don’t: namely, his long nose has flute holes running down the length of it, allowing Robert to make music with his nose. Robert ends up getting separated from Conroy by accident, and sets off in an adventure, with the fate of Asposia hanging in the balance. The story isn’t very deep, though it is endearing at points. Robert is quite the naif, to the point of comedic effect at times. He is accompanied by a female Asposian named Laura, who seems to provide some measure of balance by being a jaded and sardonic. Most of the game is played by controlling Robert, though players will get to try their hands at Laura, once or twice; in terms of gameplay itself, there’s no stylistic difference between them, it’s just how the story progresses.

The gameplay of Inner World is fairly straitforward. Typically, I needed to either find an object, combine objects into something new (and more useful for solving the puzzle), or drag an item from my inventory onto another object or person on the screen, in order to use it. While I was able to participate in dialogue with the characters, frequently this was done to drive the narrative instead of solving puzzles; the latter was primarily equipment driven, with every item that I found in the game having at least one instance of use. And while on the topic of puzzles, there was a good mix of strait forward puzzles, and “stumpers”. For example, very early in the game, I had to make use of a windsock, and an abandoned crutch, and combine them together to make a makeshift net, in order to catch a pigeon.

At other points, farther into the game, the puzzles can get more obtuse. In order to offset this, the developers added a nifty little hint system, where players can access help in the puzzles. What makes it work though, is that every puzzle has several hints attached to it, ranging from “complete this other puzzle first”, to a vague and generalized suggestion, to the outright solution. They are revealed to the player on demand, and always start out in a very general sense (prerequisite puzzles notwithstanding), typically in the form of a question or suggestion. Every time I felt stumped, I could go back to the help screen, located in the item menu, and continue to reveal progressively clearer hints for a given puzzle, until I felt like I had something to go on; the final hint was always the outright solution. I really feel like this hint system is a selling point for the game, as it enables anyone to be able to play through it with confidence that they can’t be completely stumped, and be forced to start googling around for solutions or walkthroughs. Kudos to the devs for how this system was implemented.

Beyond that, everything else is very much “what you see is what you get”. There is a single button in the bottom center of the screen. Tapping on it brings up the menu of current items, located in the bottom, the help button in the upper left, and the quit button in the upper right, taking the player back to the main menu. When I was looking to drag an item into the game from the menu, I found that little white dots would appear over every object or character that I could interact with. On the occasions I was stumped, doing this was helpful in finding objects that I may have overlooked. Dialogue is similar to how objects are used, with a series of topics appearing at the bottom of the screen, in the form of little iconic pictures. So long as a box was brightly lit, I could select it to further the dialogue along that topic. Once exhausted, the icon would darken, and would only offer repeated phrases. The game also employs voice dubbing, making things easier and the subtitles an option.

The voice-work was great, both in the emotional inflections of the actors, as well as the fact that they just seemed to fit the characters; never once did a voice seem out of place for the character associated with it, and each one sounded like they looked. On the whole, this setup for gameplay made things very simple, without the need for much in terms of prior experience. For those speaking German, the game is available in that language as well.

The graphics for the  game are not impressive and high end, yet are pleasant in that they are fairly cartoony. They won’t tax your GPU, yet at the same time are easy on the eyes. One can easily see, and appreciate, the hand drawing visuals that were used in this game, and how it all works together. The soundtrack for the game was minimal. It has an orchestral sound and feel to it, that seemed to compliment the mood without taking over. There are three save slots for players to use, as well as Google Play Games Integration. I’ll add as an aside that this game is a good one to boost one’s level in Games, considering the hint system all but guarantees the game’s completion.

There is also a mini-game, in the main menu, for players that would like to monkey around with the flute nose. It plays a bit like Guitar Hero, with the flute nose laying across the bottom of the screen, and vertical lines falling down into the holes that need to be covered; the longer the line, the longer the hole needs covering. Points are awarded while the song is correctly played, and aren’t awarded while it isn’t. I didn’t see much value in this, as the game proper didn’t demand any high level of skill at playing notes accurately.

There were only a few flaws that I found in the game, none of which were related to gameplay. With it being released in German first, I can’t say that I was overly surprised to see a sign in German during a cutscene, and later see it in English once the cut scene was completed. Also, the voice-overs cut out a handful of times, later on in the game. Neither of these are deal breakers, but be aware of them nonetheless. All that being said, I can easily recommend this game to anyone, fans of point and  click or otherwise. The hint system is excellent, the hand drawn visuals are pleasant, the voice acting is solid, and the game is overall just an enjoyable experience. The game can be purchased for $3.99 from Google Play.

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