The Inner Darkness

I may have a man-crush on the developer, Nauris Amatnieks. Of his games I've played -- There Was a Caveman, Moustache Mountain, this -- they've all been beautiful platformers, with solid, fun gameplay held back by mediocre level design, throwaway writing, and abysmal music. The Inner Darkness is no different. It's not a great game -- it barely scratches the surface of decent -- but it feels good to play and has a certain charm to it. You play a man with a gut injury, waking up in a strange, diseased world. You have one ability: Shifting the world around you between this world of disease, and a cured world. Some things change between these worlds -- spike traps and boxes appear and disappear, propelling 'fans' shift their air currents -- and you find yourself having to act quickly to solve some of these puzzles. The whole game lasts a brief ~40 minutes, and feels incomplete. E.g., there's also an odd, 20-second section with unique mechanics where you slide down a mountain, jumping ov...

I just can't really recommend this game. It's a great concept, but it really feels like a demo shined off and put up on the store to make some extra cash. I mean, it is exactly that, and while that isn't a bad thing in itself, I really can't recommend this game for full price ($5). Maybe if it was twice as long (as in, an hour or two compared to 30 - 40 mins), maybe if it had a couple more mechanics, maybe if the developer did more with the theme, but in it's current state, I just can't suggest picking it up. I enjoyed it, I just wish there was more to it.

Good game, always keeps the player moving forward and introducing new challenges just when I'm getting bored of the game. Dialogue is a bit bland, but overall does a good job of keeping the player intrigued. Downside, I beat the game in 40 minutes and it has no replay-ability. Overall I recommend it, but nowhere near it's current price tag. This feels like a free demo.

It was an alright game, but I didn't find myself enjoying it much. The story felt lackluster, and I probably won't play through it again any time soon. Pick it up if you want a small, decent platformer, but wait until there's a sale.

Interesting game but very basic and short for a 5 dollar price tag, Eversion is the same price and its about twice as long as this and more interesting, id suggest play that instead or buy this when its on sale.

A very lovely game with great concept and artwork. I've first seen this game on a GameMaker Jam. Although some puzzles may challenging, they could be eventually solved within several minutes. The invisible checkpoints are very kind. You'll find the meaning of this game when you finish it.

[h1]Expect a short yet interesting play, probably taking somewhere from 30 minutes to an hour for most.[/h1] Now, this game actually comes from a game jam entry for the GameMaker Community Game Jam #1, and that version of the game won 2nd place, which is something to be proud of. The game was previously known as 'The Dark Within', and this is a nicely extended and polished version of that game. Due to playing the older game jam version, I already knew the ending when I started playing this version, however, I still found it quite enjoyable, as there is a nice amount of new content added, action and puzzle, and the story is fleshed out even better. My only two gripes are: [olist] [*]The controls cannot be remapped and they felt awkward to me. [*]I have a 3 monitor setup and every time the game changes screens or something, my other two monitors do a quick split second refresh/flash. It's slightly jarring - not bad, but worth mentioning. [/olist] Aside from those minor things, the ga...

I am 32 years old. My ex-wife and I have a daughter together, and we adopted our son together. Both are now 4 years old. When we were going through our separation, I felt lost and unhappy. I was self-destructive. One day, I was so angry with everything spiraling out of control that I punched a concrete wall in a moment of overwhelming emotion. This resulted in breaking my fifth metacarpal in my right hand—the hand I worked with, played games with, and used to carry my children to bed—the hand I desperately needed to ensure I could continue providing. Upon learning the severity of the self-inflicted damage, I became almost suicidal. Keep in mind that just a few months before this, I was the happiest man, with no history of depression or anxiety. I had never experienced anger outbursts, nor was I the type to break down and cry, but I was in a tough situation that truly prevented me from seeing the light on the other side. With nothing better to do, I looked for a game I could pla...

The Inner Darkness is yet another of literally thousands of 2D retro pixel platformers infesting Steam and lowering the average quality of all video games everywhere. Some effort went into this one, as it uses a phasing technique that only about 40-50 other retro pixel platformer shovelware games on Steam use. Effort also went into creating a somewhat dark narrative about the protagonist having a gut wound (I certainly feel like I've got a gut wound every time I play GameMaker Studio platformer template copy + pastes like this), all of which was wasted with the old construction kit "Look I filled out a template and that makes me a developer" laziness. One step above RPG Maker, I guess. Regardless, little to no value as a PC game for PC gamers, so let's go into the laundry list of defects. From a technical perspective, the game doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard. A choice was made to use obsolete, decades old retro pixel "art" as a subs...

Short and sweet little puzzle platformer. Kinda saw the ending coming, but hey, I had fun playing this.