INDIKA

After my initial INDIKA playthrough, a friend asked me how it was. I went along with something like “Yeah, it’s great, might be one of my favourite games this year.” It was indeed great, but with all the other stuff on the horizon, it was safe to say the crown had been reserved for something else.
Eighty hours. That's how long it took me to realize I was so wrong. This tiny little thing right here is actually one of my favourite games ever.
Sure, a solid chunk of that time was spent on virtual photography. INDIKA's world is bizarrely fascinating, and looking for fancy angles, fiddling with shaders and rendering that hi-res bokeh never comes cheap. That's to be expected, nothing new.
And yet, in between the usual VP business, I found myself... still paying attention? Returning to the most memorable levels not just for pretty sights, but to listen back to dialogues, see the characters interacting with each other, reread item descriptions — and, well, be in the general flow of the game once more. Now that's new.
So new for someone who rarely replays games, in fact, that I decided to stop for a moment and figure out what's going on.
Full disclosure: I lost a close family member earlier this year. Without going into much detail, it hit me harder than a million trucks, and sure enough got me into existential paralysis. Got me thinking about... I don't know, life? The unfairness of it all, the meaningless struggles, the abstract concepts carefully placed along your entire way to make it viable on some kind of an objective scale. It made me feel lost and, more than anything, filled me with an unexplainable mix of regret and guilt.
Enter INDIKA. "Hey," it said. "Wanna talk about it and kinda have fun together maybe?"
And talk about it we did.
In something that only resembles a fever dream after watching way too much obscure Russian cinema, no stone was left unturned. Trading questions both direct and implicit, we debated about societal norms, about how religion is not inherently bad, but how its (or any similar) escapism fantasy gets all the more tempting when that very guilt is weighing you down. Give in to it, and you’re going down a never-ending spiral of delusions in hopes for magical salvation, only to stray even farther away from the actual things that matter. Things that give purpose to your existence, should you overcome your regrets and offer yourself a choice to live and grow as an individual, sins and all.
There was barely anything groundbreaking in the conversation we had, as the game really did stick more to asking than answering, but it gave the thoughts that bothered me a distinct shape, and in part it helped me come to peace with them. All the while coming up with the most insane comedy skits I've seen in a while.
Here's another important thing. INDIKA's story is dark, depressingly so at times, but in its delivery, there's one key implication: no matter how messed up things get, there's always a perspective that makes them a tad brighter and manageable. It's a very Monty Python point of view that I always admired and did my best to adopt — but failed to when it mattered the most. Albeit way more melancholic in nature, the poor nun’s misadventures presented in colourful pixel art and dozens of hilarious gameplay segments served as the perfect reminder. Life’s a laugh, death’s a joke, best you can do is be yourself and give the audience a grin on your way out of this unfair, absurd play.
Tying that kind of message to any cultural or historical context feels wrong. It’s an all-invited dialogue about ethical boundaries, coping mechanisms, and experiences that shape us — every single one of us — as human beings. The rest is inconsequential.
Certainly, my interpretation may be far off the conventional one, but isn’t that what makes good art? Being able to look at someone else’s work through the prism of your life and, ultimately, make a piece of art your own? In that sense, INDIKA is definitely my game now. A game about a couple of broken people that steered my grief in the right direction, from internal discord towards acceptance.
Yes, acceptance is probably the right word. The feeling that’s been slowly eating at me isn’t gone. Doubt it will ever be. But now, with the right questions asked, I think I’m able to start transforming what was once a destructive force into something new. To create. To just keep going.
To the entire dev team: thank you for making this game. This review is a trainwreck of a love letter written almost in one go, and it’s exactly the way I want it to be as an expression of just how much your work resonated with me. Know that for at least one person out there, INDIKA made a difference — and it truly is second to nun.

If A24 movies were games I suspect they'd look a lot like this: it's a bit like A Plague Tale except instead of fighting rats and knights the antagonist is creeping doubt about God. The Devil chatters away in your ear like a Bulgakov character while God remains silent and absent. If that sounds like your idea of a good time you'll enjoy the bleak environments and philosophical debate, and it's very pretty in a desolate kind of way that you might appreciate. If you prefer your enemies to be a bit more killable and your outcomes a bit more concrete and hopeful then maybe look elsewhere - the short duration, ambiguity, and lack of action sequences will probably turn you off. For me the writing and acting were brilliant, as were the surreal puzzling and odd sense of proportion and scale - if the God of Indika is indeed real, you get the sense that He is vast and inscrutable and that to Him you are very small and unimportant. Fans of Spinoza, Schopenhauer, existentialist navel-gazing and depressing Russian classics will lap this up. Plus, there's a bit of nun nudity - we're only human after all.

beatification any% speedrun
Indika is a russian game where you play as nun that talks to the devil. Her name is shockingly Indika.
It's as shocking as this russian game being ostensibly russian. Very eastern european, ear to ear grin full of misery. It's arthouse movie in game form.
Indika is also a very political game - per director's own words - it's commentary on the Eastern Orthodox Church and political situation in Russia. How the Orthodox Church takes advantage of people to further agenda of the powers that be - the earthly, not the heavenly.
There is no specific genre or neat box you can put Indika into - it tries a lot of different things. It's mostly 3rd person perspective game where you have to solve various puzzles to progress. But it is also a 2D platformer. And a 2D racing game. And some other genres.
While game doesn't necessarily stand out in any specific way in any of those - it stands out in how it combines all of those creatively, to deliver a very humane, but also tragicomic story. While a lot of commentary on religion feels like something you have seen before if you ever showed any interest or discussed atheism, it's put well into writing that feels very energetic and flows well.
The story is best experienced by yourself and by going in as blind as possible. It doesn't overstay its welcome, clocking around 4 hours for me. Understandably, the hamfisted messaging might not resonate with everyone, but it's worth experiencing.
Visually the game is beautiful and nigh photorealistic in many cases. Game uses that photorealism very well with its bizarre art-direction, where you have lifelike looking bizarre architecture, machines and monstrosities. It's a very fun contrast that helps set the sombre, but also tongue-in-cheek mood and atmosphere.
Aurally, it's also very well done. The music complements the game well, though there isn't much that stands out by itself. Voice acting performances are well acted - both in english and russian. Together with immersive sound effects they really manage to sell you on atmosphere of a place, no matter how bizarre it may look. That crunch when walking on snow is really damn good.
While definitely ambitious, it's clear the game was made by small team. Modern technologies such as Unreal Engine 5 helped them punch way above their weight. But the smaller team and budget is still visible in the occasional jank.
And since the game looks so photorealistic, it can be sometimes difficult to tell what to interact with. This leads some puzzles not feeling very intuitive - but nothing that should put you off the game.
Overall, I really liked Indika. And I liked it because it was a huge swing to try to express something and try something new. It definitely wasn't a miss and I am not sure entirely how far the ball flew in the end - but the swing itself was beautiful.

INDIKA is like if Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn somehow coordinated a Jacques Tati and Monty Python collaboration to make a game back in the early 1970s with the knowledge, culture and technology of today.
That's the best way to describe the experience of INDIKA.
It's a "not for everyone" type game. Either you'll love it or you'll hate it.
Personally, I loved it. It's not something I'll probably ever return to, but it's the type of media I instead will enjoy to remember. I feel it's best suited for a one-time experience, since it is essentially a "story first, gameplay after" type game.
INDIKA is not a religious game, but it is kinda a religious game.
If that makes sense.
Essentially, it's a postmodern experience about faith, free will, good and evil. It doesn't inherently discuss or delve into or about any directly religious themes, but instead uses its characters to create an unique perspective in regards to religious faith; and how that skews their view on deeper topics.
It gives you an opportunity for you to ponder by yourself afterwards.
I quite enjoyed the dynamic between the do-gooder underdog nun and her struggles with the taunting but not ill-meant philosophical devil within.
The game will surprise you, it will intentionally annoy you, and I enjoyed every bit of it.
There are sections where you're basically suddenly playing a whole other game. It presents you a cool idea, and then never or barely ever brings it up again. I thought that was really cool, kept me engaged and excited to see what's next.
Though, is most of the time a 'walking and talking'-type TLOU game.

A Russian realist short story steeped in Eastern Orthodox Christianity and told with ironic distance and a flair for religious parable.
The physics of the nun's habit were a total delight, as well, her veil might have been as much a protagonist as she was. My assessment may not carry much weight since I don't play many high-level AAA games these days, but this was the best rendition of clothing I've seen in a video game yet. And it makes perfect sense that this is the case: you can't render religious habits poorly, especially in a Russian game about a nun who encompasses within herself most of humanity.
LATER EDIT: It's interesting to compare it to Blasphemous to see how the different religious worldviews translate into game design: the central concept in Blasphemous is suffering. The presence of the Catholic in the world is based on that, so suffering is central and omnipresent in that game, almost to the point of parody, but not quite, the game knows very well where to stop to avoid getting there. But everything evokes anguish and misery in Blasphemous, you have all those faces contorted in agony, all those hideous, malformed bodies twisted with pain. Everywhere you look you see it, suffering is material in that game, almost like a second set of paints the artist is using to render those horrible tableaux of agony.
The Orthodox worldview, on the other hand, is based on insignificance. Man is just an ant in God’s incomprehensible design. That's why everything is so big in the game, the buildings, the animals, the canned fish... (there's a hint of parody here as well) This is the essence of that surreal world in Indika: it's meant to dwarf you, to make you feel small, show you how insignificant and worthless you are. Your actions are meaningless as well: you can fight all you want, nothing you do will ever amount to anything, you're just collecting points that don't have any meaning, because God can save you or doom you on a whim, there is no divine plan, no grand design that will carry you to salvation. Not in the game, at least.
Blasphemous shows that you can redeem yourself through suffering, in Indika suffering is useless because, if you are insignificant, why would your suffering mean anything in that world? You're not even allowed to suffer (Indika cuts off Ilya's rotting hand) because suffering is indecent and only deludes you, it doesn't bring you anywhere closer to the truth.

When a brook hits a rock, does it choose which way to go?
Overall: 9/10
INDIKA definitely is one of the weirdest games I've ever played.
Blending a retro aesthetic through its flashbacks and music with some pretty realistic visuals and an interestingly short assortment of cut scenes. This is unlike, well, almost anything I've played before.
First half hour of INDIKA will be spending on completing on some, seemingly irrelevant tasks. Though that is definitely intentional by devs. All those tasks serves one purpose: To creating an engaging gameplay loop. To put player in the shoes of Indika as she questions the point of not only these tasks, but her entire faith. To create a sense of contrast between her monotonous life in the monastery and puzzles and exciting sequences found outside of the walls. I do enjoy those puzzles, even though I'm not a puzzle game lover. Genuinely engaging and inventive brain teasers.
This odd position between the honest but boring life of a nun and the sinful but exciting gameplay found in the wider world is exemplified by the voice inside of Indika's head--the devil. She's intensely flawed, but profoundly relatable, what some might describe as the perfect depiction of a sinner.
The narrative I experienced in INDIKA had me engaged, deep in thoughts and above all else disturbed. These are the feelings that stuck with me long after I reached the credits.
The visual of the game is very impressive. Just to remember that this is from a indie dev. The level of detail in every unique environment and interior is absolutely mind-blowing. And I'm not sure what exactly they're using for lighting, but it looks really good.
In summary, INDIKA is an incredibly unique experience that isn't afraid to ask some big questions, with it's interesting and varied visual presentation along with some inventive and engaging puzzles. It's an outstanding display of what Indie dev can offer to this media.

One of those arthouse games that shows just how versatile the video game medium truly is. Walking sim with some puzzles. Interesting story with a nice dynamic between the two characters. Ends on a bit of a sad note though so in that way it was unfulfilling. Great visuals and atmospheric music. I wish it was longer only because I was enjoying my time so much.