If I had to say which is my favorite video game within the formula devised by Éric Chahi in Another World, my answer would necessarily be INSIDE. That mix of platforms with puzzles without any dialogue I was instantly captivated.
We weren’t taken by surprise either, as PLAYDEAD had an excellent cover letter with LIMBO a whopping six years earlier. Yes, this study takes its time and we must not forget that it is working on its jump to 3D with an adventure whose name is still a mystery. That is why we are going to spend time remembering the most unforgettable scene from INSIDE, that of the laboratory.
Watch out, SPOILERS. Don’t continue reading if you haven’t completed the story…
A superlative leap compared to the shocking LIMBO
LIMBO and INSIDE look alike, but at the same time they are very different. They are platforms with scroll side that give a lot of weight to the puzzles and the agility with the jumps. In both cases we start from a point where we do not understand what is happening with the adventure, advance by pure survival instinct. Also, there is no trace of the dialogue, so there is room for interpretation…
They also share a dark tone, being more drastic in LIMBO by playing with the duality between black and white. And in the same way, any danger kills us with a simple blow. But in neither of them are there lives like in the platforms of yesteryear: the last checkpoint is automatically loaded until we pass each test, be it agility or hitting the coconut. Or both at the same time.
They are two timeless masterpieces, There’s no doubt. And here inevitably a group of people will stay with the classic from 2010 and another group with the one that places us, the one from 2016. Because although they share a good part of the spirit, the development in INSIDE it’s different due to a certain quirk of the protagonist… His mind.
The progress is amazing, starting like a platformer with a helpless child who keeps running away and tries to be “like the others” so as not to raise suspicions, as in the security camera test, until we put on a helmet and we see how you can control other “sleeping” humans.
INSIDE he slowly evolves to make it clear to us that he is not a normal child, that something is happening here. That if they insistently look for us, it will be for a reason… It will be a matter of time before we discover the reason, but first we will have to suffer as there are tense situations. But as they say, good things take time.
It is not that in itself the starting point is not good. Quite the contrary. It captures our attention instantly, taking little time to dissipate that feeling of “it just seems like another LIMBO” right away, as soon as we see that its “language” is different. And that even shares horror scenes, like that kind of replica of the protagonist, but with long hair that chases us with terrible insistence.
INSIDE leaves the best for the tremendous final stretch
That chase takes place through the water, where a good part of one of the last sections of the story flows. We witness a scene where it seems that we die until the protagonist comes to life again thanks to some fish. And we go on swimming without rest, to the point that all logic is broken with the liquid element in later scenes, “swimming where there is no water”.
INSIDE plays with our mind, in a way. As the protagonist plays with those inanimate beings who have lost their humanity, despite retaining their original appearance. But it is evident that something weird is happening here and everything changes when we activate a strange device of enormous proportions. Suddenly we are absorbed and we are exposed in front of the laboratory staff, the image with which we have started this article. Now we are on the other side, defenseless….
That vulnerability is also reflected in nudity of the protagonist, but luckily (thanks to previous experience) we are not worried about not being able to hold our breath underwater and we keep our ingenuity. And to get out of there, the only solution is to “disconnect” what is inside that pond: a mass with arms and legs that looks like the sadistic sum of other children like us…
To our surprise, and that of the laboratory staff, said mass absorbs us before disconnecting the last part. Now, in the eyes of others we are a monster and all the staff flee in terror as soon as we break the glass.
That desire to know what happens in INSIDE starts to make sense and our instinct tells us again to escape from there, now with the power that comes with being a mass of several meters that cannot be stopped with a simple glass or an ordinary door. But the curious thing is that this loss of humanity on our part makes us see the first sign of humanity on the part of those who carry out this macabre experiment with us, as there is a scene in which a terrified operator offers us his help with a door of security.
He sees no hostility on our part, he just the desire to be free. And later the same thing happens with another group, which helps us with an essential box to activate the last security door. And after a little scare where we were trapped, nothing ends up preventing this mass from destroying the last barriers until it leaves this “prison” and reaches the shore to see the credits scene and start rambling about the multiple interpretations it leaves INSIDE. There it depends on each one, but what is undeniable is that it leaves a memory that marks you for life and that will be difficult for PLAYDEAD to overcome.
