If anything, a little more ambiguity during the climax may have been welcome. While players will ultimately need to fill in some of the blanks themselves – and I’m sure plenty of the imagery is there just to be unsettling – no one who completes Inmost will walk away wondering what it was ultimately about.

I obviously won’t spoil the details but Inmost does have a point, and it’s a poignant, deeply resonant one, reserved for its final moments. Are they occurring in different time periods? Different realities? Is one a construct of another? Do they share any common characters? The logic of it all is incredibly foggy, and what miniscule specks of world-building Inmost offers will only further confuse players. The final thread is the most asynchronous, as it concerns a knight in ostensibly medieval times who goes around collecting crystals for some sort of tall shadow monster? Or something? He has a sword and a grappling hook, so these portions are the most action-centric, while giving us the least to chew on narratively.įor about 95% of its playtime, Inmost is tight-lipped about how these three stories relate to one another. These sequences are the most dialogue-heavy of the bunch, as the girl is constantly having conversations in her head with her stuffed rabbit who encourages her to unravel the house’s mysteries. The fact that she’s so immobile – lacking the ability to even jump – nicely complements the small setting we’re exploring, since the simple task of reaching a high shelf takes careful planning. The second storyline puts us in the shoes of a young girl, and it’s set in and around the house where she lives.

His portions of the campaign have a slight Metroidvania bent, as they’re set entirely in one large level that expands as his inventory grows. The guy can jump and roll easily enough, but otherwise has no real combat capabilities. The man doesn’t talk, so we don’t know what his ultimate goal is, and the few NPCs we run into give little context as to what’s happening. The bulk centers on a bearded man in what appears to be a modern setting overrun with monsters made of thick black goop. Inmost flits between three different storylines. (This is one of the few 2D games I’d recommend playing with headphones, if possible.) While screenshots may underline how striking Inmost’s pixel art is, they certainly don’t convey how exquisitely it’s animated, nor how well the sound design attributes to the overwhelming sense of dread. Hidden Layer Games ostensibly consists of only two people, and while the credits indicate that they had some help, it’s nevertheless astounding what they were able to pull off with such limited resources. It truly is cinematic in every sense of the word. The developer does this with memorable imagery, twisted dream logic, and a touch for the theatrical that we rarely see in a game this small. Since the actual point of the story doesn’t become clear until the final moments of the campaign, the remainder of Inmost is all about setting a tone and establishing a sense of place. While Inmost offers navigation puzzles and scripted chase sequences like many cinematic platformers do, the focus lies in its narrative and the way it’s told. However, in this case the term takes on a new meaning.

That happens to be the label for any side-scrolling game with story elements and relatively realistic jumping mechanics, and Inmost definitely qualifies. WTF The story doesn’t start making sense until the very end. LOW A few frustrating and over-scripted enemy encounters.

HIGH Astounding production values for a game of this scope.

Inmost game release date