A masterpiece that will make you question your childhood fears throughout the journey.
The Innner Friend is a creation by the talented minds at Playmind who are based in Montreal, Canada. They have a large work portfolio on previous projects working alongside companies such as Ubisoft and now bring you their debut IP Game. It has had a long journey with plenty of changes and decisions made by Playmind over the last four years, but now it is with us.
This game kept me smiling, I felt like I was being tested and questioned but at the same time it was a strange feeling of joy. Never in so long have I had my beliefs and understandings of a fear come together in a game, or what I like to call a journey. A lot of hard work and thought has gone into this project and it shows. You really need to not just play this game, but understand it the best you can. It is not one to rush, but sit back, explore and experience.
You are an entity of sorts, following a mysterious shadow through several situations of fear in a child. You are faced with beautifully crafted landscapes with dark undertones and some amazing programming work on moving elements I have not seen in some time. This shows so much thought and effort has been put into representing these emotions. It is a journey that we all need to experience and over time each gamer will find their own meanings and reasoning's for what is being portrayed. It is full of messages and 80's movies references that some may pick up on and others may not notice, but that is the beauty as it is a different experience for us all.
The games controls are simple but effective, with using your WASD keys for movement and your mouse to move the camera and click on collectible objects. These are used to complete what I saw as the memories of a childhood bedroom, replacing the missing elements you find after each stage. But not to fear, these can be looked for on completion if missed, as you unlock a level selection and can return to the room. So for the Steam Achievement collectors, fear not.
You are faced by some horrible but well crafted monsters/beings and it is down to yourself to understand what they represent, what the message is being delivered. These come as end bosses in a sense to each level. The levels them self are so well crafted with puzzles to complete to progress, with the electricity puzzle in the woods being one of my favourite. The reason this is takes me onto the subject of the sound and music within the game. It is so well produced and compliments each scene beautifullty. This game is a masterpiece, a journey of feelings and experiences I have not had in a long time.
In all, I can not recommend this title enough. For fans of story driven narratives and emotional involvement this is an addition you would not want to miss. The graphics, sound and game-play all work well together and so much time has gone into the final product. The only negative to some maybe its length, but to me it is giving what is needed and telling you a story without over complicating it and adding more for the sake of a longer game. But as stated before it has replay-ability and I have already found myself doing this, to get items missed and look for more messages and references I may of missed in the past play-through. I have my own feeling and thoughts on the messages portrayed and references I have seen, but to share this would take away the beauty of discovery. For console players, it is in the pipeline so keep an eye on their website or social media for updates. Enjoy!
Playmind are a very friendly and welcoming team and are open to hear your thoughts and interpretations of the title. Join their Discord to reach out.
Developer(s): Playmind
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Publisher(s): Playmind
Genre(s): Action, Adventure, Casual, Indie
Single Player
Platform(s): PC
Platform Reviewed: PC
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Release Date: 6th September 2018
Review Score: 8.5 / 10.0
Minimum Requirements:
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Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
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OS: Windows 7 64-bit
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Processor: Intel Core i5 2310 2.9GHz / AMD FX-66300
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Memory: 4GB RAM
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Graphics: GTX 550 Ti 1GB / Radeon 6950 1GB or better
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DirectX: Version 11
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Storage: 5GB available space
Recommended Requirements:
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Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
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OS: Windows 10 64-bit
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Processor: Intel i5 3570k / AMD FX-8350
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Memory: 8GB RAM
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Graphics: GTX 770 2GB / Radeon R9 280X 3GB or better
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DirectX: Version 11
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Storage: 5GB available space