Novinky
Indika tells a strange and surreal story about religious belief
C
Colin Campbell
Indika is for those of us who enjoy unusual and challenging stories set in little-explored regions of the past. Studio founder Dmitry Svetlow says he always wanted to make a game that tackled religion in Russia, drawing on his personal experiences growing up.
"The topic of religion has always deeply fascinated me," he says. "I grew up in a highly religious family and on multiple occasions, my mother and I lived for weeks at a time in a women's monastery as pilgrims. So, the foundation of the story is my personal experience and my journey of moving away from religion."
The team delved into history books as they researched the period and the topic of religion in Russia. "Regarding historical accuracy, the situation is twofold," says Svetlow. "On the one hand, our reality is alternative, grotesque—even fairy-tale-like—with many elements of the world creatively reinterpreted. On the other hand, what remained real, we tried to recreate as accurately as possible."
"Inside the studio, we know the year, the region of Russia where everything happens, what technologies have been mastered, and what have not, and so on. As for religion, as I already said, my past was the main source of information. I can even read the Old Church Slavonic a little!"
Indika has a stark and beautiful aesthetic, inspired by Russian architecture. "The core team of our studio are architects," explains Svetlow. "We have a unique understanding of style for game development, and aesthetics—in the broad sense of the word—occupies a central place in the project."
The team were also inspired by the films of post-modern, psychological, and experimental directors like Yorgos Lanthimos, Terry Gilliam, and Alejandro González Iñárritu, as well as the celebrated Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky, who defected from the Soviet Union in the 1980s.
Indika explores disorientation, as the nun deals with the trauma of self-discovery and communicating with Satan. "We have several narrative layers in the game," says Svetlow. "Paradoxically, it was important for us to break immersion, to create an effect of depersonalization."
The game's story is bolstered by puzzles, which make up about a third of the game. Svetlow says it was "an interesting challenge" to create puzzles that augment "a story-driven game in such a way that they not only do not interfere with the story but help tell it."
"We started prototyping the first puzzles five years ago, and you wouldn't believe how much we threw away," Svetlow adds. "Nearly all our gameplay elements are unique, meaning there are almost no puzzles that use the same mechanic. Further complicating our work was the fact that none of the team members had ever made similar games before, so we had to figure out along the way what works and what doesn't."
Svetlow hopes that when the game comes out, players will make a deep emotional connection with its story, and its protagonist's struggles. "I would very much like to leave the player perplexed, in a good way. To sow as many questions in their head as possible," he says. "When we were writing the script, initially most ideas I wanted to express were written out directly, most questions answered. Later, I realized it would be more effective to leave most questions unanswered while focusing on formulating the questions correctly, so the player could find the answers themselves."
Indika will be released later this year on the Epic Games Store by Polish publisher 11 bit Studios.