One of the unfortunate casualties in gaming over the last decade has been that of the adventure game. Some might say that the death of the genre was more of an integration of the genreâs best aspects into others. Perhaps thatâs true, but I still feel that the adventure game was the best way you could take part in a story. A great story isnât a requirement for a great game, but you always knew that a great adventure game would tell a great story as well.
Indigo Prophecy is an attempt to evolve the adventure genre. Doing away with the genreâs traditional point and click scheme, and trashing conventional notions of dialogue trees, inventory systems, and puzzles, Indigo moves the player away from simply experiencing a story to getting the player to create the story. Ultimately, Indigo is one of the best game experiences of the last few years.
Indigo Prophecy is, just, a murder mystery with the innovation that you take control of the suspect, Lucas Kane, as well as the detectives trying to find him. This means that in one scene, youâll do your best to avoid suspicion, and in the next, youâll try to uncover clues that you (as Lucas) tried to avoid leaving in the first place. Itâs a mechanic that works really well, and as a result, the first 3-4 hours of gameplay are some of the most interesting and involving hours Iâve ever experienced. As the game progresses, the plot develops past being âjustâ a murder mystery into something more epic/world-encompassing, with tons of character development and hints of conspiracies and science fiction thrown in as well.
Normally in adventure games, you do everything, talk to everyone- the gameplay revolves around exhausting every possibility, oftentimes mixing and matching until something comes out right.
Indigo, though, forces the player to make his own decision within the game. Conversations are limited in that you wonât be able to ask every possible thing- your options are also timed so you need to actively think to choose what you want to say before time runs out. Picking one thing may mean another dialogue option permanently disappears, but it also may allow you to continue the conversation or open up other topics.
Each character you control has a meter that measures his current emotional well-being. If your decisions cause stress for the character youâre currently controlling, the character will get depressed. Therefore, youâll want to play your character with real life sensibilities. For example, if one character is recently removed from a relationship, encountering reminders of the relationship might cause distress. Or if a character is in a relationship, doing things to jeopardize it will lower his emotional state.
Indigo, more than any other game, puts the player in a realistic setting with realistic choices and consequences stemming from your actions. There are no do-overs, but at the same time, there are few concrete âfailuresâ in decisions. As in life, there tends to be good and bad decisions, but they really all mix in a murky gray in the overall context of the game. Indigo encourages the player to accept his choices. In other games, one might realize he made a mistake, and reload instantly to replay things until he got it perfectly right. Indigo, however, gently soothes the player into understanding that playing a scene out and continuing from there, adjusting to the variables and situation that you have created is the right way.
When you play through Indigo Prophecy, you create your own play experience. In a way, Indigo provides a basic set of characters and settings for each part of the game, but what you do from there in how you interact or make decisions is completely up to you. Each player will have own his unique experience within those guidelines. When Iâve talked to friends whoâve played the game, Iâve always been surprised at the things theyâve seen or done that I had no idea were in the game.
The choices you make are much more of a representation of you rather than a representation of what you think youâre supposed to do.
Comparing Indigo Prophecy to other games is like comparing an essay question to a multiple choice one- Indigo asks what would you do? Indigo provides a truer sense of character role playing, placing the player into the characterâs world, much more so than in even the best role playing genre games.
Indigoâs control scheme is a departure from the standard point and click adventure game. What can be frustrating about that scheme is that gameplay can often devolve into pixel hunting, which is running the cursor over every part of the screen until something can be interacted with. Those games can often feel like two-thirds âWhereâs Waldoâ and one-thirds story and puzzle solving.
Indigoâs control scheme is simple: the left analog stick is used for movement, while the right is used for interaction. Itâs pretty original and works well, though Iâm not sure itâs really intuitive. The right stick tries to emulate real life motions. For example, if youâre behind a door and need to open it, you would pull down on the stick (towards you, the player) to pull the door open. If youâre sitting at your desk, and you want to open a drawer on the left side, you would hit left on the stick to open it. You wonât need this think this out, however, as the game interface will let you know what you can interact with in which analog stick direction.
Movement control can be an issue at times. Often, controlling your character feels clumsy, and youâll find yourself needing to completely stop to move in a certain direction.
In action scenes, such as in an escape or fight scene, control is handled through Simon-Says-like mini games. On screen, youâll see four directional colors for each analog stick, and youâll have to repeat the patterns shown on screen. Some might say playing action scenes this way is silly or repetitive, but I didnât mind it. I think it helps casual gamers enjoy the game without needing to be arcade stars, and I think the sequences do still have a way of making you feel that you are genuinely controlling the character as well.
Graphically, Indigo is more impressive on a presentational level than on a technical one. When you go through the intro, David Cage, the director and writer of the game, describes Indigo as a movie, and thatâs how the game is presented visually. Sometimes this isnât perfect for gameplay- for example, the camera angles can be horrible and make things more difficult than they should be in terms of trying to go where you want to be. The awkward character control exacerbates this problem further. Indigo does a great job of creating atmosphere and tension with its visual cues and game world, but the character models can beâŠ.inconsistent. Iâm not sure how to describe it, but I think thereâs just a lack of final polish in the game. Indigoâs graphics arenât its strongpoint, but I wouldnât consider them a weakness either.
Aurally, however, Indigo shines completely, from its soundtrack to its voice acting. The strong soundtrack does just as much to manipulate your emotions as the plot and characters do. The voice acting is consistently outstanding and an integral part of keeping up with the movie-like presentation of the game.
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The following may color your own experience with the game, so I have included this slight warning.
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Indigo starts out amazing, but the plot does accelerate and ends sooner than one would expect. My feeling is that the story breaks down from its intriguing premise, becoming too familiar and trite as I reached the end. Indigo does have multiple endings, and with its open ended gameplay structure, one would think that your decisions over the course of the game affect the ending, but the reality is that the endings can all be determined by slightly different actions at the end of the game. This is somewhat depressing to realize because as much as the game tries to reinforce the impression of a unique game experience, your choices really doesnât amount to anything by the end of the game. When you get to the end of the game, or after some replay, you may feel that there is somewhat of a façade to the gameplay, as if youâve been fooled into thinking the game was a lot deeper than it actually is.
At the same time, however, it doesnât really matter how or if a game tricks you, it only matters that you believe it. In that sense, Indigo succeeds.
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What Indigo Prophecy does better than any game in recent memory is to give the player the sense that they are creating the story, not merely moving from point to point within the story. Instead of playing to find out more about the story, you play to figure out what youâre going to do next, to see what comes next for you, not simply what comes next in the story. You might feel like youâre playing a choose-your-own-adventure game or taking part in a truly interactive movie.
The initial gameplay experience should last 8-10 hours. Itâs fairly short, but the game is still highly satisfying. Replaying the game will be an attractive option to most players as when youâre playing the game the first time, there will inevitably be many moments where youâll wonder if you could have changed something by saying or doing something different. There are also many unlocks to check out, including behind-the-scenes footage and concept art.
Indigo Prophecy is worth owning, but can be enjoyed as a rental as well. Indigo shines as a highlight of its genre and an advancement in storytelling and I highly recommend it to all game players.
(originally published in GamersInfo.net)
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