INSIDE

So I get excitable when I get excited about stuff. Take what follows with a grain of salt, I guess. But:

Games like INSIDE (and LIMBO, its predecessor) feel like they’re on the cusp of a new kind of storytelling medium. They’re not quite there, but they feel like they’re preparing the way.

Games-as-storytelling have mostly been attempts to make movies with playable elements divvied up with acting sequences. Movie clones in the same way that early movies were essentially filmed plays.

INSIDE has no cutscenes, no dialogue. No third dimension. Hell, your character doesn’t have a face. But he (or she) does have an arc, and it’s a good and tragic one. All told through running, hiding, climbing, swimming, and shoving objects around.

I’ve probably played LIMBO a dozen times even though I have every obstacle memorized. I started a new game of INSIDE about an hour after I finished my first run through. It’s grim and is brimming with black laughter, and yet something lyrical flutters at the center of it, too. Even when the especially gruesome third act kicks in.

These games are masterpieces. They’re on the verge of something new.

INSIDE is seven bucks on the App Store, but it's worth every penny.