Don't go out. Let's Play INSIDE.

[Montecristo]

Greetings, everyone, and welcome to…

Fair warning: we will be playing a young boy in a horrible, horrible world. While not explicit (there won’t be deaths in the main run, only at the end of each episode on a reel), this game can be disturbing in its subject matter and representations. If you’ve played Limbo, you know what to expect. If you haven’t, tread carefully

INSIDE is… a weird game. It is the successor to 2010’s Limbo, and if you’ve played that you probably know what I mean. To be quite honest, while I enjoyed Limbo it didn’t blow my mind, so I had written INSIDE off as ‘more of the same’, until a mate gifted me the game during the Christmas sale, I fired it up… and finished it in a single session. While not a particularly long game, I hadn’t done that in forever, so it left quite an impression on me.

INSIDE Is the successor to 2010’s Limbo. While not a sequel, it’s really hard to miss the similarities between the titles: They’re both 2D platformers in which you control a small boy in a hostile monochromatic world while horrible things happen around you. Limbo was well received, and I think a big part of that was how different it looked from most everything around that time, even if I recall a few games doing the ‘horrible things happen to little boy’ thing back then.

It wasn’t without its share of issues though, and cheap deaths were one of the biggest. Traps were very difficult to see due the game’s art direction, so it was full of ‘gotcha’ moments involving dying to things you had had no real way of seeing coming until you triggered them. This got worse as the game went on, including some puzzles where two identical switches would behave differently, which led you to die to pushing the first one, and then die again to the second one because that one killed you when you pulled, with no discernible difference between them.
All in all, Limbo was an enjoyable experience, and if you haven’t played it you may want to check salttotart’s LP of it. There’s not much linking the two games other than the art design and ‘feel’, so you won’t be missing much if you don’t, it’s just a neat game.
You can think of INSIDE as a refined version of its predecessor in this regard: way fewer ‘gotcha’ moments (and most of them you can see coming if you’re on the ball), and even if the difficulty suffers a bit for it it ends up being a much enjoyable experience for it.

INSIDE works much better when you go along with the atmosphere it creates, so I heartily suggest you dim the lights, fix yourself a drink, and put on your headphones.

This will be a subtitled LP; I will be getting all collectibles and secrets. Let’s leave it at this for now.

I’ll be editing out deaths. I know, I know, the horrible elaborate deaths are part of the experience, but INSIDE has a… flow to its more action-oriented sections, and I find that deaths and reloads make that flow come to a grinding halt. Every video will have a death montage at the end, so stick around if you want to see horrible things happening to a boy. You monster.
Speaking of editing, I’ll try not to have cuts within updates (or hide them whenever possible), but it’s not always easy to get a ‘clean run’ and my last LP has taught me that sometimes it’s better to make a quick cut than going insane replaying a level.

Spoiler policy?
None. I fucking mean it. Not even in tags.
INSIDE lends itself to speculation rather readily and I definitely encourage it, but trying to pass a spoiler as “I was just speculating” will be considered A Dick Move. If you’ve finished the game, you know I’ll be able to tell, so just don’t.

If you plan on following the LP I strongly suggest you avoid googling information on the game just to be on the safe side. I’ll be posting video links using Polsy to avoid accidental spoilers in the ‘suggested/related videos’ in YT since I’ve seen it happen in a few LPs in the past.

Update Schedule?
Once a week, probably on Mondays.

Hey, I have a suggestion/critique for your LP.
Go right ahead and post it. I’m still new to this so I’m bound to make mistakes, and the only way to improve is with feedback. Just don’t be a dick about it.

[Montecristo]

Video notes:

[spoiler]The worm I pull out of the pig in the farm is very reminiscent of the mind worms from Limbo, which embedded themselves into the boy’s head and controlled his movements until you exposed them to sunlight:

Limbo mind worm:

INSIDE’s:

[/spoiler]

[Wordybird]

Ooh, this’ll be a fun one. I’ve seen the major story beats of this game, but not the full game itself, so I’ll be interested to see how it all connects properly. Your commentary also does a lot to help reinforce the tone of the game. I like it!

[Chaz]

Aw yes, I’ve played through INSIDE a couple of times and it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. I definitely approve of a subtitles-only commentary, too - the sounds and music in this game are incredibly important (and incredibly well-designed) so it’s good to see them getting front and centre attention here. I look forward to seeing how this turns out!

[Montecristo]

Update time!

[GertrudePerkins]

This game is grim, atmospheric, and has some truly excellent sound design. It’s also the perfect game to play in one sitting between the hours of 1 and 5 AM if you want some really groggy, unpleasant dreams. Looking forward to see how other folks react to this stuff!

[Montecristo]

That’s exactly what I did, only from a bit past 11pm to 3am.

Finished the game, poured myself a measure of whiskey and just sat there with a weird frown on my face for a good half hour. That was a weird night.

[GertrudePerkins]

Oh man, speaking of creep factor and audio, I just learned this: The dev team recorded the audio from inside a real human skull???

[Montecristo]

Funnily enough, that was one of the reasons I didn’t really pay much attention to the game until it was gifted to me.

I touched upon it briefly in the OP; Limbo’s mechanics were quite ‘gotcha’ from the start (you can will die, from a hidden bear trap a few seconds into the game), but as the game progresses it starts being mean about it in a way that seems… different form bad design decision and closer to deliberate dick moves. This, along with the ‘little boy dies horribly’ and the art direction made Limbo feel a bit pretentious to me. Not terribly so, mind; it’s not ‘so deep’ pretentious like The Path, but just enough to come through the game.

Then Inside came out, only it’s actually “Playdead’s Inside”, and it’s again a boy in a nightmarish environment dying horribly, and suddenly we’re recording this on human skulls and honestly I kinda rolled my eyes at it and didn’t pay much attention other than ‘I’ll play it someday’.

I’m making this sound way harsher than I intend it to; as you can see it didn’t stop me from playing -and enjoying- the game immensely. It was closer to an incredulous “Aw come on .Really?”.
Having said that, we’ll come back to this after we finish the game and we can discuss the whole thing freely without having to be oblique about spoilers.

[Montecristo]

Update time!

I forgot to mention during the first video; the achievements are tied to the orbs, and they have (rather cryptic) clues as to where to find them:

These are the 5 from the first update:

And these 3 are from this one:

[Ferrovore]

I’m really enjoying your presentation thus far! I liked your Metro: Last Light LP and I think your subtitle chops definitely do this game justice; it allows the sound design to breathe while still providing interesting commentary on the setting, puzzles, etc. Also good gracious but some of those death reels are grisly, since while human opponents are using dart guns and tasers, and falling deaths are just short ragdolls, the dogs flat-out maul you. The swimming creature is also really viscerally unpleasant to me, probably because of the movement of the hair. I remember having a similar reaction to Victim 16’s ghost in Silent Hill 4…

[Montecristo]

Thanks! Glad you’re enjoying the LPs! (And glad to see people are enjoying subs, I honestly thought nobody watched subbed lps anymore when I started Metro ).

The deaths are weird in this game, because most of them are less gory than Limbo’s, but at the same time they’re way more disturbing. Limbo’s art design was strange enough to detach the player from its world, but Inside’s (at least at the start) doesn’t feel as much ‘different’ as it feels wrong. It’s not the nightmarish forest with spiders and mind worms, it’s just a severely fucked up version of ours, and that’s where I think most everyone’s visceral reactions to the game come from.

I think the sound design for the long-haired… whatever they are is responsible for immediately mistrusting them. The first time they show up they just stay there floating in the light, and you’re not entirely sure if they mean harm, but as soon as you turn the light away from them and you hear that noise they make when closing in, you just know they’re not closing in for a hug.

[Montecristo]

Update time!

Before we begin: This is the update you’ll want to have good sound for, so crank that volume up and avoid watching it from your mobile if at all possible.

Without further ado:

[Montecristo]

Update time!

Pre-watch warning: The first death in the Death Reel is something I missed last update and it’s kinda gnarly. Just a heads up.

I forgot to show off the orb clues for last video:

And these are the ones for today’s update (I recommend you check this after watching the video):

[Montecristo]

Final update time!

(I strongly recommend you stay until the end).

And that’s an LP! Thank you all for joining me on this weird little journey. I hope you enjoyed it!

I have some stuff I want to post related to the ending, but I’ll wait a bit before doing it so people don’t spoil themselves by accident.

Finally, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll copy/paste this from my previous LP:

And now, a bit of a favour: I’m new to this LP stuff. I’m learning a lot by making them and while I like to think it wasn’t a complete disaster I’m pretty sure there’s room for improvement, so it would really help me if you could take a couple minutes and tell me your thoughts about the LP. What did you like? What didn’t you like? Did I ‘speak’ too much? Too little? Did I nail the commentary style/tone, or was I too flippant/too serious?
Any and all comments would be appreciated, even if it’s just stating your personal preference regarding some aspect of the LP. Just, you know, don’t be a dick about it.

[Ferrovore]

Well, I very much enjoyed the pacing; each video felt like it had the room to breathe. The jokes kept things from feeling too dry without ruining the mood of the game, even the multiple subtitling on the Huddle was fun and didn’t overly detract from what was going on, though you probably could have had a little less chatter from them. But that’s a personal preference thing and I enjoyed their banter as they merrily destroyed the facility!

Subtitles-wise, they were crisp and clear on my end and I had plenty of time to read things, and both my desktop and laptop viewing sessions didn’t have any issues there. I’m a bit of a swift reader, though, so more feedback from others can’t hurt! That you’re willing to talk during “filler” parts but keep subtitles off-screen during serious segments was appreciated, as knowing the difference between filling dead air and letting a game actually do what it’s trying to do isn’t as common a skill as you’d think.

Looking forward to your post-game commentary!

[Montecristo]

Glad you enjoyed it!

The Huddle ‘banter’ was a bit of a risk, a friend gave me the idea and I ran with it (I’m still mad I didn’t think of it before), but was afraid it would be too busy or that I’d ruin the mood, but that last part is so hectic and different that I gave it a try. I’m super relieved to see that people seem to have enjoyed it, truth be told. And yeah, I may have gone a tad overboard in some places, but it’s their bloody fault, they wouldn’t shut up!

Sub duration-wise, I haven’t had any complaints; I keep the subs between 10 and 15 characters per second (I aim for 10 and then tweak depending on the ‘room’ I have to sneak a sub in), which seems to be about average reading speed. This is more ‘subtitling best practises’ than anything else, but since we’re in an LP forums someone may get some mileage out of it.

As for post-game commentary… I don’t think there’s a lot I can say. I have no more knowledge about what the hell happened in the game’s world than any of you. I did catch something, though:

WE’RE GOING INTO SPOILER COUNTRY IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE LAST VIDEO GET OUT.
This is the final image you see in the ‘secret ending’: http://i.imgur.com/ufz4qO3.png And again with bumped brightness:http://i.imgur.com/1rIw4Tf.jpg

Which seems to suggest that yeah, the boy was being controlled by something else. Was that something The Huddle itself? It would certainly explain why the Kid kept going further in the lab and jumped into the Huddle’s tank, other than ‘because it’s a videogame and there’s no other way to proceed’.

But maybe it’s something different. Look closely at the pictures being developed in this shot of Orb #2: http://i.imgur.com/w7TxMa4.png

Remember when The Huddle falls through the floor?

This is what we land on: http://i.imgur.com/LeIouEy.png, and this is where the game ends: http://i.imgur.com/hcwBoxK.jpg

Even the spot of light is the same. So… was it an experiment all along? Was The Huddle itself being controlled or manipulated? The scientists were helping us along at a point, if you recall my Huddle-induced paranoia.

Knowing Playdead, the secret ending could very well be artsy-fartsy metacommentary about the Kid breaking free from you, the player’s, control.

I gotta be honest, I didn’t like the ending when I played the game, and it kinda soured me on the whole game in retrospective. It feels… cheap. Like we got an ending in the sense that the game ended, but it didn’t provide any kind of closure at all. Now, I don’t mind unanswered questions, I’d rather have a mystery keep being a mystery than have it poorly explained and faceplant horribly right at the end, but this one is just… there.

On a replay, though, I came to love everything else about the game. The art and sound design are amazing, and the shockwave section remains one of the most memorable parts in gaming, hyped as the ending usually is. The biggest sin it commits, to me, it’s having the puzzles a bit too ‘over designed’. Most of the time they feel too puzzly and ad-hoc, not a part of the environment. I can kinda forgive it since it’s a pitfall of the genre, but sometimes they stick out like a sore thumb (like the ridiculously highly placed) buttons.

If you want to do some extra viewing, I recommend watching Errant Signal’s take on the game. He brings up most of the issues I had with the game (and with Limbo, like the ‘gotcha’ traps I hated), and goes into detail into the themes of the game: