INSIDE

Accurately depicted.

We couldn't make this shit up.

Sometimes I'm curious about what it's like to play video games while high on psychedelic drugs. I'm awestruck by the possibilities of this endeavor. I indulge myself with some fine pixelated concoctions while sitting here in my underwear, smelling not so kindly, and hooked up on brain medicine. What kind of concoction, you ask? A special one, INSIDE, a one-of-a-kind mind-altering cocktail. This game is a treasure trove of mind-bending realities that go beyond the human psyche. It begins slowly and gradually advances to delight you with mind-fuckery. I understand your curiosity. Allow me to explain. This is far from an exaggeration. It's the real deal. A side scroller so finely tuned that it becomes a sculpture in its own right. I promise it's worth the wait until the end. Of course, you can call me old-fashioned. I did play this while heavily medicated. But I digress.

Plot

You are pursued through the woods, seemingly out of nowhere. You're being pursued by masked men wielding flashlights. At one point, freaking guard dogs appear and decide to eat your ass. You eventually get away from these jerks and end up on a farm where some kind of parasitic worm buttraped pigs into submission. This drove the pigs insane. You learn to manipulate farm animals and equipment in order to escape to a seemingly abandoned city teeming with zombie-cretins who are controlled by mind control. Beyond the city is a massive factory of flooded rooms and naked-baby-girl-bitches with long hair who live in the water and want to hug and rape you to the depths. Later, you discover some scientists who conducted underwater experiments on said creatures.

While traversing these cesspools, you begin to use mind-control helmets to control grey zombies, who appear to be created by the organization that chased you at the start. The siren-monster-bitch creature eventually fondles you and forcesfeeds you a device that allows you to breathe underwater.

As you walk through the offices and laboratories, you notice that many of the scientists are ignoring you. They're fixated on something resembling a vault. When the boy enters the chamber, he finds a large blob-like creature that looks exactly like the retarded boss from Borderlands, but this time it's made of human limbs connected to four control rods. The boy is drawn into this thing and transcends reality after disconnecting the rods.

You now have command of the blob. You flee the facility by crashing through it like a blob, squashing everything in your path. The scientists attempt to lock you in another vault, but the blobinator escapes and breaches a wooden wall. It rolls down a forest hill before coming to a stop on a beach bathed in sunlight. THE END

Alternate ending

If the player deactivates the alien mumbo jumbo thingies scattered throughout the game, they gain access to a new area. You arrive at a room filled with computers and one of the mind-control helmets, which is powered by a nearby socket. You remove the plug from the socket, at which point the character feints like a zombie and the game ends.

Gameplay

If you haven't guessed it yet, this game is a puzzle platformer. The protagonist is an unnamed young man who explores a surreal, mostly minimalistic environment, overcoming challenges and progressing through the game. Color is used minimally in the game to illustrate both the player and certain aspects of the environment. With the exception of a few sound effects, the game is also mostly silent. If you find the collectibles, the game has an alternate ending.

The boy dies in hilariously gruesome ways, including being shot, gored by dogs, electrocuted, blown apart, drowning, choking, and so on. Because these deaths are graphic, the game has been rated mature.