Here is my review of Infra AKA Level Design: The Official Game of the Movie
If you love to explore meticulously recreated virtual renditions of civil infrastructure, industrial facilities, and other man-made utilitarian spaces, with a few caves thrown in for good measure, then BOY have I got the game for you. You are a Finnish Structural Analyst tasked with investigating the deteriorating facilities at a hydroelectric dam in a fictional Scandinavian city called Stalburg. Things spiral into the dark from there. Those facilities, they sure are deteriorating something fierce! Time to photograph all the broken parts while solving puzzles, fixing utility systems, and trying not to drown, fall, get crushed, electrocuted, burned, poisoned, or blown up! And what is this? A far reaching industrial conspiracy? Just how run down IS this city, and how'd it get this bad? And what's going on with this Open Sewer place I keep hearing about? And what's with all these beers and mushrooms? Well.... at least I Have Five Batteries for the Flashlight Now...
Let me tell you, this game GOES places. Like the deterioration of Stalburg's civic infrastructure, it is far larger and more extensively detailed than it seems at first glance, but for the most part it uses that time very well. It is jam-packed with secrets and weird level-design jokes, and weird one-off bespoke systems. There is some truly wild deep lore that rivals dark souls in its hiddenness and depth of its story implications. No really. It has some charmingly rough voice acting and some really spectacular atmosphere. The level design creates this eerie feeling of isolation and lostness and I-shouldn't-be-here-ness that makes you believe that at any time, it could turn into a horror game. And well, it kind of is a horror game, but the monster is government corruption, neglect, and neoliberal austerity measures.
You WILL learn how a civic water filtration facility works and you WILL have a great time doing it.
Infra is a very special game that was clearly made with a ton of love, and if any of the above sounds good to you, you owe it to yourself to play it.
If you love to explore meticulously recreated virtual renditions of civil infrastructure, industrial facilities, and other man-made utilitarian spaces, with a few caves thrown in for good measure, then BOY have I got the game for you. You are a Finnish Structural Analyst tasked with investigating the deteriorating facilities at a hydroelectric dam in a fictional Scandinavian city called Stalburg. Things spiral into the dark from there. Those facilities, they sure are deteriorating something fierce! Time to photograph all the broken parts while solving puzzles, fixing utility systems, and trying not to drown, fall, get crushed, electrocuted, burned, poisoned, or blown up! And what is this? A far reaching industrial conspiracy? Just how run down IS this city, and how'd it get this bad? And what's going on with this Open Sewer place I keep hearing about? And what's with all these beers and mushrooms? Well.... at least I Have Five Batteries for the Flashlight Now...
Let me tell you, this game GOES places. Like the deterioration of Stalburg's civic infrastructure, it is far larger and more extensively detailed than it seems at first glance, but for the most part it uses that time very well. It is jam-packed with secrets and weird level-design jokes, and weird one-off bespoke systems. There is some truly wild deep lore that rivals dark souls in its hiddenness and depth of its story implications. No really. It has some charmingly rough voice acting and some really spectacular atmosphere. The level design creates this eerie feeling of isolation and lostness and I-shouldn't-be-here-ness that makes you believe that at any time, it could turn into a horror game. And well, it kind of is a horror game, but the monster is government corruption, neglect, and neoliberal austerity measures.
You WILL learn how a civic water filtration facility works and you WILL have a great time doing it.
Infra is a very special game that was clearly made with a ton of love, and if any of the above sounds good to you, you owe it to yourself to play it.