The Monster Inside, a game described as a “noir style audio-visual novella”, created by studio Random Seed Game, the indie game developer from Easter Iowa behind TIMEframe and Lacuna Passage, right off the bat lets you know that it will be a spectacular game from the vibe it gives you the second the title appears.
The Monster Inside follows the story of a man called Jack, an ex-police officer and struggling detective troubled by nightmares, rough nights and a mystery brought to him at his office by a young woman named Lilly. Right from the start, the game put me into a sort of trance with its enigmatic music (written by Clark Aboud) and it’s absolutely gorgeous style of visuals. Although a short game divided into short seven chapters, The Monster Inside ultimately is indeed an audio-visual novella rather than the detective game I sort of which it could have been, not due to a lack in the game itself, but rather because by the end of its 10 to 15 minutes of “gameplay”, I wanted to know more, more about the characters, about the story, its universe, I wanted to continue experiencing whatever feeling I was feeling, curiosity. Although short and limited, the game does offer you some gameplay/interaction through conversations and choosing what to reply or ask at times, whatever animation they decided to put in some scenes added a little something that felt just perfect, and I (sadly) clicked and read my way through the game and its story quickly, fascinated, curious, until I had reached its end.
10/10There’s not that much that I can add without giving some portion of the story away. But what I can say is that I highly recommend The Monster Inside. It is a quick read, a quick but fantastic experience with a little something-something I expected due to its striking visuals. I could feel that it was going to be something nice, and it was just that and some more. I can only hope that Random Seed Game gives us more of these types of game, perhaps a sequel for The Monster Inside, perhaps a series of similarly styled short audio-visual novella. A woman can only hope.
P.S: The 4 tracks of the game are available on soundcloud so make sure to check these out because the music was so very lovely. It can be found here: https://goo.gl/BYJz3x
The Monster Inside, currently available for free on Steam.