This is a puzzle "platformer" that feels like something I would have played on the internet when I was in elementary school, only then it would have been called "NeoPets Gravity Maze Challenge Extravaganza" or something like that. These days, instead of filling their rather simple puzzle game with brightly colored cartoon monsters, the devs of In Between decided to tack on a depressing story about a man who is dying. There's nothing quite like trying to get the little cartoon man to go in between the spikes while the narrator is droning about how "my father never loved me" over the backdrop of the dreariest music imaginable.
As someone who has dealt with depression for a while, I have spent plenty of time thinking about death. It is a topic that I manifestly something that I do not want to think about while playing a video game. If I want to get into the head of a dying man, I'll read Tolstoy's Death of Ivan Illych. The attempt to make video games into "art" by trying (badly) to imitate novels and short stories misunderstands what makes games art. The art of a game isn't its narrative--it's the gameplay. The real works of art aren't pretentious and depressing slogs like this game or that dreadful Case of Ethan Carter; they're games like Doom and Quake and Advance Wars and Devil May Cry and Resident Evil 4. Games aren't literary fiction and they don't need to be.
Between the flash-game tier gameplay and the absolutely depressing story, I'm giving this one a hard pass. The puzzles are somewhat interesting, but not enough to keep me hooked. Controls feel floaty and a little imprecise, so be warned if you're a puzzle game addict and just absolutely have to play this.
As someone who has dealt with depression for a while, I have spent plenty of time thinking about death. It is a topic that I manifestly something that I do not want to think about while playing a video game. If I want to get into the head of a dying man, I'll read Tolstoy's Death of Ivan Illych. The attempt to make video games into "art" by trying (badly) to imitate novels and short stories misunderstands what makes games art. The art of a game isn't its narrative--it's the gameplay. The real works of art aren't pretentious and depressing slogs like this game or that dreadful Case of Ethan Carter; they're games like Doom and Quake and Advance Wars and Devil May Cry and Resident Evil 4. Games aren't literary fiction and they don't need to be.
Between the flash-game tier gameplay and the absolutely depressing story, I'm giving this one a hard pass. The puzzles are somewhat interesting, but not enough to keep me hooked. Controls feel floaty and a little imprecise, so be warned if you're a puzzle game addict and just absolutely have to play this.