“Interior Indika: A Profound Journey Through the Shadows of Faith”

All images credited to the team at Animated Meter/11-Bit Studios

The IGF (Independent Games Festival) aims to promote creativity in game design and to acknowledge independent game creators pushing the medium forward. This year, Game Developer engaged with the finalists for the IGF’s Nuovo and Grand Prize nominees ahead of GDC to explore the themes, design choices, and tools behind each entry. Game Developer and GDC are sister organizations under Informa.

INDIKA guides players on a journey of spiritual self-exploration alongside the main character of the same name. And yes, the devil is along for the ride too.

Game Developer had a conversation with Dmitry Svetlov, the writer and director of the critically acclaimed title, to discuss how narrating this story as a game was essential for its examination of faith and its influence on our lives, utilizing the character’s mental state as a means of creating complexities and challenges within the game’s settings, as well as their motivation behind incorporating faith elements into the game despite the lack of a concrete in-game purpose.

Who are you, and what was your role in the creation of INDIKA?

I’m Dmitry Svetlov. I’m the founder of Animated Meter studio and the writer and director of INDIKA.

What is your background in video game development?

I began creating my first games in college using BASIC, then spent a considerable amount of time working on an unreleased indie game. In 2018, the studio’s debut title Sacralith: The Archer’s Tale was released, where I served as a programmer, game designer, and took on various other roles. And now, the latest—INDIKA.

How did you come up with the concept for INDIKA?

The core elements of the story appeared in my mind long before development began.

What development tools were utilized for your game?

The game was built using Unreal Engine 4. We used motion capture (including for facial expressions). Nothing particularly unique.

INDIKA explores the impact of faith on the self and delves into the concept of religion. What compelled you to explore these themes in a video game?

For me, INDIKA fundamentally tells a story about humanity’s perpetual conflict with itself, and faith serves as an appropriate backdrop for this theme. Because it is especially in religious, mystical, “objective” reality where the struggle against “evil” quickly overshadows the original pursuit of “good.” Additionally, this subject has always intrigued me and holds a personal connection as I spent a lot of time in church growing up and accompanied my mother on visits to convents multiple times.

How did the design and possibilities of the video game format enhance the themes you aimed to explore with this title?

In INDIKA, the concept of “Game” itself resonates significantly. The Game became a crucial metaphor for our narrative. The game we are all playing, based on rules we did not establish, hoping for a reward destined for us in the event of “victory,” and living in fear of consequences if we suffer “defeat.”

What difficulties did this design present when exploring these themes?

I would argue this design truly provided many opportunities not available in other art forms like film or literature. However, to be honest, we are still at the beginning of our journey in mastering these opportunities.

INDIKA includes puzzles throughout its environment as physical representations of crises of faith. What considerations went into creating puzzle elements and interactions that align with the game’s themes? How did you devise new interactions for the player while keeping your themes at the forefront?

We aimed to make the gameplay moments reflect the protagonist’s state whenever possible so that the world would literally fall apart when Indika’s inner reality is on the verge of shattering. Thus, the environment would become physically confusing and entangled when Indika loses understanding of what is occurring. So that characters would literally destroy the world around them in their quest to achieve their goals, and so forth.

The game features a striking, realistic style in most areas, but its backstory is conveyed through the pixel art style reminiscent of older games. What motivated you to incorporate both styles in this game? Why represent the protagonist’s past with pixel art? And how did you determine the design for the mini-games?

You likely noticed that contrasts are fundamental to INDIKA‘s aesthetics. Therefore, we wanted the protagonist’s dark and gray exterior to appear even more despondent in comparison to her vibrant and joyful childhood, during a time when life felt full of possibilities and was akin to a carefree game. As for the gameplay, we selected the style that best suited the narrative being conveyed. There’s no particular depth to it.

The game features a faith level mechanism that it clearly indicates to the player is essentially pointless. What inspired you to incorporate this element into the game (along with its corresponding skill tree), and why did you deliberately choose to convey to the player that it was ultimately meaningless? Why was this approach important to include even if it is, in fact, of no real significance?

As I mentioned earlier, the idea of showcasing human perspective through the lens of a game became one of our foundational principles. And even though it may not change anything technically, all players still acquire these abilities, including the developers themselves. I think it can be considered a small social experiment.

How did you decide on how to represent the devil throughout the game? What led you to primarily depict the devil through shadow and voice?

On one side, the devil is Indika herself—that “ugly” part of her she wishes to eradicate. On the other hand, it’s us—the voice that is always lurking over our shoulder. And more simply put, it’s the voice that persistently whispers things we would never dare to say aloud.

You have mentioned in an interview with The Guardian that your personal experiences with faith are profoundly connected to the creation of INDIKA. How did crafting this sharp critique of religion and its impacts influence you? What was it like to have an experience like this—to tell this story? How was it to be immersed in Indika’s thoughts and dilemmas throughout development? How does it feel to have examined and brought them to their conclusions now?

What was it like? Honestly—the best experience of my life. In similar times, engaging in something that resonates with you deeply is a privilege that few can afford, and I never cease to be amazed by it.