This week in video games, July 31, 2016: creepy Inside debuts, video game awards

by Blaine Kyllo on July 31st, 2016 at 12:00 AM

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This week, nominations are open for the Canadian Video Game Awards and a new game about Batman begins. But first, a review of the creepy platformer, Inside.

Inside is a weird and atmospheric indie game

When you start playing a game that everyone's talking about, and everyone's doing such a good job of keeping the secret of what the game is really about, it's difficult not to be coming up with theories when you finally start to play.

That's how it was with me and Inside, the latest game from Danish developer Playdead and available for Windows and Xbox One.

Like Playdead's Limbo, Inside doesn't give you anything to go on. You start the game, controlling the movements of what appears to be a young boy moving through a forest at night. He's either chasing or escaping, but he's also being hunted.

The first time he gets shot, I was alarmed. Then I realizee that it was a tranquilizer dart sticking out of him, and I wasn't sure if that made things better or worse.

The mechanics are simple in this side-scrolling noir. You move left and right, jump and climb. Although you do have to run from danger from time to time, there's no combat here, just puzzles to solve, environments to navigate.

You'll learn how to solve those puzzles by trial and error. You'll misstep and die. Something will get you and you'll die. And every time, there's a feeling of strangeness, because you don't really know why the character you control is running.

There's definitely something weird going on. If the initial context wasn't enough, I certainly began to think so when I started seeing dead livestock. And people just standing around, not really moving.

Anything more would be to start giving things away, and that wouldn't be fair. Better you start for yourself, come up with your own theories about what's going on here.

More Batman coming your way this week

Telltale, the developer that has turned some of the biggest franchises into interesting, sometimes wrenching adventure games, is tackling Batman.

Being released as a five-episode series, the first episode, Realm of Shadows, releases tomorrow (August 2) on console, desktop, and mobile devices.

Telltale's other series include The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, and Tales From the Borderlands.

The entire Batman series is planned for release on disc on September 13.

Nominations being accepted for Canadian Video Game Awards

Game developers in Canada, and publishers working with Canadan studios, have until September 30 to nominate titles for the 2016 Canadian Video Game Awards (CVAs).

The CVAs are all about celebrating the work of game designers and developers working in Canada.

To be considered, games must have been released between November 1, 2015, and November 13, 2016:

The categories have been revamped since last year and include: