Indika review: Twisted sister becomes a nun on the run

In fairness, this peculiar adventure does star an Orthodox nun on the run in 19th-century Russia and incorporates many bizarre themes and imagery. Even if the Tolstoy reference is a bit on the nose, developers Odd Meter– a studio formerly based in Russia until the war – offer other comparisons such as the off-kilter films of Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor Things) and Darren Aronofsky (The Whale).

Clearly, Indika favours the surreal over the sane, putting you in the habit of a young sister whose religious conviction could be described as shaky. When she’s sent on an errand by a mother superior who’s wholly unimpressed by her level of faith, the titular Indika reconsiders her life choices as she embarks on a testing road trip.

Even before she meets a hollow-eyed soldier on the road, she’s plagued by a voice in her head that just might be the devil, visions of a parallel hell and glimpses of a past life that could have taken a different path.

Odd Meter handles this juxtaposition skilfully, using the road trip to explore Indika’s inner turmoil as she faces light puzzles and platforming while navigating squalid locations assembled with a touch of the absurd. The monochromatic visuals have a bleak majesty to them, made all the more stark by short dream-like interludes that slip into 16-bit colour as Indika recalls her youthful dalliance with a lover.

The developers seem to revel in contrasts – the sacred and the profane, the dissonant sound of a dance track playing over a tense sequence in a gloomy fish factory, the nihilism of the world versus the supposed purity of a nun.

This even may be the first game to ever feature a “pray” button – used rather prosaically to transport Indika back to reality from a hellish dimension merely so she can bypass obstacles. Its unconventional approach goes so far as to satirise the videogame obsession with collecting trinkets and points by explicitly telling you not to bother even as it encourages you to gather documents and light religious candles.

However, the by-the-numbers gameplay is not what you will remember most about Indika – even though the frustration of some insta-fail platforming sections does take a while to fade from the memory.

Instead, what lingers is the communion of uncomfortable conversations, harrowing figments and darkly comic asides as a nun wrestles with the big questions of life and doesn’t like the answers.