Infini by Barnaque
Did you ever wish that those weird animated shorts you’d see late at night on networks like MTV or Adult Swim were playable as a video game? If so, you’re in luck, fellow oddball, ’cause have I ever got the game for you!
Limits to Infinity
Infini is an infinitely (heh) strange puzzle game with a normal concept. Your character, Hope, is perpetually falling and needs to be guided through a maze of death traps into an exit.
What starts off as a simple task of just steering a falling character quickly becomes much more, as the layouts get more complicated and Hope learns more abilities. You’ll be able to slow down, speed up, move through the screen edges, zoom the camera out, etc.
While that doesn’t sound like much, the game quickly turns these concepts into some real head-scratchers along the lines of something like Baba Is You. Some levels led to some genuinely clever “AH-HA!” moments worthy of the greats.
One unfortunate aspect of the game, though, is that it doesn’t explain some of your powers especially well. Even after several hours I never totally felt like I had a grasp of the zoom-out ability, which occasionally left me feeling like I solved a puzzle by accident. It didn’t ruin the experience by any means, but it’s a notable flaw.
Fortunately, levels are very quick to reload and let you try again, making it feel like you’re never very far away from succeeding.
You Better Lose Yourself
The other side to Infini, as I mentioned, is its incredibly bizarre animation and story. Hope moves through multiple worlds and interacts with other emotional embodiments. Some are human-ish, some are incredibly bizarre creatures, and all of them are equal parts fascinating and unsettling.
This side of the game is definitely not going to be for everybody, but I actually found myself drawn into its world pretty early on. If nothing else, you end up playing on just to see what bizarre…THING you’re going to encounter next.
The game is a low-budget endeavor, and that definitely shows in the presentation. The stilted animation and uniform backgrounds actually work as a stylistic choice, but things like the menus and UI are very bare-bones. Again, it’s not a deal-breaker, but it makes me hope for a more polished sequel.
An Epilogue to Infinity
Infini is a game that manages to punch well above its weight thanks to some clever design and bizarre animation. It’s not the most polished experience, and not everyone will love its presentation, but it’s so delightfully weird I found myself captivated well past when I normally might have stopped.
If you’ve got a taste for the bizarre and a couple of bucks lying around, you could do infinitely worse.
Infini is available via Steam and itch.io.
Watch the official trailer for Infini below:
