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Door: Inner Child is a rather bizarre 3D art-based puzzle game which reminds me a lot of the engaging Iris.Fall from 2018, albeit whereas you don’t change from your character into anything else this time, you still need to use your brain, logically, if you’re ever going to leave the location that you’re in.
Similarly, some puzzles can often be frustrating at first, but if you stick with them, and use a bit of trial and error, you will get there, but while in that case, i would have to put it down for an hour and come back to it later with fresh eyes, the puzzles in this new title aren’t anywhere near as complicated, so just a bit of brain power will get you through a level.
Perhaps the most complex of the near-30 screens in Door: Inner Child is one split into four quadrants where, depending upon which one you’re in, the controls are either upside down, or 90-degrees one way or the other – and since I played through this game twice, I’m sure the orientation changed from one playthrough to the next. It takes a little while to get used to that one, and you’ll fall off the platform and into the water a lot, but you will get through it.
This is a very peaceful game with complementary music, but has a rather dark tone to it, since the elements you collect in each level are “soul fragments” and it has a theme of depression, hence when the character occasionally speaks, he talks about having to ‘fake it’ by smiling all the time. This reminded me a bit of The Thin Silence (also from 2018), although after a while with that one, the puzzles just became so irritating, that I couldn’t get past them. I do enjoy a puzzler which makes me think a fair amount, but not confuse me to the point where it makes me give up.
Door: Inner Child is currently in an Early Access version, and I understand the number of levels will increase when the full version is released. A walkthrough can be seen below, split into five segments, with two posted at the time of this review going up, and more added on subsequent days.
Door: Inner Child is out now on PC/Steam.
Overall: 7.5/10
Important info:
- Developer: PLAY Mephistowaltz
- Publisher: PLAY Mephistowaltz
- Players: Single player campaign
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.