In Between

very good game, amazing value if you grab it in a sale
very little filler, nice puzzles, kind of game you can play 2 or 3 levels at a time with a coffee, or finish it in one afternoon

I originally purchase this game 7 years ago but have not gotten around to playing it until recently. It's been so long I don't even know why I originally purchased it, but it was most likely during a steam sale. I mainly played it because I was looking for a random game in my backlog and picked one that's been sitting there since forever.

The reason I bring this up is because I am not sure if I would have fun if I played it back then, but I do know I didn't really have fun playing it now. The levels can be frustrating. Some jank or missing timing by half a second can cause you to do the entire level again. Some levels do have a checkpoint though.

The story is good, and while I didn't have fun I also didn't regret playing it. The game is frustrating, but considering what it is abot it may be meant to be like that. Overall the game will probably last you about 4 hours depending how difficult you find some of the levels.

Clever and depressing (cancer themed) little puzzle game, but the level designer(s) clearly missed the mark on making the game fun...

A surprisingly interesting and occasionally evocative puzzle-platformer that stands proudly among other titles in the sub-genre

(+) Roughly a couple dozen levels, almost all of which are unique, smartly designed, and feature solid puzzles / platforming challenges
(+) Gravity manipulation may not be the most original of ideas, but the game realizes this primary mechanic well and keeps it fresh with a light peppering of other concepts
(+ / -) Noninvasive, functional presentation that touches on some unexpectedly somber themes—though often only on a superficial level

Paid $1.19 — Would pay up to $7.50

The premise is good - I like both the story and the game's twist on the puzzle-platformer. I did find some of the early levels surprisingly difficult, to the point where I nearly gave up and uninstalled the game. But I pressed on and found many of the later levels much easier. I appreciate that the game lets you skip the last few (extra difficult) levels in each 'chapter' so that you can continue with the story without getting too frustrated. In the end I did go back and clear all the bonus levels too, but the narrator's comment about losing your dignity in the process really hit home as I was grinding through that very last level.

Beautiful game, charming art style, challenging gameplay and a in a good way sad story.
Although, I probably got myself a few stomach ulcers because of one or two levels.
Jokes aside: Glad I bought this and the message helps even people, who don't suffer from cancer. I can only recommend it.
Embrace life as a whole!

4,5/5

This game has nice artwork and soundtrack but too hard to play. It's kind of boring when you die again and again and try again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again. I couldn't continue to play the game after 1,5 hours.

Oyunun çizimleri ve müzikleri güzel ama oynamak için çok zor geldi bana. Aynı bölümde defalarca ölüp, tekrar tekrar denemek bir süre sonra sıkıcı oluyor. 1,5 saat sonra oynamayı bıraktım.

I expected to face interesting challenges. Pressing buttons quickly in a certain order to control the character in an obvious but tedious way is maybe a good exercise for fine motor skill, but not for me. Deinstalled.

In Between is a very good gravity puzzle game that justifies all the awards it won. It was actually sitting on my wishing list for a very long time. Although the reviews were looking promising, the design and graphics seemed outdated. But this game provides many challenging levels that require problem solving skills and also good coordination between your left and right hand, so get ready for some frustrating moments at the beginning because you will die often. I recommend this game to anyone who enjoys puzzle games.

it starts of fun, but then they introduced a "wall of darkness" which chases you and will kill you quick. I mean some people probably think its a cool mechanic, but I like puzzlers without any mechanics to try speed you up and make you get it wrong. It's just an artificial way of inflating "hours played" stats, by making you have to go so fast through puzzles that you lose again and again and again, to make the game seem longer/better than it is.

2/10 interesting start, but WOD mechanic ruined the game and I will never complete it because of that.

In the end, I hope the good outweighs the bad.

Best narrative I've seen in a platformer. Each world adds a mechanics as metaphors for stages of dealing with death. Since the update that increased checkpoints the game feels much more playable and accessible. Unfortunately the controls dont feel as tight as some platformers. A few hours of game play to get through the story and a few more if your looking to complete everything.

If you want a game that explores individuality, purpose and the essence of one's existence, bundled with the complexity of puzzles and gravity-defying truths, then you should play this game.

This game is one of the few examples as to how video games are an art in itself, an experience that must be felt. It invokes presence of mind, tip-top mental health, and puts into place philosophical queries that should become a mirror in our own, real lives.

The game also has the tendency to infuriate the player with its difficult puzzles. I took some time getting used with the controls, but once my reflexes kicked in, it became less of a problem. The problem became the bigger picture: how would I leave this level? It basically turns the laws of matter around, all the while the protagonist puts together what seem to be puzzle pieces of his life, bit by bit, as if re-experiencing them again.

The creators did a really great job. I look forward to their future projects.

“In Between” is a gem I unearthed during the Steam Winter Sale. I had never heard of it before, and judging from the presently fewer than 70 Steam reviews, you probably haven't heard of it either. But I think we need to change that.

I was drawn to the hand-crafted visuals right off the bat. “In Between” has a very strong sense of individual style and presentation that feels very personal; diametrically opposed to the almost antiseptic feeling you can sometimes get from an ultra-polished AAA title. This game is a bit like flipping through someone's sketchbook come to life.

That “personal” feel for the art is especially fitting, as it dovetails nicely with the story: a journey of grief imparted in the first-person by a man dying of cancer. Both the writing and voiceover narration are top-shelf. Weighty topics are half-whispered to you by a solemn voice that is like a warmer version of Tom Waits.

Of course, the real meat of the game is the puzzles, and ultimately that is what will make or break the experience for you. Regardless of your thoughts on the audiovisual aspects, if you're someone who hates puzzle-platformers you may not enjoy it to the extent that I have. On that note, I'm going to mention the game “Braid.” Not to suggest “In Between” is a Braid-clone, but because just about everybody played Braid and has an opinion on it, so it's a convenient mental shortcut for me to use here: Did you enjoy Braid for its hand-drawn aesthetic, emotionally groundbreaking non-traditional game story, and sometimes maddening puzzles? If so, I feel pretty solid about this recommendation. Or, did you hate Braid, label its story “pretentious,” and despise its sometimes maddening puzzles? Well, then maybe you should keep walking, and go be wrong somewhere else.

A particularly nice touch here is the way each set of levels introduces a gameplay mechanic that alludes to one of the stages of grief. It works, and feels clever and appropriate, rather than gimmicky. Well done.

I haven't mentioned the music yet, but it fits in nicely with everything else and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Final thoughts: I urge you to try... and I mean really try, to finish the story without looking up solutions to any of the puzzles. There are a few optional achievements that you'll want to use a guide to knock out afterward, and that's fine, but try to stay guide-free until the credits roll. Yes, you will get stuck sometimes. And, if you use your brain and continue to experiment, you will get through just as I did.

Playtime for the main story was a relaxed 3.5 hours for me, spread across a few lunch breaks and taking periodic breaks to ingest food. If you're a mad puzzle genius, I'm sure you can do it faster. Your mileage may vary. Enjoy.

There are a lot of good things about this game - the art and music are great - but the buggy, spike-happy, checkpoint-sparse platforming difficulty made the game crushingly frustrating for me. I got the achievement for dying 100 times during the second chapter, and based on global acheivement statistics that seems to be about par for the course. There has been at least one level that was almost impossible to complete because of a bug (luckily you are allowed to skip levels freely).

There's also very little that's puzzly about it. Almost all of the challenge is in physical execution.

Challenging and fun puzzle/platforming game with a meaningful story built around it. Each stage uses a different technique to accomplish the levels which keeps things interesting. Nice soundtrack as well. The only drawback was the lack of checkpoints within levels which has now been addressed in an update. Recommended game.

Saw this game being examined by Extra Credits, and had to experience it for myself. Much detail was put into this game, but there were a few design choices that seemed lacking.

When I look at a level menu I expect 3 things usually associated with icons and/or a text blurb:
1) The Name of the Level.
2) Has the player reached the endpoint?
3) Has the player found the all the secrets?

However what I got was:
1) A layout of the map to memorize
2) A filled inner circle once the player reached level endpoint
3) A half circle to indicate if a memory was present in the level

While it was does contain the basic information, it is impossible to tell someone about a level by describing a map. The levels aren't numbered, just nodes of circles along the bottom of each section to choose from. The issue is I can't describe the unique map within a reasonable time frame, and describing a node means nothing to another player since they all look the same.

The next issue is lack of objective information. If I had never looked at the achievements, I never would've known about the "Hidden Glimmers of Hope" with one hidden inside a level within each section. Also there's no indication of which level contains a glimmer nor the specified rules you must abide by in order to obtain it. If it's hidden, leave hints.

Lastly, if you are making an achievement for doing all the levels "perfectly", you need to display to the player which levels are done "perfectly". Re-doing levels because the player isn't shown they obtained something does not result in replayability (fun) as much as frustration. The feeling of progress is done if everything appears done.

With that out of the way, I only have two suggestions for the developers.

1. QuickSave - not checkpoints, just being able to save at any certain safe point allows faster iterations which means less frustration. Not every game can benefit from saving whenever, but this certainly would've.

2. Difficulty Tweaking - You know what I'm talking about, those extra spikes, the movement speed of darkness and orbs, orb speed scaling bigger/smaller, certain placement/existance of spike balls. Making a game easier doesn't make the story less appealing. It is true players have different meanings of "fun" and "satisfaction", but if they aren't being satisfied on lower difficulties, they'll raise the difficulty, you could even have an achievement as an incentive for them to challenge themselves. As for the obvious "It's too hard" players, you could have a secret death counter, and if they die over and over again in quick succession, prompt them about lowering the difficulty. Rayman Legends used this similar system, but the impact it had was minor due to the levels still remaining the same instead of making the level with less deathtraps.....

In fact, let the end users set when they want to be notified if it's too hard. They choose how much death should lead to their acceptance of lowering the difficulty.

Overall, it is a well made game and other developers could learn a thing or two from it, both in regards of what to do and possibly what not to do (though I found what this team did, did it right.).

In Between is a story-driven puzzle platformer with gravity rotation mechanics that has the makings of a new classic. It looks similar to gravity puzzler The Bridge at first glance. But with the instant gravity flips of And Yet It Moves, several unique game mechanics and a mature and tightly interwoven story, the game is a fresh experience that is well worth playing.

The protagonist of the game is a young man whose life is suddenly shattered when he is diagnosed with lung cancer. We follow him as he learns to accept his fate, in a game where story is told in smooth transitions between playable cutscenes and puzzle chapters. The five main chapters of the game are inspired by the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

Each chapter introduces a new game element, themed after the stage it represents. The symbolism isn't necessarily clear-cut, like in the denial chapter, where darkness chases you from one or two sides of the screen, and can only be held off by facing it. This obstacle makes sense though, and is explained in the story segment leading up to it. Anger is more easily grasped, since it's represented by red pulsating, and sometimes moving, orbs that kill on touch. Bargaining has levels where you simultaneously control a mirrored shadow protagonist, and in depression you have to move through scarce sources of light to avoid the deadly darkness. The final chapter is more of a narrative device, and is one I choose not to describe to avoid spoiling the experience.

In addition to the five main chapters, there's also a tutorial, which is designed to make you comfortable with the gravity flip mechanics. Like the first four of the five main chapters, the tutorial contains 12 levels, of which nine are required to unlock the next chapter. The first nine levels in each chapter are for the most part easy enough to figure out for someone with a bit of experience with the genre, but getting the timing right can be tricky in some of the levels. None of the levels have checkpoints, so if you mess up and die, you will have to start over from the beginning of the level.

Getting through the game took me just over three hours, but solving the additional 15 harder levels doubled that, so the game should offer about six hours worth of gameplay in total. If you go after the hidden glimmers of hope or a no-death run, you can probably add several more hours on top of that. The game never gets as punishing as The Bridge or Closure, but if you've made it through Braid and LIMBO, you should be able to solve most of the levels of In Between without too much trouble.

This is a game well worth playing for the story alone. The subjects of grief and regret are topics I haven't seen explored in games often enough, and seldom as intimately as in this game. We get to witness the protagonist's struggles with accepting his imminent death, memories of his childhood and his troublesome relationship to his father, and having to leave a young daughter behind. Most of the story is told through playable cutscenes and in spoken thought leading in to levels, but some levels also have memory shards hidden as cracks in the wall that trigger when you walk past them.

The game is fully playable with my wired Xbox 360 controller, though I prefer to play it using the keyboard. It's controlled using both sticks on a gamepad or WASD and arrow keys with keyboard controls. There are no options for rebinding keys, but I found these defaults intuitive and easy to play with. I haven't experienced any technical issues with the Linux version, but the demo on Steam is available for Linux, so you can try it to see if it works well on your system.

NOTE: This review was originally posted on GamingOnLinux.

Probably many would say at this point, just from watching the trailer:" oh, it´s just like VVVVVV". But if you play the game, you soon realise it´s not just another puzzle platformer. Game Design wise it is really interesting because the game introduces puzzle mechanice in the context of the stages of grief, which gives it a lot of meaning. Some Levels are hard as hell O.o and sometimes it´s a torture to get through >.<. But when you actually do, it´s incredibly satisfying. And you have to play the game until the very end, because it´s really worth it an makes a lot of sense as a whole experience.

In Between is a really great game with beautiful handpaintes visuals, a stunning atmosphere and a deep and engaging story. - I promise i cried for 15 minutes - Love to support such an awesome game.

Though "In Between" has been on my Wish List for some time, I chose to play the demo before committing. But I only played it for about three minutes. The quality of art, the story and the game play are so readily apparent that the choice was simple. Admittedly, I've played less than an hour, so this review will likey not be my final version.

A contemporary, urban male is facing a rapidly approaching death, and must prepare emotionally and mentally. This is done through a series of puzzles involving (superficially) gravity. (I say superficially, because even at early levels "In Between" offers much more, as well as great potential.) A friend looking at the Store Page was immediately repulsed by characteristics seemingly shared by platformers. I have to disagree. It doesn't call itself a platformer, and had it been a platformer I would have quite possibly expressed the same distain. No, "In Between" is a story driven puzzle game. A good one. And the puzzles can be quite difficult (in a good way.)

There is a world of gravity-based games available. "In Between" shares characteristics with "The Bridge", but has far more story. Actually, the gravity puzzle aspect is quite similar to "Gravity Error", so liking either is a strong indication of a players feeling about the other. But the gravity aspect is just a stepping stone to qualities that the excellent learning curve has just begun to reveal to this player, so I have nothing more to say at this time.

Except - PLAY the demo!