INFERNIUM

Perfect example for why there should be a mixed/neutral button for reviews because I can totally see why this appeals to this small niche of masochist gamers, it checks all the right boxes with the games framework, but at least gameplay wise this was torture. The atmosphere and environment was top notch, loves the various areas you got to explore in this game, issue comes with some of the inhabitants of those areas and how they really badly want to make your time a living hell as they realise what kind of game they're in. Which from I experienced is a hardcore "permadeath" survival horror with no direction full of cryptic story and puzzles and scary enemies and put together to the level this game takes it is almost too much. I really had to lock in to one tap my first and second playthrough as I realised the game wont save your data when quitting, and will take you back to a checkpoint almost nowhere near where you quit from. And I mean REALLY lock in cause man this games exploration will cause you harm with how it tells you almost nothing. Now just like there are people willing to sink hundreds of hours into Rimworld or Dwarf Fortress, there will be and are people willing to do that to this game and major props to them, they arent human anymore and I applaud their rapture from our mortal plane. Overall this is a great game to gawk at the areas you get put in, if you can put up with the massive wall that gets thrown at you every so often

Mostly fantastic metroidvania /collectathon that features a permanently changing world even after dying, tons of exploration, and requires a lot of attention to detail to figure it all out. As deep as the Witness but with more action (if you can call running away action). Only downside is it can get very frustrating, but see my mild spoilers at the bottom to help with that without ruining the game. FYI the reviews that complain about punishing difficulty probably pre-date the version of the game with adjustable difficulty. This game is only as hard as you want it to be, and you can switch the difficulty up or down at any time.

I really enjoyed most of the 30 hours I put in, but about halfway thru it got too hard for me. Luckily the dev added an option to make the ghosts move slower, which returned the game to a fun level of frustration. Even so, I wish that there had been about twice as many checkpoints. Later parts of the game require a lot of trial and error and repeating paths too many times just to get to the interesting/challenging part.

There's just one single large world but with lots of interconnected paths that lead to fairly distinct areas with different puzzle mechanics. Exploring it all and learning the paths (so that you can run away from the enemies quickly) is what makes the game fun. The level design is fantastic, and also pretty to look at. If it weren't stressful it would be a great walking simulator (and you can turn off enemies if that's your vibe).

I do have some serious issues with how it ends though. Most of the game is very fair, but right at the end it stops being that way, and you may not even realize that it's become unfair until you rage quit. So spoilers follow, which I strongly wish I had known.

First: Energy is a important commodity. Don't harvest it unless you have a need for it. There's plenty to go around but if you mindlessly collect it you'll need to go on some very long trips by the end of the game to get enough. For that reason I recommend turning off permadeath from the start.

Second: when you climb the stairs after gaining the 5th finger the "final" puzzle requires extremely tight timing. I banged my head against it for several hours thinking I could perfect a path, but in retrospect it was time to turn off enemies and just finish the game.

Third: the beach gate can be opened with no special ability, just bring 1 or more fingers of light energy with you. Otherwise, the fountain puzzle ONLY leads to the black fountain.

Finally, I realize good game stories are hard to write, but I found the game ending(s) to be kind of lame. I play the game for the gameplay, not the story, but after all that work a little clarity about what was happening would have been nice. Check the wiki if you want it spelled out, I guess.

Conclusion: great game, totally worth the price. I will remember it for a long time, though I will regret the last 2-3 hours of extreme frustration trying to finish it. Hey Carlos, you need better playtesters (hint, hint).

I can't remember why I got this game or what made me want to get it. It was on sale that's all I remember. A year later I look through my library and decide to give it a go. While playing it I was shocked to see the mixed reviews. I absolutely recommend to get this game when it's on sale. I think the mixed reviews and the lack of achievements globally unlocked says about how people give up so early in game, which I'm not sure why. Could be that it's a difficult game which it's intended to be.

I'm very surprised about how hooked I got, for 1,5 weeks all I did was play this game or at least think about it. An indie game made by just one person or a small team is incredibly impressive. Graphics are nice and the scenery is beautiful, some things like the sound effects can sound a bit cheap, but it grew on me quickly. Story is intriguing if only the logs were placed in easier, not miss-able spots.

Game play was to begin with challenging. There's no sense of direction and you feel lost and have no idea what to do or where to go, which is the fun part. It makes you want to explore and find out what certain paths will lead you to. The enemies are straightforward after you play for a while and you learn their patterns. Every corner scared me and I had a few heart attacks and jump scares. It's eerie, intense, mysterious, and a very unique game.

It took a few hours to beat the game but to be honest, the ending challenge was difficult for me to beat I just wanted to get it over with and used the glitch ._. (sorry, I'm not good). And the New game+ is WAY too difficult and challenging, so I kinda just skipped to heaven and did the glitch again... If I had the patience and motivation I'm sure I could beat it properly, but I'd probably end up drained.

Overall, what a shame that it's not popular and doesn't have the recognition it deserves. It's a great game.

A unique FPS puzzler with a very interesting story. One of my favorites! This game is difficult and the puzzles aren't easy. That seems to be a big turn off for alot of reviewers, but there is nothing rewarding about solving easy puzzles. Expect to die alot and learn from it.

game is unplayable for me , keeps crashing not matter what i do. Can't even get past the first few minutes. Shame, i really wanted to play it

Why does the game keep crashing within 1 minute of opening it ?
I want to play it but it keeps crashing even in it's lowest settings .

This is one of the more unique experiences I've had in a game, in quite a while. The combination of beautiful worldbuilding, a very surreal and interesting set of game mechanics, a fairly compelling story and a nice balanced challenge made this one of my favorites I've played in a long time. It keeps you on your toes and the enemies keep the pressure on the player, forcing you to make snap decisions that could save you or kill you, forcing you back to the checkpoints.

All of this was great; it made me feel smart when I found the sequence I needed to do, it rarely made me truly frustrated that I didn't know what the hell to do, it was always a "I screwed up", not a "this game is bullshit".

That was true until the ending sequence. In which you basically have zero margin for error, and it's incredibly difficult. That single sequence did change this game from being a solid 9.5/10 to around a 7.5, maybe an 8 if I include the developers mod that slows enemies down; which I had to use to beat the game.

All that being said? Support this developer. Get the game, on sale or not; it's an incredibly fun experience, there's a really strange and surreal world in Infernium. The enemies have a unique design, there's a good amount of variety to them and how they interact with the player, and it's just a lot of fun to play. I had a real blast playing this and I think most people who like puzzles or a decent amount of challenge will get behind this.

If you don't want to play it, feel free to check out the series I did.

https://youtu.be/Bft9wUwlR8U

Beautiful and original game which really draws you in. Honestly some of the worlds you come across just put a big grin on my face. The upside-down castle, the endless waterfall, all so imaginative and atmospheric.

The death mechanic is very unique and love how you can buy back lives if you want. Don't sweat it if you keep dying as this can lead to an alternative ending. And even after this you can claw your way back to the living again.

I've only seen a few enemies on my play-through so far. They can be a bit frustrating, but when you carefully think about each situation, they can be evaded quite easily, and sometimes entirely avoided as you can open up short-cuts as you progress.

There is a background story there, which can be skipped if that's not your thing.

I can understand this game might not be for everyone. It can be a bit slow-paced, but after a long days work, this is just what I need.

I've just completed one of Carlos' other games - Horror Tales: The Wine. Another wonderful world to explore if you enjoy this one. I've also wishlisted his upcoming games and can't wait to see what's next.

Don't get me wrong, Infernium has a lot of cool features – the complex level design and nice ethereal soundscape, for example, can produce some beautiful macabre moments. However, it took me a lot of effort to enjoy the game, even to enjoy these nice little things, since I was always pissed off with the gameplay. Sometimes the game is too hard, sometimes confusing (almost no tutorials), but most of the time it is just boring. Making the same path over and over again, since the checkpoints are very far from each other, eventually you'll just feel bored and trapped. Maybe that's what the devs wanted you to feel, right? Trapped in hell? Well, I didn't like it (if you like how this sounds, go ahead and buy it – you'll probably enjoy it).

See, I don't mind dying and having to do it all over again. That's fine. But the absence of exit save puts you in difficult situations, since the game will restart on the last abysmally distant checkpoint. So you're tired, and you don't want to play anymore, but if you quit the game now you'll have to do it all over again tomorrow – so you keep looking for a damn firepit. For an hour. Maybe two hours. Or until you die because of some sleepy carelessness (again, if you enjoy punishment, go ahead).

Anyway, there are also some rewarding moments, of course: the moments when you feel untrapped, or when you finally get to your destination. And there are some thrilling moments too, when you think "no no no no no, if this fucking ghost kill me now I'll have to do it all over again". In the end, it all revolves around this feeling of clausure and repetition.

Bottom line is that Infernium was an intense experience, regardless of me liking it or not. Definitely memorable. It managed to be boring and intense at the same time. If I could rate it "mixed", I would.

Infernium is the Dark Souls of Pac-Man.

Reviews are currently overall 'mixed' as I write this, and honestly I'm not surprised. Infernium is weird, obtuse, and punishing. But if you stick it out, you'll be rewarded with one of the most unique and satisfying puzzle adventure games of the generation.

The good stuff:

Lets start with the best thing this game has: the levels. The design of each of the levels in the game is simply amazing, they are visually stunning and they are the thing that I will remember the most about this game. The background music of the game is also pretty spot on, it goes very well with the levels and it is amazing listening to it while you enter a new level for the first time, it will hit you directly on the feelings. The game world is also amazing, it takes inspiration from the souls games in which everything is connected, and the way in which this game connects the different levels is unique, giving it its own identity. Finally, this game has different accessibility features that allow to remove or reduce the challenges that the game presents to you, this allows people with special needs to play the game as well.

The not so good stuff:

The main mechanic in the game is the use of a teleport to move around the environment, sadly, I think it is a bit clunky, sometimes its a bit hard to tell whether or not you can teleport and you will find yourself in many situations in which by a mere couple of centimetres you cant teleport, something that will get you killed. Which in the end, is really annoying. There is basically just one kind of puzzle that you will find three or four times across the game, more variety would have been great.

The bad stuff:

Lets start with the worst thing in this game: there is no tutorial. Once you start the game, you have no idea where are you, why you are there, why you are surrounded by orange lights or what is the purpose of the most important elements of the environment. This terrible design decision has literally crippled this game, you do not have to believe me, the number of people that got the first achievement you can get is a 35% and the number of people that got the second one is less than 10%, most people stopped playing this game nearly at the start, and I cannot really blame them, the first time I played this game I dropped it for like 10 months after playing an hour, and decided to retake it again a week ago. I had to look at the game's wiki to understand the purpose of the different elements of the environment and what I had to do to progress. This is simply terrible. Some elements of the environment are explained to you through notes written in walls or in the floor that also tell you the story, but there is also stuff that is never explained to you in the game itself.

Taking lots of inspiration from the souls games, this game has also implemented the worst thing that the souls games have. If you are familiar with them, you might know what I am talking about: the checkpoints. Some checkpoints are too far away from each other, meaning that if you die you will have to walk all the way there, which is boring as hell.

The exploration of this game is completely pointless most of the time, another bad design decision. The game does not encourages you to explore in any way, its mostly the other way around, exploring puts you at great risk for practically no reward of any kind. The only reason why someone might want to explore the different areas is to find the notes in relation to the story, however, taking into account that you will have to walk back all the way to the different areas, this also becomes a boring and a tedious task. At the beginning I was really into finding all the texts, but after a while, I just decided to read the plot from the game's fan wiki. I think I would have bothered to search for all the notes if traversing through the environment could be achieved in a faster way and if some kind of achievement was involved in doing so, or in other words: a reward for finding all the notes.

Two of the items of the game are completely useless, you do not need them at all and even if you get them, you will not notice a big difference in the gameplay, another bad design decision. It could have been great if the time wasted in those two things was spent on working on more different kinds of puzzles.

A big chunk of the story is written in some sort of code in banners, I tried to look for some clue inside the game to decipher them but no idea. In the game's wiki it says that is old spanish, but after comparing some old spanish texts with the banners in the game, I doubt that is the case. It would have been great if instead of spending time in useless features, the developer would have made an item that would have allowed you to translate those texts.

Twitch integration, for some reason this game has a twitch feature that allows people from the chat to spawn you rewards or enemies. I do not know why the developer thought this was a good design decision, instead of maybe, well, implementing features for most of your player base.

Should you play it:

Very very sadly to say this but, what could have been an amazing game with stunning environments, a well built game world and a relatively good story, has turned out to be a mediocre game simply because of terrible design decisions and a boring gameplay. It seems that the developer did not have completely clear what the audience of this game was going to be or how big it was going to big. I cannot really recommend this game, despite the amazing environments that this game offers, I think it is not worth playing it.

I really really REALLY wanted to like this game. It has everything I want in a game and people who know me knows I rarely make a negative review to any type of game.

Well made enviroment, puzzles, nice looking enemies.. But I just can't enjoy it. I'm not sure if it is the open world being too open that it leaves me bored most of the time, mostly because the world is filled with 95% air, even if I progress to new areas. Reading notes on the wall doesn't keep the game alive, you just walk around in silence. Maybe it would have been better to have the story being told vocally?

Second try I removed the enemies thinking maybe it would be easier to play the game without them.
But like other beautiful puzzle, walking simulator games, they have a more clear and intriguing story, nice soundtrack and events that keeps happening as you progress.
I will try and pressure myself through this in the future but now I need a long brake.

Maybe this game is for Dark Souls nerds who enjoys being punished. If so this game is clearly for you.

At the beginning of the game I loved it and said I will challenge myself to the game as it is. But after I skipped the rain bridge when I faced new enemy "Ghost" , I can see him if there is rain and follow his sound by luck, but then i thought this will goes easy.


Especially when i reached the "plains" there is a puzzle to open the elevator to go up for long dash I couldn't solve it even though I tried six times in row , why !? because 4 ghosts in there and i can't see them well and everything is white, after that i really want to request a refund .
( It was like impossible to pass that level for me) , just by luck i went back to the main menu and head to "Accessibility" there is written:

[b]-The game designed to be challenging and brutal experience. slowly learning the game's systems,mechanics and level design is part of adventure.

-However if you think one of the following options is going to make experience more entertaining for you , go for it.

hmm that's good for me actually , i directly check on NO ENEMIES.

And enjoy the game by .walking simulator after understand the game and finish it i wanted to start it with new game plus with enemies LOL it was even scarier and tougher than before i disabled it again.
this game got me goosebumps , highly recommended for you to play it in normal mode just try it firstly with enemies . enjooooyyy :)))

* Two bad things forgot to mention if i'm in game noway to adjust the settings
* If i hold the ESC button , i come to main menu and continue all the harvesting fingers will reset.

Infernium has a ton of potential, but isn't fully-realized enough to hold my attention. The world is gigantic and beautiful, but it's also confusing and easy to get pulled in multiple directions only to get stuck. It's an open-world puzzle game with no instructions (rad, love those), but there weren't quite enough guardrails in place for me to figure out what to do before I lost interest with the repetition.

The scary things are really quite scary. They're ominous and vague and it takes some time to figure out how they work, which is a marker of a good horror game enemy. The sound effects are intense and add to the effect.

The Twitch integration is a wonderful idea and I love it. It's a little rough around the edges, but I'd love to see more like it in other games and I'm glad it was included here. Though I only played the game a little, the best and most memorable moments were made because of the integration.

The story isn't very compelling, sadly. The controls are a bit clunky, but manageable.

I didn't enjoy the game enough to recommend it. It felt kind of Myst-like in that I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing--ever--and there's a lot of reading and thinking. Though I appreciate the rogue-lite element, I wasn't patient enough. If you have a ton of patience you may enjoy this more than I did.

I have been aware of this game since it first released, but at that time, I gave it a pass without a second thought the moment I saw it was from the same developer who made MIND: Path to Thalamus. Indeed, that game is nowhere near a good one in my standards, I even wrote a negative review about it with some harsh words. So what made me give it a second chance this time? Well, simply because the low price point (80% off) it was at and I happened across a review highly praising it.

Naturally, I dived into it with a really low expectation. And oh boy, I ended up mesmerized.

Now I’m completely engulfed in regrets for two things: 1) Dear developer, please forgive me for my harsh words and prejudice before, I apologize sincerely. 2) Purchasing it at such a low price (roughly 2.5USD), is literally a steal.

So the moral to this is: Never let your prejudice towards people misleads your judgement.

Infernium is a game best experienced without knowing much about it, I’ll just have to keep my description as simple as I could: It gave me a similar vibe that I had when first playing Dark Souls, mind you, not just any Dark Souls, but the Dark Souls 1.

Remember the time when you were thrown into a strange world without knowing anything about it, only seeing a huge vista in front of you expands infinitely towards all directions? You had no idea of its inhabitant, its whereabout, and its purpose. Hell, you didn’t even know who yourself was and what you were supposed to do. (kinda like being born, innit? Except without your parents holding your hands.) As you carried on with your adventure, you blended into the world little by little. Like the realization that those light dots scattering at the horizon you saw at the very beginning, were not just background skybox, but actual levels you can march to… By unlocking shortcuts, you started to realize how this world was made, and how levels interconnect with each other on such a large scale… And how many secrets were hidden at every nook and cranny etcetera, etcetera.

For me, these are the reasons why Dark Souls 1 earned a special place in my heart, not its lore, not its combat system, not its misconceived difficulty. I simply rejoiced with excitement that I got the chance to relive all those experiences, once more. For Infernium, possibly provided the most genuine vibe among all souls-like games I’ve played, without even trying to be a souls-like by ripping off every formula that made the souls franchise successful. (Yes, I'm referring to games like Salt and Sanctuary, shame on you!)


I know, those are some bold words, you might as well lower your expectation a little bit. After all, Infernium is a really low-budget production (it’s mostly made by one person), and it has those low-budget feelings (you know what cheap unreal engine games are like) all over the place. Nevertheless, if you’re a lenient person with an open mind who can tolerate rough edges and some amateur design choices, missing this title might be a big mistake you’ll regret at some point.

[All Achievements Acquired on: 26 Mar, 2019]

[Final (Subjective) Verdict: 84%]

I'm actually quite shocked at how few people are talking about this game online, because the experience is incredibly unique. As of writing this, I'm still stuck around the last area of the game (it's incredibly difficult). I just want to get my word out now cuz I really LOVE this game.

The game pits itself as "a survival horror approach to Pac-Man". And it is quite an apt description albeit a little incomplete. Yes, you do spend the majority of your time in the game collecting orbs and running away from colored ghosts and monsters that you can't kill, just like in Pac-Man. You even get thrown into blocky mazes where you have to sometimes have deal with more than one enemy.

But beyond that, the similarities to Pac-Man end, and you find yourself lost in a BEAUTIFUL, hellish, and metroidvania-styled open-world, picking up bits and pieces of the story behind the place along the way. I do mean lost in a literal sense, by the way, since you'll often find yourself losing your sense of direction (for better or for worse, more on that later). Couple that with the fact that the game explains almost nothing to you besides the controls, it lends for an very unsettling vibe.

Aimless wandering around a creepy place may not be your cup of tea, but for a curious guy like me, I've been loving it so far. What keeps bringing me back is just that sense of curiousity. You want to keep finding the bits of story written around. You want to keep on seeing what kind of challenges the game will throw at you next. You want to see the next beautiful vista the game would put you in.

I also love how accessible the game is. It's freaking tough by default, but it offers options like giving more hints, making enemies slower or even turning them off entirely, so you can still enjoy it even if you don't like horror or tense challenges. Maps and hints are littered around the world and you're free to just screenshot those for reference if needed. Personally, I left all the accessibility options on (despite normally hating horror) cuz I like things fun and exciting, but I will admit I was way too reliant on those maps haha.

On the subject for criticisms, I think the level design could have used a bit more polish. There is a clear amount of thought that went into the way the levels and even different sections intertwine with each other, and the whole "vertical loop" thing is super creative and impressive, but I think there are a couple of spots that seem to serve no purpose other than to get you lost. I think it's a bit of a lazy approach to creating tension and it just ends up leaving you with more frustrations than anything else.

Additionally, while I do enjoy the metroidvania aspect of backtracking through sections, I do wish there were more shortcuts for going through sections you've been to before. I appreciate how arenas/mazes only need to be dealt with once, but there are a handful of areas where you still have to deal with a monster every single time you pass through, causing a lot of unwanted or even undeserved deaths. It can be a little inconsistent, to be quite frank. I'd just like a stress-free way to pass through all the sections once I've completed them. The worst offenders of this problem are The Darkness, The Silent Catacombs, and The Descent. I even felt a little jealous of Denis and the others when I first read that they could just teleport anywhere at will. Why can't I have that! hmph.

Also, I'm not a fan of the permadeath system. It makes for a lot of tension in the beginning, but around the endgame, it gets incredibly tedious having to travel all the way to The Sun just to get more lives quickly. You'll be dying a lot more by then so a lot of those lives are very much needed. I think if there was some sort of mechanic to get rid of permadeath (legitimately!) before the last part, it would have saved a lot of ragequits. Just turning it off with the accessibility options just doesn't feel right.

Lastly, I just want to say how awesome and kind the game developer, Carlos Coronado, is. He has shown himself to be incredibly helpful in the discussions to all players looking for help. Not only that, but he provided not just full modding tools for this game, but a whole course of tutorials as well! The guy honestly has a huge passion for his work and only wants everyone to enjoy themselves with it. In fact, this game and Coronado honestly inspired me to install Unreal Engine and get back to learning it again. Hats off to such a cool guy!

Overall, I have really enjoyed this game, and it has earned a place in my indie game heart regardless of whether I'll be able to finish it or not. It's a very unique experience and I want to see more of it in the future. Seriously, this game NEEDS more attention. Play it and get your friends to play it too!

It's like a surrealist painter had a dream involving Pac-Man and Dark Souls blending into a first person view.

Although I did not complete it yet, I can already recommend it for beautiful art and brilliant first hour experience. It is tense, enigmatic and frightening, but in a very pleasant kind of way, without pools of blood or detached limbs.

Played it for a while and made some decent progress. Like everyone says, the level design is stellar. It's so enjoyable to explore. However, the game is quite difficult. There's no skill involved, once you get to the invisible specters. It's just chance, which makes the game cheap and, ultimately, not worth the effort. I liked the game enough to say I hope to see another one - one that is actually worth the time and effort required to complete it. This game is not worth the effort. Kudos to the dev, but I can't recommend this game. To much work for too little.

EDIT:

Carlos! First, so much respect for what you did with your game when it initially launched. That was just beyond cool how you handled the price issue and you deserve all the respect in the world for reaching out to the community.

It wasn't really that I got stuck, man. I just reached a point where pushing on didn't feel worth it. Four hours in and the game's mystique started wearing thin to the point were I didn't feel compelled to continue - the payoff of figuring out a puzzle didn't feel worth the effort. I may come back to the game. But with all the other games that continually pour out, the chances are very slim.

I'm rooting for you. Hope your next game makes you a billionaire.

A really, really hardcore survival horror game. You can feel the souls-like influence on it. For me, it is too hardcore. I heard the developer is going to update the game next week with more accessibility options: Slower enemies, no life loss (so no perma-death), walking simulator mode and more in-game tutorials. I will play it again then with more tutorials and maybe slower enemies. I appreciate that you slowly learn all the systems of the game, but I just don't have the time for it so I'll wait for more tutorials. Environments are beautiful and the rest so far, so good. It is just too hardcore to me.

What initially got us interested in this game was the ability to have twitch integration so that we would be able to stream it and create some interactivity with our community. What surprised us was what a purely awesome gaming experience this was.

Gameplay: The best way to describe this game would be an 'action survival puzzler'. We are not usually big into puzzle games, but this game beautifully balances the mazelike maps, path mechanics, and puzzles with the action of having to stay alive. What it results in is an action oriented experience in which you find yourself having to think quickly on the fly and having to negotiate puzzles while trying to stay alive. It's high octane stuff, and gets the heart racing. This is also helped by a few good eerie and terrifying moments. This is kicked up to an even higher notch, since your chat will be able to vote on various options to send into your game, such as jump scares or additional monsters.

Presentation: The graphics are superb and the game presents well. There is a good flow to the scenes, and each chapter is told well through the narrative written into the game. Good care is taken to present all the needed information without the need of a HUD, with all the necessary information presented in game graphics, which adds to the immersion factor. The sound effects are outstanding and contribute greatly to creating an unsettling and immersive atmosphere.

Overall the experience is extremely engaging, well paced, and visually pleasing. It's one of the most fun experiences we've had streaming, and we look forward to finishing the game and looking at the modding options (another awesome feature which is included in the game).

Given the price point, anyone who is interested in the genre is going to really have an awesome time.