(AMIGA) Inner Demons
INNER DEMONS
Produced by: Scareware (Michael Zerbo)
Platform: Amiga
Year: 1995
Genre: Textual adventure with graphics.
Inner Demons is an indipendent horror textual graphic adventure, written by Michael Zerbo.
The game puts you in a very bizarre setting: you are a man who has been
recently released from a mental institution. He was internated there
after the death of his daughter, Patricia, in a car crash which he
caused involuntarily.
Title Screen
After his daughter’s death, he suffered from severe hallucinations
and visions, which has brought him to insanity. He has just has been
released and he’s at home to recuperate, but it seems that the visions,
the guilt and the inner torment unleashed by the crash haven’t gone away
yet. It’s time to face them once and for all, and to definitively
discover where the reality ends and the visions start…
The game is mostly set inside the protagonist’s house and it has a very
surreal and creepy atmosphere, obtained by a clever combination of
graphics (every place and major event is portrayed in a simple but
effective way), music (a very eerie and effective theme, written by the
very talented Steven Gane, who wrote the soundtrack to other Zerbo’s
adventure games too) and sense of impeding dread. The choice of setting a
very big part of the game inside the protagonist’s house is very
effective and it helps in stressing the inner conflict which he’s
living.
The beginning of your adventure…
The game is also very gruesome, violent and graphic, both in physical
and in a psychological sense. The monstrosities that you will face in
your adventure are both described and portrayed in details, without
sparing nothing to the player. Some of the pictures of monsters and
demons have been taken from Hieronymus Bosch’s paintings, a very nice
and effective idea since the sense of impeding doom of Bosch’s work is
very fitting to the atmosphere of the game.
A portrait of a room.
However, there are two big turndowns in this game: the parser is very
limited, making sometimes difficult to input the action you’re thinking
correctly, and there are a couple of nasty bugs that limits and hinder
the game continuity and progress. They can be easily avoided, but they
are frustrating, if they are found.
Also the game unwinds it’s mysteries only at it’s very end. This is both
a good idea, because it keeps the sense of dread and confusion high,
and a bad idea, because sometimes the player can feel lost and without
an aim in the game.
In conclusion, if you like bizarre games which take a unusual and
sometimes disturbing stance and if you like text adventures you should
try this title.
LINKS
Amiga download page at IF archive (both HD and floppy version)
Hints and full solution at CASA (Classic Adventures Solution Archive)
VIDEOS
Gameplay sample
Full Playthrough pt 1/2
Full Playthrough pt 2/2