Exploration games have been experiencing something of a renaissance over the last couple of years, with critically-acclaimed games like The Witness and Submerged bringing fans back to the glory days of Myst and Riven. We’ve even see companies try to create massively-multiplayer exploration titles. But I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything quite like Innerspace.
Innerspace is a flying exploration game where players are given the opportunity to explore a series of inside-out planets. Players assume the role of a cartographer, name and gender not specified, who uses a special plane -- that can also transform into a submarine – to explore the three abandoned worlds designed by PolyKnight Games. There are large structures to explore, like abandoned towers, along with dozens of caves and bodies of water to probe. During their travels, players will recover unidentified relics, each of which can teach something about the three worlds featured in Innerspace. But PolyKnight Games 3D artist and co-founder Steve Zapata says it will be up to the player to figure out what meaning these relics have and how they fit into the greater narrative.
“Most of the lore, most of the narrative actually comes from the relics,” Zapata said. “You fly through these towers, you pick up a relic and you can see it’s made out of this thing and it looks like it has this function. So you can guess at what it does or what it was used for or who made it.”
“We’re not doing any kind of overt cutscene storytelling,” he added. “Instead, we want the player to assemble the story in the same way you assemble a puzzle.”
Each time players find a relic, they’ll have an opportunity to pause and examine the artifact. Zapata says players will have to use the relics, combined with some environmental clues, to figure out what exactly is going on in Innerspace. The only time players will encounter another sentient being is when they’re delivering recovered relics to an archaeologist who makes informed guesses about the origins of each item. But the twist, just like real life, is that sometimes the archaeologist is going to be wrong. And neither of you will know whether the initial guess is right or wrong until a new relic offers enough information to confirm (or change) the hypothesis.
“One of the big inspirations for this kind of storytelling was Dark Souls,” Zapata said. “Around Dark Souls there’s a huge community all about the lore, all about trying to figure out what [each] thing meant, why was it placed there. I love that.”
PolyKnight Games is aware some fans will want to work out all of Innerspace’s mysteries on their own. Zapata says he fully expects players to reach their own conclusions about the story, over the course of the game, but the team is hoping it can create the kind of environmental storytelling that encourages players to band together when they’re having a tough time. Taking part in the game’s community won’t be necessary to enjoy Innerspace but it will almost certainly make it easier for lore-focused players to learn everything they can about the game’s three worlds.
“It’s so rad because you can come at it from one perspective and form your own interpretation right off the bat, just by playing it,” Zapata told iDigitalTimes. “But then, additionally, you can spend that time [to collaborate] and really figure out exactly what’s going on. “
To be honest, after just a few minutes of hands-on time with Innerspace, we’re not sure how anyone would solve all of the game’s riddles without help from a broader community. There are so many ways for players to interact with the environment, from exploring towers and caverns to using their wing blades to clear paths to new areas, and every choice you make will have an impact on the world you’re currently exploring. In addition, Zapata says defeating a pair of bosses inside the ice and yet-to-be-identified will alter the landscape of Innerspace's primary world.
Combat won’t play much of a role in Innerspace but Zapata did describe a scenario where players could use their wings to attack a creature that roams the sea, filling the sea bed with coral. But if the player kills it, there won’t be any more reefs. Sure, the absence of underwater plant life might clear a path to a previously inaccessible area. But it’s also possible you’re doing irreparable damage to the ecosystem for no reason. And it’s up to players to figure out which is the case.
“I promise there’s a reason for everything,” he added. “There’s a reason why everything is made out of this stone and not the orange stone. There’s a reason why on this big structure here, it look the way it does. There’s a reason why there are diagonal cuts in the ground that aren’t natural. Everything here has a reason. Everything here has a rational and so it’s there if players want to discover it.”
The company also hopes fans will enjoy Innerspace enough to just sort of hang out in its worlds during down time, even if that flight only lasts a few minutes.
“We created a space that we want players to come back to because it’s pleasant and because it feels good to be in. We took a lot of inspiration from Proteus in that regard,” Zapata continued. “In terms of straight hour count, and this may be something some people care about, if you know what you’re doing, I would guess probably around five hours [and] you could beat the whole thing. Maybe less.”
“I think my preferred perspective on it is that because it is so much about postulation and figuring out what it means. And because we want the space to be just a place players want to hang out in…it’s one of those games where you can pop in for 15 minutes and just cruise around. Or pop in for an hour and go really hard and try and figure stuff out. All the exploration, all the narrative, it’s all player driven. It’s all at your own pace. So you move as fast as you want to,” he added.
Three planets will be explorable at launch, the relatively “normal” planetoid being shown in the PAX South demo, an ice planet and a third that the studio isn’t talking about just yet. PolyKnight Games also isn’t saying much about Innerspace’s protagonist. Players won’t know who (if anyone) is piloting the plane or how the character ended up exploring the series of inside-out planets. Internally, the team refers to the transforming plane as ”the Player Vessel” but the Zapata says PolyKnight Games won’t be saying much else about the plane.
“We don’t want to tell you who you are,” Zapata said. “We want the player to be able to imprint as much of their own feeling and as much of their own personality on this as possible. So, we don’t really talk about who is inside the plane, or what’s inside the plane or if there’s someone inside the plane. We don’t really say their name or anything like that. It’s about the plane being a surrogate for your own experience.”
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