Update 2: Inside see deal Playdead's INSIDE $0.00on iTunes Store

Update: Inside has been nominated for IGN's 2016 Game of the Year.

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“ Refreshingly, there are no instructions whatsoever.

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“ Encounters are so expertly choreographed such that you always escape them by the skin of your teeth.

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The first 10 minutes of Inside, the long-awaited Limbo follow-up from developer Playdead, swing between being beautiful, haunting, and terrifying. Sometimes it is all three at the exact same time. From there, it adds intrigue, wonder, and shock on top of those and never lets up. For that reason, it’s best if you take my word for it and go in completely blind to discover it for yourself. But if you need to be convinced, keep reading for more on this visually stunning, thought-provoking, and mysterious masterpiece.Even though it is mechanically a 2D puzzle-platformer, Inside is quite simply one of the most beautiful and subtly detailed games I’ve ever played. Every frame appears to have been meticulously crafted and polished several times over, from dust particles hovering in smoky air to raindrops splashing down in a bog to golden sunlight beaming onto your unnamed, red-shirted boy avatar through a window. Everything appears to have had an artist’s full and undivided attention. I often stopped just to admire my surroundings, taking in the subtly detailed animations, moody lighting, boldly contrasting color palette, and even the eerily unsettling sound design. You can hear the boy breathing hard after he’s been running for a while. You can see him stumble after he jumps and sticks a running landing. Gray paints a lot of the scenery, but splashes of color – often red – are used as a bold contrast that draws your eye where the designers want it to go. Camera work is also laudable; the perspective only ever shifts slightly, but from scene to scene you’re always in the optimal viewing position for what’s happening on screen, and there’s always a visual reward anytime the camera moves closer in, pulls further out, or changes angle.Nothing I can say will prepare you for the vague, wordless events of Playdead’s physics-based puzzle platformer, but without spoiling it, it seems virtually impossible to not be shocked by what transpires. As you break into Inside’s militaristic complex and plumb its strange depths for the roughly three brisk, well-paced hours it takes to complete the campaign, it continually changes in both look and gameplay in unexpected ways. When you end up in a one-man submarine, searching for answers deep inside this base, it is only the beginning of the mystery.Like in Limbo, your only buttons are jump (A) and interact (X) (or up and Right Ctrl by default on PC, with the arrow keys handling movement), with subtle cues of hue or light directing your attention to where it needs to go. The puzzles themselves are a bit easier than those in Limbo – I never got hung up for more than a few minutes before having one of those gratifying puzzle-solving epiphanies. Some involve moving select objects, like boxes. Others see you activating odd air-propelled cubes that soar into the air and hover for a moment before returning to the ground and resetting. And there are several more that would be spoilery to discuss, but they add up to a good variety. Occasionally those are blended, necessitating experimentation with physics in order to get the angles just right. The complex itself is sometimes your opponent, be it great heights, unexplained concussion blasts, or deep water you’ll have to dive deep into without drowning.And Inside’s puzzles, both biological and environmental, serve as the vehicle that drives its storytelling. No explanation is ever given for why the boy is alone in the woods at night, nor why he sneaks into the mysterious facility, or what he hopes to achieve there – much less who is trying to stop him. Things happen in this game that are practically indescribable. It’s almost dreamlike in that it can start in a logical, grounded place and somehow end up somewhere far more fantastical. Playing it a second time, even though I knew all of the puzzle solutions, gave me a chance to consider the early parts of the story and how they connect to the end of it more carefully. I am still thinking about Inside – what it means and what it says about humanity – and I am enjoying the debate with myself and my co-workers. I urge you to play it, both because it is a masterpiece of 2D platformer design, but also because it would be a crime to have what happens here ruined for you before you do. I can practically guarantee you that you will not expect where Inside goes.